Tag Archives: creeks

Blackberry Creek Dam Removal Update, So, What’s the Point?

To play catch up, you can read the past progress reports here.
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So, what’s the point of removing an eight to ten foot tall 175 year old dam near the mouth of a creek and not making fish migrations up the creek as easy as possible on the fish?

This isn’t happening on the new and improved Blackberry Creek. I’ve been harping on this subject since I’ve seen them put in riffles that make no sense and not taking the old dam down about another foot.

If you take the time to go through some of these posts you’ll see a number of those comments.

To get this gripe session out of the way, it starts with riffle #1. I can’t think of one logical reason why this is built the way it is.

It’s too high, there’s no need to have those wing dams on the side in order to increase the water velocity. If you look at the pictures on the post I made with flood pictures in it, this area looked like a whitewater park. There’s no need for that. From this spot to the base of the now gone dam is about 500 yards. In that distance the creek bed drops around eight feet. That’s plenty of velocity. Plus, I can’t imagine this makes this riffle any more convenient for fish passage.

The same goes for riffle #2.

A half hour on each riffle and those wing dams could be pulled off to the side and the height of them taken down a foot or two.

At the dam, it should have been taken down another foot. It should not look like this.

In another post I suggest filling the old scour hole below the dam with rock till it comes up to the same level as the base of the dam. I don’t want to hear about how they’re unwilling to do this. In the last few days they’ve already dumped a lot of rock in here up against the bridge abutment.

What’s the big deal to extend that out further, it doesn’t even have to be that high. Just enough to get rid of the mini waterfall that’s been created and to make fish passage that much easier. Just this past week I was fishing in this spot. Why not make things easier for fish like this…

They changed the course of Blackberry Creek again in order to fix the damage done by the floods and to finally get the coffer dam out of there. I’ll bet they’re done by the end of the week with the weather the way it is.

This killed the fishing in the pool below the old dam. Eight missed little hits and three little things barely worth reeling in.

Did finally get to see the ever elusive gar. I’ve heard that they dwell in the stretch from Yorkville all the way down. I’ve assumed some of the porpoising I’ve seen over the years were them, it’s different than carp, but never could verify that.

Saw a school of a half dozen gar cruising around the pool. Maybe that’s why all the other fish went away. I have no clue what gar snack on. Beautiful fish though. Two of them were well over three feet long.

In another recent post I put up a summary of the amount of time I’ve spent on the Fox River over the past 18 years…

This year marks my 18th year of fishing the Fox River and it’s creeks.

On the low side I estimate I’ve made a little over 1,300 trips out to the river or one of it’s creeks.

Each wading trip consisted of at least two miles for an estimate of 2,600 miles. Since I also have to walk the shores to get to where I want to wade, that’s another 2,600 miles walking along their banks. I know both those numbers are actually higher.

Add to this the amount of time I’ve spent canoeing, wandering along the river just for the stroll or simply sitting on the bank watching the water flow. I may not have a wide variety of degrees to justify my opinion on how the creek has been screwed up, but I do know one thing, I know how rivers and creeks work and look and what’s been done to Blackberry Creek completely misses the mark.

Okay, done with that. I think I’m going to track down the engineering firm responsible for this project and send them a link to this post. Somebody has to listen sooner or later.

With the dry weather and the creek flow back to normal, they’ve shut down the creek again so they can finish off the work and repair all the damage done by the flood.

All the water is again being squeezed through the bypass.

Upstream at the coffer dam the hole has been plugged.

The massive washout caused by the flood has been filled.

A lot of what was left behind the coffer dam and in the creek has been removed and the shores are getting rebuilt with rock.

I wish I could be there the day they yank the coffer dam. Then it’s a sure sign that things are pretty much done.

I’m hoping they do a pretty thorough clean up inspection. I’m starting to get the feeling that a big steel plate lying on the creek bed just above riffle #1 has been forgotten about. It’s still sitting buried in the water.

And of course I guess I should mention the other reason for this project, the rebuilding of the bridge. This past week has seen quite a bit of progress made…

I’ll probably take more pictures of the bridge as it gets worked on, but I won’t talk about it much.

Frankly, I wish they wouldn’t bother with it. I like things the way they are and the lack of car traffic through here is no great loss.

