Patagonia Lake

Me fishing on Patagonia Lake

This past weekend I ventured off into beautiful southern Arizona and stayed at Patagonia Lake for the day.  Patagonia Lake is an Arizona State Park, near Nogales.  One thing I definitely took notice to while driving to my destination was the amount of green I saw in the mountains.  I couldn’t believe my eyes!  The rolling hills and mountain tops were sprayed with greenery.  I’ve never really traveled this far south in Arizona in my stay here at the U of A.  Simply, I regret not doing this years ago!

It took about an hour to drive from my house to Patagonia Lake.  The lake covers around 265 acres, filled with bass, bluegill, crappie, catfish, and rainbow trout in the winter time.  After the hour drive, I was excited to get out of the car and into the sun and water!  I decided to bring my fishing pole with me since I have heard that this is one of the better fishing spots in Arizona.  Unfortunately, I did not catch a single fish, but I blame myself (bad fisherman) more than anything.

After fishing and soaking in the sun rays, my girlfriend and I, decided to rent out a kayak at the marina.  We rented out a two-person kayak for an hour and this was definitely the highlight of the trip for me.  Once we got in the kayak, we navigated the lake in a way we couldn’t by just hiking around.  We paddled around the lake, seeing different spots and stopped off to take a closer look.  On the kayak we saw a couple pelicans, which are really incredible birds up close.  Just the immense size of the bird is breathtaking.   After paddling and paddling up and down the edges of lake, looking for wildlife, we kept hearing an animal noise that we couldn’t quite make out.  The noise lured us in like a predator luring in his prey.  We got off the kayak and began to hike towards the noise.  Finally, the trees and shrubs cleared enough to see the beast making the mystery noise.  They were cattle.  In the moment, I had no idea what I was about to encounter, but after thinking about it, the noise we kept hearing was definitely a “moo” type noise.

After kayaking, we relaxed and I fished for a little longer trying to catch something, but yet again, to no avail.  It seemed my feeble attempt at fishing brought the day to a close, as soon after fishing part II, my girlfriend and I left beautiful Patagonia Lake.  The drive home was even more awesome than the drive up because we caught one of those gorgeous Arizona sunsets I love. 

Now, go have an adventure of your own!