The “Doh!” Files: Rough Water Testing the Grand Lake Canoe

Given that Friday’s post was largely a paean to the big water capabilities of the Grand Laker, I should have predicted what happened Saturday; a clear, bluebird day turned dark and violent in a matter of minutes, and instead of a light breeze, we faced a wicked wind and big swells that grew in size every minute.

Forty-five minutes from the boathouse. Don’t believe what I wrote about the seaworthiness of the Grand Lake Canoe? This is the start of our run home. It got much, much worse. (Brought to you via a waterproof camera set to “Winslow Homer “mode.)

Then it started raining very, very hard. The wind whistled. I saw lightning in the dark clouds that were overrunning us.

Which is when things got bad.

Happy, Sunny Day…

The day started peacefully enough. Bluebird even. We fished mostly poppers until early afternoon, caught some nice, hard-fighting smallmouth, had lunch, and largely enjoyed the warm weather.

Early in the day. Stripping a Sneaky Pete in bluebird weather. I’m only seconds away from the trip’s first (and hopefully last) pickerel. (L&T Nancy photo)

With darker clouds looming to the Northwest, we raced to rocky structure in the hopes of catching big, aggressive smallmouth in the dead calm that precedes a cold front. Fish are often unbelievably aggressive at the edge of a front, and because I’m greedy, I wanted a few of them.

And, true to form, I quickly hooked four smallmouth, including a 12” fish and another slightly smaller fish that chased the popper right to the boat. But - despite the years I’ve spent fishing lakes - I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

I heard a faint hissing noise that kept growing louder – a thousand “snakes on a plane” heading our way. I looked to the Northwest and saw what I can only describe as a solid line of wind on the water.

On one side of the line, the water was dead calm, and on the other, swells were already building.

The “line” washed over us (I’m guessing 30 miles an hour), and the air went from warm and humid to cold and dry in literally a heartbeat.

It wasn’t an isolated gust of wind; it was the leading edge of the cold front that dropped our overnight temperatures 20+ degrees. I’ve seen fronts move in over the course of half an hour, but never one so clearly defined that I could pinpoint its passage to within a couple seconds.

Without a word, I put away my rod and Nancy fired up the motor. “No problem” I thought, “We might get wet, but we’ll stay on the front edge of the storm.”

Duh. I thought wrong.

Twenty minutes from the boathouse. It was raining hard and the thunder was loud, which was just as well – that way the L&T Nancy couldn’t hear me whimpering. (The camera lens dramatically flattens the waves. They were tall.)

It’s tempting to describe the long run home in heroic terms, emphasizing our triumph over the deadly, uncaring forces of nature, but the truth is it was a miserable run where a novice boater (which the L&T Nancy isn’t) could have easily gotten into some serious trouble.

The swells were big, the wind was whitecapping the waves which slapped the canoe, the rain made it hard to see, and – late in the run – the nearby lightning strikes rattled our teeth.

Swamping the canoe or motor in that situation can make a miserable situation dangerous, but even as she navigated the maze of islands and shoals on the way home, Nancy eased us through the worst of the waves with only the bare minimum of trouble.

Five minutes from the boathouse. We were chasing the front edge of the storm, but that white area kept shrinking, and we pretty easily lost the race. It’s hard to see, but we’re climbing the back side of a swell that – despite my elevated angle – obscures the land in front of it.

Competence in a situation like that isn’t so much demonstrated by heroic measures as it a measured calmness - an ability to navigate situations that could easily go from bad to much, much worse (but don’t).

We were fortunate that the last run to the boathouse was downwind, because the thunder and lightning started getting uncomfortably close. Figuring home was a close as any other shelter, Nancy opened the throttle and we rode the waves – arrowing the Grand Laker into the narrow boathouse slot perfectly.

Adventure over.

Thirty seconds from the boathouse. I’m filing the whole affair under “Unintended Outdoor Adventures” and never assuming that a Maine cold front moves at the same speed as the California variety.

Today’s weather is very windy and though the swells are smaller than yesterday, it’s still whitecaps out there. Fishing is unlikely, but I’m going to take the chance to rest up and put together some of the spare pictures from the trip so far.

See you in the boathouse, Tom Chandler