Carp Golf & the Rubber Raft

The summer between my junior and senior years of high school was packed with adventure. Although we were all working, my friends & I spent countless days doing things that were on the far side of reckless. Among things for which the statute of limitations have run out are playing golf from a moving vehicle (shattering a car window in the process), sneaking into golf courses to collect golf balls we could then lose in the daytime, 4 wheeling on the beaches of Utah Lake whilst avoiding the park rangers, riding off road vehicles all over southwest Provo (mostly my unlicensed motorcycle), and many incidents involving my million candlepower spotlight and people in remote parking lots engaged in various activities while in states of undress. As you may have noticed, many of our activities involved golf. Josh had inherited a set of golf clubs from his dad, and we incorporated them into our adventures wherever possible.
One of those activities was a creation called "Carp Golf".*(See note below about animal rights)
While many of our peers went "gigging carp", we wanted something more challenging. So we would take golf irons out into the shallows of the lake & hunt the carp. It was very challenging, because you often had to run to catch the carp, then swing hard enough to hit them.
We also played golf around the neighborhood, substituting a tennis ball for the golf balls. Nothing like calling the "hole" to be a birdhouse directly over a car parked in the driveway.
These memories were brought back into focus for me because my Dad recently came across an old rubber raft we used extensively that summer. He had purchased it used from the raft rental place near Flaming Gorge, which rents rafts to float the Green River just below the dam. We put that raft in more bodies of water than I can count. Dad had offered to let us take it for our weekend getaway at Yuba Lake. Surprisingly, it is still in really good shape. We inflated it, and my sons spent hours rowing that thing around.







Hopefully my sons can have some similar memories, although maybe they should try something other than carp golf.

*Animal Rights Concerns: Now before I get a bunch of people upset about the profligate and senseless violence towards helpless creatures, I need to point out something about Carp. Carp are a non-native species of fish introduced illegally to Utah Lake many decades ago. These fish have crowded out the natural species of fish, threatening one in particular to near extinction. They also destroy the natural habitat for many wildlife and plant species by constantly churning the bottom of the lake, creating the murky conditions present today. The problem is so bad that the federal government has contracted with commercial fishermen to remove over 1 million pounds of carp each year for the next 7 years from the lake. Since there was no viable commercial use for these fish, they will be trucked off to the desert and buried. That being said, do I feel a little bad about the amount of violence involved in this 'sport'? Yes. Do I have any long standing regret about this past activity? No. At the time of these activities, "Carp Gigging" was an accepted sport which involved stabbing carp with a long spear.