Kayak Camping and Learning to Enjoy Alabama Summers

If you're anything like me, the excitement of the summer months fade rapidly with the first 90 + temperature day coupled with humidity levels that only southerners can understand.  Until recently, this left me spending a large portion of my free time hiding out indoors attempting to escape the Alabama heat and day dreaming about Fall and the coming hunting season.  Tired of wasting so much of the year, I set out to find a way to enjoy the outdoors year round. Kayaking opened up a whole new world that allowed for enjoying the outdoors in spite of the peaking thermometer.

I've admittedly got a bit of an imagination and was somewhat inspired by tales of Jeff Cooper's expeditions into the wildernesses of South America during the 1960's.  That being said, my mindset was not on white water kayaking, but on canoe style camping trips to remote parts of the state. After months of research and back and forth thoughts on the type of boat I should purchase, I decided on the Sea Eagle 370 pro inflatable kayak. Deciding factors were cost, durability, ease of transport, and storage.  Through Amazon Prime, the kayak, paddles, and pump were sitting on my door step in two days for about $300. Set up was simple, construction seemed good, and I was eager for the first outing.

The first official trip was to Bankhead National Forest on Lewis Lake for an overnight camp. Bankhead is the largest wilderness area in the state with over 181,000 acres of public land to explore and enjoy. Myself and a friend put in at one of the more remote areas of the lake and were immediately taken back by the scenery. Alabama truly is a beautiful state. Low hanging hardwoods and tall pines cast a green shade across the glassy water--the silence unbroken by the racket of cities and people. The kayaks were loaded down with everything but the kitchen sink and we were off.

I packed two dry bags for the trip. One contained my mummy bag, Gore-Tex bivvy, hammock, and tarp. The other my clothes and personal items. To the front of the kayak I placed a mid-size Coleman cooler that contained cold drinks and a steak to be cooked over open flame that night. For this trip, I opted for a Mossberg 20 gauge shotgun with a mixture of bird shot, slugs, and buck shot. The little shotty looked at home resting against the walls of the kayak and would claim the lives of 4 slithery serpents before the trip's end. Opposite the Mossberg, was my fishing pole rigged for bass. I know very little about fishing but some local advice to my friend proved helpful and had me reeling in a few bass by the end of the first afternoon. They were small, but the catch was fun regardless. Between my legs road my Maxpedition Pygmy Falcon II day pack which has accompanied me on just about every trip over the past 6 years since its purchase. It's a mainstay that housed all my go to items including my prized Kimber Raptor.

The day's adventure came complete with encountering one of the fattest rattles snakes I've seen in a number of years racing across the water, a couple of water snakes, and a painful yet comical run in with a hornet's nest on a downed tree my companion paddled into. 20 gauge birdshot works quite well on rattle snakes as does 44 magnum snake shot. Fritz and Ernst could learn from our experience. A long, peaceful afternoon on the water found us paddling into a remote cove where we would camp for the night.

The campsite was perfect and unreachable by anyone that wasn't in a small canoe or fishing boat. Low hanging trees and vines with evening fog rising off of the water provided an awesome atmosphere to get the campfire going and settle in for an evening of good camp food, better stories, and some blackberry whiskey that aided in our sleeping straight through a thunder storm despite being in hammocks.

The following day provided an amazing camp breakfast, more fishing, the demise of several more snakes, and regret that the trip was drawing to a close.  Kayaking has opened up a whole new way to enjoy the summer months in the outdoors. It's free and way more fulfilling than sitting on the couch binge-watching YouTube videos while waiting on summer's end. So, if you're anything like me, consider adding it to your list of summer excursions. You won't regret it.