Champion Lake
Feb 22, 2020
by Natalie Wiest

Nine folks in 8 boats enjoyed a 5.7 mile paddle on Champion Lake on Saturday, February 22nd.  Despite north winds having blown a lot of the water out of the bays and tidally-affected streams, Champion was quite high, reading 9 feet, 3.5 inches on the gage at the fishing dock.

Christy Long and I skipped out on the group photo, but here is the rest of the group ready to head out on the water:

It was a near perfect day to be out there – little or no wind and temperatures in the 60 degree range.  We paddled in a clockwise direction from the put-in, heading out into the tallest cypress trees on the south side of the lake.  We passed site 20 and continued north from there, bending northeast when we ran out of water and paddled on a no-trail path through the woods to  rejoin Caney Creek. Joe Coker ably guided us through the woods.

We took a brief lunch break in our boats around Site 12, then headed back on Caney Creek. We did a modest re-route at #10.

Much of the area we paddled is officially closed from March 1 at least to June to allow birds to nest.  Sadly, we saw very few birds along our route. John and Cindy reported 12 wood storks from the put-in area, but anhingas and even white ibis were infrequent.

Joe, Bob and I paddled downstream to check out the overflow area and the dam and noted an increasingly fast flow of water in that direction.  The water was significantly over the overflow pipe, and Bob reported it was at least two feet above the top of the rock dam that usually is sticking out of the water.

Here’s what the fishing pier looks like at that water level:

It’s a great level for paddling Champion Lake, wish you could have been along with us.

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The author, Natalie Wiest