Blackberry Creek Dam Removal Update, the NEW Yorkville Whitewater Park

To play catch up, you can read the past progress reports here.
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This post is going to be a work in progress for the next few days. It is loaded with before, during and after photos that I wanted to get up here while the Flood of 2013 is still fresh in everybody’s heads. I have a jumble of words running around in my head and having this to look at will help me sort it all out. More will be added every day, images will appear and disappear and their order will be changed, but eventually I’ll get this done the way I like.

Comments are shut off for now. I’ll probably delete this and repost it as new when I’m satisfied with it. I don’t know how to move comments and if any are made, I don’t want to lose them. So, bear with me.

For those that have been following along, keep in mind how I’ve been lambasting the stupidity of the riffles that have been installed. They are what’s causing part of the whitewater effect, which some will view as a good thing, but they are also the cause of some of the problems.
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With this Blackberry Creek Dam Removal Update I am unofficially announcing the opening of the NEW Yorkville Whitewater Park.

It’s so new that I’m not sure the City of Yorkville is even aware of it yet.

Looks inviting, doesn’t it?

High, Fast and Muddy Fishing

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A few times a year we get enough rain to make the Fox River ideal for high, fast and muddy fishing. Wading at that point is out of the question, so walking the shore of the flooded river and fishing the nooks and crannies within a foot of shore is simple. The fish tuck in tight to get out of the current, making them relatively easy pickings.

The problem is, I’ve done this so many times I’m bored with it. I usually wait a few days then go fish creeks. They drain and clear up much faster than the river.

I think this time it’s not going to work out that way.

That’s Big Rock Creek. I usually get in at this spot then go either up or down stream. Usually the water beneath this bridge is barely crotch deep. I’d say it’s about 10 feet deep now. There were a lot of nice eddies, but it was a little too muddy. I think the ideal spot would be off in the distance, beyond that thin strip of green. That’s the field where the cattle graze. I hear smallies have a penchant for cow pies.

The other direction is even more out of the question.

A pool beneath that bridge in the distance is almost impossible to walk through even at low water. Based on what I saw, I’d say it’s about 15 feet deep now. There’s not a whole lot of traffic that crosses that bridge and those that do drive across it give wandering anglers a wide berth while they walk the bridge. Might be worth dropping a line over the rail.

Another favorite high water spot is the outflows of treatment plants, or crap plants. The outflow is always crystal clear and when the river is blown out and muddy, they’re fish magnets.

In Yorkville right now, fishing the crap plant couldn’t be easier. You can go sit on the porch of this building, out of the rain and fish in dry comfort.

Or, you could wander through the two to three feet of water and hit the walls of the building next door.

Personally, I’d be targeting the dumpster.

There’s always the holding tanks. I hear some crap plants keep them filled with carp, carp will eat just about anything you know.

The question becomes… should I use a floater or a sinker?

All up and down the river there’s new structure to fish and you should make an effort to cast at as much of this new structure as possible. Everything can hold fish under these conditions.

I almost wish I lived here…

Off on the left is the kitchen. I could drop a line right out the window, catch a fish, reel it in directly into the kitchen and have it cooked and plated in less than half an hour.

Doesn’t get any fresher than that.

Blackberry Creek Dam Removal Update, Dam Free Finally and Work to be Done

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To play catch up, you can read the past progress reports here.
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This is a long one, you’ve been forewarned.

This Blackberry Creek Dam Removal Update is the beginning of the end of my weekly updates. I have one more to put together about the flooding that is currently occurring all around the area, but to continue these on a weekly basis no longer makes sense. Primarily because what I wanted accomplished is done, the dam is gone and the creek is once again flowing.

I know the replacing of the bridge is important, but I kind of like it this way. I can’t imagine that the few people that live down this long road care. Five thousand fewer cars now come through here, they’re all just avoiding traffic on Route 34 anyway. Too bad for them. No more drag racing down this road, I can hear that happening from the other side of the river. I hear the people that live down this stretch are using the road as a bike and walking path. You can’t beat that. I say leave the bridge out.

I had stopped at the creek earlier last week primarily to go fishing for about a half hour. I did well for such a short time and you can read about that here.

