Early Spring Paddle
by Jeff Seering
May, 2025
You never know what to expect on your first paddle down the Baraboo River in the spring.
Oh, you can expect to see a good deal of wildlife, especially in the early spring before the grass gets tall along the banks. But the main issue is always, how did the river rearrange itself over the winter and early spring.
My route on May 5 was to put in at LaValle and take out in Reedsburg.There are two landings in LaValle: an asphalt ramp by Fishy’s Bar and the other just to the south of the Baraboo River bridge on the east side. Between there is a very short rocky rapids just past the bridge with a several foot drop where the LaValle Mill dam used to be..
Since it was spring and water was cool, I chose to start east of the bridge because every time I have shot the LaValle rapids in my kayak, I have ended up with lapful of water at the bottom and I didn’t want to start out my trip that way.
I took along my camera, a fishing pole and some clippers and a handsaw, hoping to photograph some wildlife, catch a fish and hopefully not need the iast two items. Every time that river rises two feet or more, it plays a game of pick up sticks with log jams. This spring the river rose about three feet above normal, and did its usual rearranging.
Some jams that were troublesome last summer were no more and more ancient jams are now only a memory with no sign they were ever there. Unfortunately some new trees fell across the river since last fall.
I never had to get out of my kayak to portage but I did have to rock myself over a couple of submerged logs and cut my way through two tops of newly fallen trees. The first tree was no surprise as for the last several years you could see its root system being washed away. It was inevitable it would fall. The tree actually was a heron rookery 20 years ago.
The second one was a surprise at it apparently snapped off a couple feet from its base on the bank and fell across the river. The river was about six to eight inches higher that it was most of last year when I paddled. The logs I rocked y kayak over may require a lift over in the near future.
Spring isn’t necessarily the prettiest time to paddle the Baraboo but the lack of full foliage makes it easier to spot wildlife. I spotted seven deer on this trip but the Baraboo is better known for spotting birds, I photographed a pair of sandhill cranes wandering through the woods near the river as well as an active eagle nest a short distance downstream from the Highway 33 bridge. The nest, located in a white pine tree that stands by itself, is larger than a year ago.
I also saw mallard and wood ducks but they tended to fly up way ahead of me. An early spring trip is not a quiet one because of the Canada geese. They are paired up and touchy. Different geese would swim and fly ahead of me and raucously honk an alarm for a quarter to half a mile almost each time I encountered them. So much for a quite paddle. A surprise was spotting a pair of trumpeter swans.
As far as the fishing went, let’s just say the fish weren’t buying what I was selling that day. I was hoping to catch a nice northern or two but they had different ideas than me.
I’ll probably do this stretch again with my son around Memorial Day weekend, this time taking a chainsaw to make that stretch more passable. I’m waiting for the water to warm up a bit before tackling that.
