6/26/16 East Race First Timer

The second half of June has been a difficult time for me as far as fishing goes. I haven't really caught much to speak of and have had several lackluster trips in a row with only a handful of small fish to show for a whole lot of effort. My cousin Brad wanted to come up and begin to learn to white water kayak. We took him up to the East Race in South Bend to get him started. We drove around a ton of storms on the way and surprisingly the weather was very nice when we arrived. We had a picnic lunch at Seitz Park and before long the gates were opening and the race was coming to life. I took Brad down in a two-person inflatable to show him the ropes and give him an idea of what he was in for before turning him loose in a kayak. We spent longer than an hour surfing, catching eddies, and generally just playing around. I had a blast and I'm sure Brad did too! After that we outfitted him with gear and got him settled into a kayak very similar to the kayak in which I learned to white water paddle. For his first time, I had him follow me straight down through all of the rapids. He did great and had absolutely no trouble making it down the race on his own! We took out at the bottom to start the walk back to the beginning of the course for another run. On the walk back I began to notice black clouds. Before long I heard thunder and saw lightning. We were watching Kelly and Brain surfing when one of the race guards came down and told us that they were closing the race due to weather and would not be reopening later in the day. The day was suddenly cut short and we were done paddling. It was a little disappointing but at least Brad got to go down the race twice. My mom got some great pictures of the action. The look on Brad's face in all of the pictures says it all. I'm sure he had a great time!