Exploring Mountain Lake in an Inflatable Canoe | Van Camping + Fishing

Well we have a fun little adventure planned for the next couple days and I say we because I'm here with my family this time, which I'm excited about. So we have a nice little campsite here. There's a lake right there in the background. I've got a canoe, I've got my fishing gear, I've got my family. It's gonna be a pretty fun time. I'm gonna unpack the van, get them all set up, then I'll get out on the lake. Beautiful red manzanita. It burns really hot so we're gonna have a really nice fire tonight. Okay we've got camp all set up. Ava's got her dino nuggies heating up. Split firewood. The lake right there like I said. It's really important that nobody's cold, hungry, or miserable out here or else I'm gonna be stuck to filming solo videos. Now that everybody's happy here at camp I'm gonna inflate the canoe and set up some fishing gear and go paddle around out on the lake. Not a bad looking area out here. Got the family and some lunch. We're gonna go eat right by the water. You like garden salsa? Not all three of these sandwiches are for me by the way. I am sharing. I'm on a diet. Edge will see you later. Okay the rest of the family is gonna take a little nap and I get the lake to myself. I don't see anybody else out there. So I'm gonna go explore as much of this lake as I can. This will also be the maiden voyage of this canoe that my wife bought me three years ago that I've never used. I am trying to fold this thing in half unintentionally but I am floating. Try to disperse my weight best as possible and I think I can do a little paddling around. All right let's give it a try. Need to maneuver. And the reason it spins so much my paddle is because it did come with a fin which I have right behind me in this pouch but I forgot to put it on. It might be a good idea to go do that. Let's see if we can get out of this thing without getting wet. I think the shoes and socks are coming off. Forgot to bring sandals. I don't want to be jumping on this raft with these fins on in the shallow and breaking them off as soon as I put them on. I feel like the paddles under the canoe are doing a pretty good job of not making me twist around so much. This is working much better. It's pretty dang shallow in here. I don't know if you can see all those divots in there. That might be freshwater clams or something like that. Starting to get the hang of this little canoe. I'm going to go straight in the direction that I'm pointing and see what's up that way. That's where the dam should be. I'm laying down right now and it's almost better because the boat's not making a V because of my weight and without that V I have a lot less drag in the water. So next time I either need to add a lot more air and really get this thing straightened out or maybe inflatable canoes aren't necessarily for for XL people. I've been fighting the wind here for about an hour now paddling towards the dam. I should be getting pretty close. If my plan here works the wind should give me a little boost on the way back. It's a pretty awesome little waterfall. A site like this makes paddling into the wind for an hour all the worth it. I'm starting to see the dam up there. Another really neat waterfall back there and looks like we got the dam right there. Looks like there's another waterfall off to the left over there. That one doesn't look so natural though. Looks a little bit man-made. It looks like we have a buoy blockade here. This is pretty neat though. One way we have this big dam and just a quick panoramic to the other side. Snowcap Mountains back that way. Really cool spot right here. Well I think I made it as far as I could go here so I think I'll work my way back slowly and and fish along the way. Getting pretty close to being back at the camp. Well I didn't sink my canoe and I made it all the way to the dam so I'd say that was a successful little little paddle trip. The dam must have been a mile and a half maybe two miles back there but the wind held me out on the way back so this thing definitely needs more air if I'm gonna take it out again tomorrow. Haul it up the hill here and fill it up a little bit. Start thinking about making dinner. I guess I took on a little water. More water than I expected. Definitely pretty soggy on the bottom half though so it makes sense. All right I'm in some dry clothes. Got everything laid out to dry. I'm gonna go hang out with the family for a little bit and then start cooking dinner. The sun's just about to go down so we'll start getting dinner ready here. Ava's little fish sticks. There's some zucchini. Some spices on it. Some whole jalapenos. Okay earlier I mentioned the diet. You can't help it. I like good food. Okay it's like medium rare. A little overcooked for me. Still tastes very good so. That first one was a dud. The second jalapeno. Oh yeah that's a spicy one. Oh that one was. You okay? I usually do fine with the spice but that one kicked my butt. This might be a little painful but I finished what's on my plate. Well the sun's going down and Ava's being put to sleep right now. Got the fire going and I think the plan for the rest of the night is sit in front of the fire and crawl into the van a little bit later. But that's going to be it for day one so we'll see you in the morning. All right well good morning. We're slowly waking up here in the van. It's almost time to cook breakfast here and get back out on the water. Potatoes on potatoes. Are you having fun in the sun? No? Breakfast is served. Okay round two. Just pumped up the uh canoe a little bit more. So hopefully I'm not folding this thing in half again. Live and learn from yesterday though. I can't believe I paddled three miles or so with this thing about folded in half. Already I could just tell a huge difference. Kicking myself. It's like a hundred times better. I'm gonna head way over there by that building. There's a bridge right around the corner. There's that building behind me. I'm gonna keep going a little bit further. There we go. I have eyes on the bridge. See if we can't sneak past these geese. This looks like a decent spot to fish. Got this old bridge here behind me. Loud sons of guns. All right we didn't catch any fish but more importantly got to scout this whole reservoir pretty much. Went all the way down to the dam yesterday. Got all the way up to the bridge. Could have gone a little bit further up that way. But I think the best fishing for my next trip here would be down towards the dam. Some really good looking spots down there. But the water temperature is still really cold. Once it warms up a little bit I'm sure the fishing activity will be pretty good here. I figured out this canoe and uh figured out that it needed more air than I had in it yesterday. Today it worked really well. Had no issues. Have to put the fins on all that good stuff with it but good little canoe. Excited to use this thing more during summer. What a sad sound. Everything's packed. It was a really nice weekend. Nice change up from doing some solo stuff recently. I'm glad the family got to come out and enjoy it as well. Awesome reservoir here. I got to explore it quite a bit. Next time I'll have a better understanding of where to fish and stuff like that. Well I hope enjoyed this little family camping trip as much as I did. And if you enjoyed the video, share it with a friend and we'll see you next time.