CleanUps: Volunteers make it all happen

A group of us attacked the debris in the river between McCaslin Lake Rd. and Bird road.  We got a lot done and had a good time at it.  Steve Hoffman thinks that there is only one major blockage in the river left in that stretch.  It is near McCaslin.  We started at Bird and worked our way up stream.  We also cleaned out the debris between Water Works Park and Fish Lake Road.  We started at 9 and finished at 6.  We could have used a couple of more canoes.  That flat bottom boat is a bear to paddle.  After that, some of us went to Maggie's house and she fed us.  I had to leave early because my legs were cramping from walking in the river.  There is more to be done down stream from Bird Road.  That will have to wait for another time.  I'm sure we will talk about it this Thursday at O'Mally's.  We would have finished that last blockage but we didn't want you to feel left out.  : )  Maggie did not find volunteers to clean out the section from Bush Park to US-23.  We will also need to tackle that.  The water was quite low, so we didn't have trouble reaching any of the trees and they weren't too far under water to make them impossible to cut.  There is also a lot more trash in the river.  We brought all we could carry.  We used the plastic wedges when cutting trees suspended over the river.  That worked really well.  The hard part was finding the wedges after the log dropped in the river.  We had to wait for the water to clear.  The water was also really warm.  We encountered a snake swimming in the river and after looking at photos on the web, I think it was a northern water snake.  There were several small mouth bass swimming near the bridge.  We thought they might be trout, but a fellow living on the river assured us that they were small mouth bass.  They were only around ten inches long.  With the condition of the river, I doubt that very many people have fished that stretch.  Four of the people who promised to come, didn't show up but we still had enough people, six guys, two women and two teens.  We only drowned one chainsaw, when Rex cut a limb, got the saw stuck in it and then dropped it in the river.  It didn't appear to be damaged, just full of water.

Chuck
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