Pymatuning Reservoir in Pennsylvania

Trip Overview

Our mission was to search for some stolen or stashed canoes posted on another thread here. As you may have guessed, we did not find signs of the missing canoes.

Left Linesville Marina 10AM with 25 mph winds steady. Kayaking in twin Heritage 9.5 Featherlites. Found the camp area and had checked a few take out areas just before the beach. Followed shore line checking all the little stash spots. After only five or six spots we realized these could be right beside us and still not be found. Undaunted, we continued pursuit through the lillie pads until we were forced onto the main lake about even with south tip of Clark Island.

Headed SW to ferry due West to Clark. First wave went over the top and broke squarely on my chest about chin high, knocking off glasses and hat. I was as wet as if I had flipped it. Glad we had our little black skirts on. Lake was pretty much solid whitecaps. Forced our way to Clark in about 66 mins. That took over an hour to paddle the half mile. Our effort was that of olympic sprint racers most of the day. One missed stroke and you would loose about 10 strokes worth of progress.

We were laughing how they would be waiting 1.5 hours to get on the roller coaster at the amusement park next lake over. We were riding the roller coaster for 8 hours with only short shore breaks.

Ate lunch on Clark's and ran into a gentleman named Doug in a Calebra. Nice boat and kind man, offered to take us back by car if we could not make it back to the marina. (Was our lack of paddling prowess that obvious?) We almost made him keep that offer.

Made it up Paden River inlet quite aways and caught a fish up there. Did not dare let go of paddle long enough to cast a line on the open water.

On way back, took a moment to learn how to surf while wife rested/crashed into an island for protection. After catching a few waves, wife notices I am dragging my high dollar Fenwick ultralight rig around by it's safety cord. Glad I hooked it up!! So enough playing, that took the fun out of it. At least it was still in one piece and gave me several hours of entertainment next day disassembling the hundred micro parts of the real for cleaning and inspection. Do you know you can put a Hypercast real back together and endless number of ways? Only one of which will actually work.

So we are hoping to get back one of these days. But maybe we will check the wind prediction first. We showed about 6 miles of paddling on the gps trail. But add in 10 miles of vertical. Our effort was equal to paddling about 15 miles at hero's pace. I can almost lift my arm today. At one point, I was hanging onto a stump just to keep from floating away. That effort was too great, as wind was focused so strongly between the Island and shore that I could not maintain a grip.

Despite the fact that this trip was more survival test than pleasure cruising, we had a great time. Sitting in the restaurant booth after, neither of us dared close our eyes or we would fall out of the booth!! Felt like you were being pushed from all sides randomly after shaking us every direction for 8 straight hours. We'll be back to try fishing when weather cooperates.

Returned at 6 PM just as sky was getting very black. Most boats were heading in en masse to beat the weather. We lived to yak again.

Accommodations:

Quality Inn at Meadville. Nice place.

Fees:

PA or OH launch permit or state registration required. No fees to launch at Linesville Marina.

Directions:

US RTE 6 to Linesville. Watch for Marina signs.

Resources:

Used iFinder HUNT GPS system with full mapping to plot and plan adventure.