An Awesome Day On The Hardy Pond

If you have a boat or know someone who has one, if you ever get a chance to spend a day on the Hardy Pond...do so, you will love it.

I picked up a pontoon boat a couple years ago so my boys and I could have some fun times together boating, swimming and fishing but I also love taking other family and friends out on the water with us.

This weekend a life long friend of mine, Curt and his wife Debbie, stopped by for a weekend visit. I had texted them that I got the boat ready and we will take a day and spend it out on the Hardy Pond.

We get up Sunday morning, I cook up a big breakfast while Curt and my son Evan are out wrangling the dogs.

We had started a cooler the day before when we took the dogs to the Muskegon River, so I already had a cooler with some liquids to further keep us cool on the water. We finished up breakfast, hooked up the boat, loaded the fishing poles and swim towels, topped off the cooler with some sandwiches and headed over to Hardy Pond.

We got out a little early to beat the boat traffic loading in and we wanted a good spot to park the truck and trailer for an easy load out. We wound up three boats deep but the load in went rather quickly.

First we went for a long cruise so I could show my friends the area. I think my son Evan was a tad bit bummed that we didn't bring the raft we normally pull with the boat but this was more of a chill visit to the lake. Plus he was itching to get into the water but he still showed pretty good patience with our old people's cruise.

Normally on the Hardy Pond, the boys and I usually stay in the area near the Hardy Dam since its such a big area of water where you can pull the kids on the raft but still have some decent room to maneuver since there are a lot of boats that like to use this body of water. This time we went for a really long cruise and went across the pond and up the river and went all the way to U.S. 20 before we turned back to find us a swimming hole.

It was such a beautiful day out with an awesome breeze as well. I could tell our guests were really having a nice day riding up in the front of the boat.

We found our swimming hole and anchored the boat off a small point that has a lot of sand for a natural beach that quickly drops off for some deep water diving.

They all got out and did some swimming while I did a little boat cleaning from a dumb park job I did the week before but that is a whole other story.

I finally got in the water to do some more scrubbing on the boat and my buddy jumped in to lend a hand. My son stayed in the water for ours non-stop before finally coming aboard to have a little lunch.

There is something about sitting in a boat with friends that is so relaxing and enjoyable that is so hard to explain unless you have experienced it for yourself...hence...probably why boating in Michigan is so popular.

After some swimming, relaxing and good conversations we finally started making our way back to the boat landing but not after doing a little fishing on the final stretch where my buddy caught a pike and my son hooked a smallmouth.

We had a fine day out on the Hardy Pond where I highly recommend a visit on the water. Plus there are campgrounds all around the reservoir for a nice weekend, or even a week.