Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013, Clearlake, AZ.
Kayaking on Clearlake, AZ.
I turned off highway 95 onto the road that goes to Lake Martinez, which is just above the main Yuma Proving Ground Main entrance. I was headed to the visitor’s center for the wild life refuge in the area. I wanted to know where I could put my kayak in the water, someplace besides the open water at the main launch area, which was near the center.
The tortoise at the visitor’s center
On the way in the door they had a tortoise in an enclosure so I got a pic for you.
The tortoise is eating his lunch as you can see in the picture below. He’s not really trying to stand on it’s head.
The lady said to go to Clearlake to kayak, but no camping
The lady in the visitor’s center suggested I go to Clearlake, up the four wheel drive road and down a little side dirt road that is hard to find.
So, off I went in search of Clearlake. The road below is a one of the roads I took to find it.
A four wheel drive road to the launch area
I had to put it in four wheel drive to get there. Below, you can see the launch area at the end of the road. You can see my kayak in the back ground ready to put in the water.
Some critters were out today
This little Chipmunk stopped by for just a bit. It was eating a branch of something.
Below is a picture of the chipmunk.
Just as I was putting the boat in the water this little bird popped out of the reeds and was eating away, as I snapped the picture below.
Clearlake
The lake wasn’t too big, about a half mile long and a third of a mile wide. It was on the edge of the Colorado river, but I couldn’t find a path though the reeds to the river, which was ok by me as it’s a big river.
Below is a picture of the Clearlake. Notice the little wake just to the left front of the kayak.
What were all these big fish doing on the surface of the lake?
On the up river side of the lake there were a lot of these big fish feeding. They were from eighteen to twenty four inches long, some longer and at first I couldn’t figure out what exactly they were doing, as there were quite a few of them doing their thing while I was there.
Below, you can see a picture of some of these big fish.
Those big fish are eating something
I enhanced one of the pics when I got back to the van and now I can see that they were eating those little dark things in the water, which I could not see with the naked eye. Not sure what kind of fish that is?
Below is a picture of one of these large fish eating something in the water.
Below is another picture of the lake, looking south.
The sun was going down as I took out
I put the boat in the water late in the day on purpose so I could see things just before dark. Below is what it looked like just before the sun went down.
Camped on the Yuma Proving Grounds
There is no camping on the wild life refuge, so I had to go about a quarter mile to get off the refuge and onto the Yuma Proving Grounds where I’m camped now, way out here by myself.
Tomorrow, I plan to go south of here to the Imperial dam area and see if I can find some more kayaking areas.
Had a good day.
