To the editor:

In 18 years of four-season canoeing and sandbar camping I’ve logged 400 Kaw River trips and paddled nearly 5,000 miles. If any canoeist in Kansas has had opportunities for conflict with fishermen and hunters out there, it’s me. But not once have I had a cross word with fellow river sportsmen.

Waterfowlers have the widest “privacy zone” of all hunters; they understandably dislike anyone crowding their decoy spreads. Yet waterfowlers I meet on the Kaw appreciate canoeists; they realize that down-river paddlers will flush ducks loitering upstream, moving those birds toward the guns. And after the canoes pass, ducks and geese flushed from downstream may double back upriver to become targets as they fly about looking for new places to land.

River fishermen don’t hate canoeists; canoes generate hardly any underwater disturbance. But because one of my joys is paddling slowly close to the bank, there’ve been times I accidentally intruded on fishermen I didn’t see ahead. My apologies were always accepted.

I’ve never visited with airboaters. But who can? They isolate themselves socially by wearing face masks, goggles and muffler-style ear protectors. Powered by V-8 engines with straight pipe exhaust, airboats can be heard howling along three miles away. For river recreationists who treasure peaceful solitude, an airboat’s throbbing sonic assault is a rude invasion of privacy.

Do dredger-supporting airboaters want the stream made cleaner, safer and healthier? I wonder sometimes if they even like the Kaw, the way their horrific boat noise drowns out the river’s quiet voice.

Joe Hyde,

Baldwin