LAST OFFICIAL DAY ON CHEROKEE LAKE

View through my front door.

Note the black splotch between the trucks.

Yep, she's waiting on me.  There is nothing I can do to get her back in the house.  

That dog hangs on my every move.  She knows my morning routines and is always ahead of me to the point that she knows which truck I'm using by the clothes I wear that day.  I love her for it.

I tossed the boat into Cherokee Lake and gave my ducks a double handful of cat food on the shoreline right next to the water.  They'll be on their own after today cause this is the last day I'll be on Cherokee Lake.  I'm not sad about it in the least.  I used a small boat today, one that we've been working on to make operative for quite sometime.  It performed flawlessly.  As a matter of fact I posted a short video of it in operation below this post.

As usual, there's not much to say about the day on Cherokee.  One day on this lake is just about the same as any other day, unless I hit a rock or something.  Lunch time found Shade and I on a rock strewn island wolfing down peanut butter sandwiches and saltine crackers.  I don't even see how she can walk on these rocks.  Better it would be mud.  She'll get a lot of that on Douglas Lake because we'll be down there on that mud hole all next year.

Above is the 18 foot jon boat that I've been struggling with for over a year.  It just wouldn't run right.  That's history now.  See the video below this post.  It's the perfect boat for the river sections of the lake.  The bay boat is just too large for the river when the water is low.

Forget it Shade.  There's nothing alive on this island.

After running on Douglas and Cherokee Lakes, I have to personally prefer Douglas Lake over the two.  At least Douglas has bald eagles and the upper end of Douglas has the flood plain with all the wading birds and ospreys.

It is on Douglas Lake where I got some great coyote pictures and white tail deer shots. The upper end of the lake on the  French Broad River is great canoe water too so, I'm actually kind of excited about getting down there.  Anything but this rock pile.

Shade gobbled her sandwich down in an instant and headed for the water.  How in the world can she stand that 47 degree water temperature?

That's right - roll in the mud.  Make sure you get it all over you.  Good girl!

We only stayed long enough for the sandwiches and shoved off to finish the day.  I don't have a depth finder on the boat yet so I had to stay pretty much on the river channel for safety.  I'll work on getting that issue fixed tomorrow.  Say goodbye to Cherokee Lake.