Friday November 15, 2013 Monte Rio, CA.
Or kayaking Monte Rio to Casini’s Ranch and back
When I checked the weather at Jenner today, it was reporting a lot of wind, so I decided to go kayak at Monte Rio, as there is usually less wind in this area and some times more sun too.
I put in around eleven AM at the Monte Rio launch ramp. Not many people around on the river this time of year, so I had the place mostly to myself.
This is the view of the launch ramp as I left it to head down the river. Launch ramp is on the left and that’s the Monte Rio Bridge in the middle
Something caught my eye in the bushes. Looking closer, there was a pair of wood ducks taking some cover as I went by.
I slowly made my way down to the Villa Grande Hole where this great blue heron took off in front of me.
I stopped and spent some time at the Villa Grande hole before continuing down the river. By this time a pretty good breeze came up and I had a hard time making up my mind whether to continue down the river or not. But after taking a break, I continued down to the Moscow hole at Rein’s beach. The breeze was dying by this time so I decided to continue down to the ripple at Casini’s.
Just a note, I’ve been spelling Rein’s beach wrong. It’s not Ryan’s beach, but Rein’s beach as taken from a Bill Shad map of the river I just recently looked at.
Old map painted by Bill Shad of the river holes that I copped from somewhere?
This is my view of the Casini Ranch area as I approached.
I sat for an hour or so at the ripple there to watch for big fish, but I didn’t see any go by.
This is the spot I sat in to watch the ripple for big fish at Casini’s Ranch. The ripple is to the left, out of the picture.
Eventually, I headed back up the river. The breeze had really died by now and this is the view I had as I entered The Rein’s beach area, the beach is to the left out of the picture.
I paddled around the corner and sat in the green weeds for awhile. Something just made a big wake right in front of me, but what, a seal? No, an otter was working it’s way by me. It was leaping out of the water going someplace in a hurry. I followed it a hundred feet or so when it headed for the brush. I heard it grunting, so I know it was meeting up with some more otters in the brush, but just at that time an Osprey dove into the water only about twenty feet from where the otter went into the brush, so my attention changed to it. It missed the fish, but circled and landed back in the tree just above where it had dove from and dove a couple more times, returning to the tree each time, before leaving the area. It missed it’s mark each time.
The Osprey hunting from a redwood tree.
This is one of the times it landed back in the tree to watch again for a fish in the water.
I didn’t see any of the otters by this time and continued up the river. This male Mallard duck was sitting on this log as I went on by.
I stopped for awhile by this old dead redwood tree for a bit to watch, before continuing up the river.
The tree hugger
Just above Villa Grande Hole, I heard a bunch of guys and at least one of them was way up in a redwood tree. It looked like they had just topped a redwood tree and were getting ready to top some more. There was a house below it, so I guess the owner was getting concerned about redwood stuff falling on his house during a storm.
See the tree hugger? He’s about a hundred and fifty feet up in the thing.
From here it wasn’t far back to Monte Rio, where I took my boat off the water and went on home for a much needed nap.
Had a nice day on the river.