Of course I had to take a few photos of the work that had been accomplished. We had been getting some rain and I was concerned that would delay any further work, but further upstream they had put in the rock for the third set of riffles.

Notice all the mud on the creek bed. That will come up again later.

The fish caught were all in this pool below the former dam, like they were staging here patiently waiting for flowing water again.

Saturday when the dam was gone and the creek was flowing there were even more fish. Only, mostly carp. This is the time of year when carp and suckers make a spawning run up the creeks. They were in pretty thick.

It was good to see the water no longer flowing through the bypass channel.

Sunday I got out to document the full length of all the work. There are some things that have been done that I think should be modified a bit. I’m no engineer, but one of the things I’ve done a lot of over the last 17 years is spend countless hours walking around in rivers and creeks. I like to think I’m a pretty good observer. One of the things I do know is that a free flowing creek should look like this.

One of the things I’ve been questioning right from the start is the installation of riffles. The riffles themselves I have no problem with, it’s how they’ve been constructed. There is no reason in the world why they should look like this first set of riffles.

The rocks in the foreground look almost natural, further back they don’t. There’s no reason to neck down the creek likes this or to have the rocks that much higher. The same goes for the second set of riffles.

This narrowing of the channel is completely unnecessary. I hear this is done to increase water velocity, but this section of the creek doesn’t need that. From the first set of riffles to the base of the now removed dam the creek bed drops almost eight feet in a length of about 500 yards. That’s a steep enough drop and the current will flow through at a pretty good pace on it’s own.

The third set of riffles aren’t as bad. This is just upstream of the third set. They look like riffles should look like.

Then you come across these.

Man has this incessant need to put things in straight lines. There are no straight lines in nature. At least they didn’t narrow down the creek with more rock and this one isn’t that tall. I would think it would be easy to go down there with one of the buckets and move these around. Get rid of the straight line and lower the height a bit. If they don’t do it, I will. I know I’ll be down there at low water throwing those rocks around till it looks the way I think it should look.

You’ll also notice in the two pictures above that all the mud is gone. Creeks tend to cleanse themselves.

I also think they should have gone down another foot or so when they took out the dam.

As I stood here watching, I saw a few carp swim up this spot and continue on upstream. I’m assuming other species are doing the same. I’ve seen this on all the creeks I’ve fished that feed the Fox.

The problem is, this is at slightly high water and there is a decent flow of water going over the old dam site. During the summer the lip of the old dam will be more like a small waterfall. Anything wanting to get upstream is going to have to jump. Why not make it easier on them. Take a couple of buckets of all those rocks and dump them in the old scour hole created by the dam. Dump in enough of them to bring the rock up to the level of the old dam. Fish would find that much easier to navigate rather than jumping.

If that doesn’t get done, I’ll be doing it myself. Every time I come here I’ll wander along the shore, picking up rocks and dumping them into that hole till I get the depth I think it needs. This will probably take quite some time to accomplish, but I have time and I know I’ll be fishing here enough.

Right now the channel does look little sterile, but all new construction tends to look like that.

Time will have grasses and trees growing along the banks. Water tends to even move rocks around and some of those will start making their way further out into the creek. They might even get a little help from me whenever I walk along here.

In the parking lot by the pond is a pile of boulders.

All over the Fox River and in all of it’s creeks, I find boulders like this sitting out in the current. I call them my sitting rocks. They’re remains of when the glaciers receded from this area and left them laying around. I take advantage of them when I come across them. The perfect spot to sit and take in my surroundings. If they aren’t going to do anything with these, they should consider scattering them out in the creek. I know I would take advantage of the opportunity to sit a spell out in the middle of the creek.

There’s still a lot of work to be done around the site. The whole area looks pretty well destroyed.

The original plans call for a lot of plantings to be put in place. The grasses will soften things up quickly, but it will take many years for the trees to establish themselves through here. I’m going to enjoy documenting the progress over the next couple of years.

The creek still needs some work. The coffer dam is still in place.

In order to get the creek flowing again, all they did was move a big steel plate out of the way a little and take out some of the dirt.

I’m sure the plan was to get this out of here as quickly as possible and rebuild these shorelines, but the rain kept screwing that up. In my next post I’ll show how the recent flooding has made this worse.

Back at the pond, things are getting back to normal. The pond is back up to normal levels again.

I met a couple that lives in one of the houses on the hill overlooking this area. I didn’t write down their names, so, of course, I’ve forgotten them. The couple was concerned that all the turtles have died off. A big snapping turtle used to walk up the hill to lay eggs by their house. I did see a good sized snapping turtle in the area and other turtles are still coming out to sun themselves.

Last but not least are found objects. Not much left, but I still come across an occasional curiosity.

This is the fourth doorknob set I’ve found along the creek. Somebody living at the top of that hill did a lot of renovating in the past.

Blackberry Creek Dam Removal Update, Kiss That Dam Goodbye

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To play catch up, you can read the past progress reports here.
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I assumed with the dry weather things would be moving right along at the Blackberry Creek Dam Removal site. I stopped by after work on Tuesday and my assumption proved to be correct.

But first, a word from our sponsor…

If that sign is still laying in that spot next week, it’s new home is going to be in my backyard.

Back to Tuesday. Rock along one shore was put in place all the way down and around the bend.

I always thought this stretch looked a little narrow. They were widening it considerably this day. I should have begged them to dump a truck full of this dirt at my house. It’s the good stuff.

I fought the urge to go back there every day. I wanted to see dramatic leaps in the amount of work getting done. It was a difficult urge to fight, but I succeeded. Stopped by again Friday evening and the dam was starting to be removed. A good sized chunk had been taken out of it.

The rock along that shore had also been put in place.

After running around all Saturday morning I finally got to the site early afternoon. More than half the dam was gone right down to the bedrock.

I ran into the site supervisor, whose name I keep forgetting to get. I had run into him before and we talked a bit about how the project was going. That’s him down in the creek.

If the rain holds off he thinks the creek will be flowing through here by the end of the week. It looks like this side of the dam is going to stay in place and match the slope of all the rock that has been put in.

The culvert that was put in on the west side to divert the flow of the creek is temporary. Once the creek is flowing again, this will be removed.

On Monday if everything goes right, this metal retaining wall be removed along with the rest of the old dam.

I went home and came back after quitting time, around 3 PM. The supervisor offered to let me go walking around on the creek bed while they were working, but I hate to be in the way of all that big construction equipment. Like the operators need me to get in the way.

The pond is no longer a pass through for the creek and is now a pond again. The lower bypass channel was completely filled in.

The same goes for the upper bypass.

It shouldn’t take long for the pond to refill. There’s a pipe that always has water flowing out of it that seems to come from the cemetery. I think it will fill the pond by next weekend.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions from locals on whether or not the pond will be restocked. I’m assuming that’s part of the IDNR’s plan, but someone from the city of Yorkville should look into that. I’ve never heard it mentioned, just assumed it was part of the process.

The dry weather did a good job of drying up the creek bed. I’ve avoided walking on it so far because it looked like the mud would suck me down and not let go. I had mentioned to the site supervisor that when the water starts flowing through here again a lot of dirt is going to get washed down the creek. He said that as they back out of the creek they’ll be scraping the dirt away down to bedrock.

Right about where I’m standing in the next shot, right on the curve in the creek, they will be putting in another set of riffles, hopefully on Wednesday.

I wasn’t going to let the mud stop me from walking right up to the old dam.

I did grab a small chunk of it to take home for my collection of dam stuff I’ve found.

They’ve dug down right to bedrock. It’s hard to tell what’s going on here. The rock seems a little too big to have been placed here. I won’t know till they remove the rest of the dam, but it sure looks like a natural limestone ledge.

This wouldn’t surprise me. I live directly across the river and next to a ravine. Part way up the ravine is a small version of limestone steps that look like this.

I’ll know next week.

I stood on the edge where the old dam was. The view up the creek from there.

The view down the creek.

There’s not much left to be found laying around. Everything has been moved around, covered in dirt and rock, but I did come across this buried in the pond. Old milk glass. I asked the old lady in our house what she thought. She thinks it’s an old jar of probably hand lotion dating back to the 40′s. I’ll go along with that.

Even with all the equipment moving around all day, this bird refused to leave. It kept moving from one side of the pond to the other, always staying out of the way.

As much as we can use the rain, I’m hoping it holds off one more week. I’d like to see this done this week, then it can rain all it wants.