Tag Archives: wading

Three Days and a Few Hours of Fishing

I toy with the idea of writing something interesting, but my brain is frying with other things.

Will the temp to hire job I’ve been working actually turn into a hire, possibly ending a few years of financial drought.

Will the Rheumatoid Arthritis that came out of nowhere and viciously attacked my wife’s joints a few months ago do even more damage soon. Will the chemo treatments she’s on actually make her lose more hair than she has and will she be able to walk or use her hands in another year if the treatments fail.

Will we heavily arm and back whoever the hell that is in Syria only to have them denounce us and try to kill us all down the road.

Will the fault line that runs under Illinois finally split and bring the Gulf of Mexico all the way to Peoria.

And what about the next Iron Chef?

Hard to concentrate with all that running around in my head.

On top of that, even with all the greening going on and all the flowers and birds and critters, I’m totally uninspired to take pictures of my surroundings while out fishing.

But I did get out on three days and a few hours of fishing.

Started out in a creek on Wednesday after work. Peering down from the bridge at still deep water, I was encouraged by some landmarks that told me I can get in and walk around a bit.

Couldn’t have been more wrong. Took a half hour to go 50 feet. Most of my time was spent on my toes with water closely approaching nipple level. I did catch eight smallies in that 50 feet, but walking with your arms already over your head makes it difficult to set a hook, so I missed the hookset on at least twice that. I do have one lame photo of a fish, but hardly worth putting up. Besides, I was too busy trying not to go under the water to think about pictures. The creek bed should have been coming up, but it was going down instead. Going back the way I came was out of the question against the current and it took me almost a half hour to figure out how to get the hell out of the creek.

Speaking of lame photos, there’s more. I knew the fishing I would do this day and any other day I chose to go out would be good too. Since my surroundings weren’t inspiring, I considered taking a picture of every fish caught and posting them. This day would have been eight.

The next day out the fishing lasted for the duration of a cheap cigar, about 20 minutes and resulted in nine more fish. There were no botched hooksets. That would have been 17 lame photos of fish up here so far. I’ve decided to put up just one. I blew this way up in Photoshop. I can see myself in the eyeball.

I see you!

Speaking of creeks that aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do, this creek has changed with the floods we’ve had. The width of the creek used to go all the way to the trees you see on the right. That gravel bar is now almost two feet above the water. The channel that can now knock you on your ass was usually around ankle deep.

Further downstream, besides being decorated with new trees, the creek is a good 30 feet wider. Will be interesting as the water comes down and I get to do more exploring just what I’ll find. I already know another creek has similar issues. It’s not the new depths that bother me, it’s what’s down in the depths.

This would be Sunday, definitely a good day of fishing that resulted in the thumb pictured above. I initially thought I was out for 2.5 hours, but it winds up it was barely two. This resulted in 42 fish. Two green sunfish, two largemouth and the rest were smallies.

It would have been fun to put up 59 lame pictures of fish, but I’ll save you the scrolling and just put up a few. But take a look at the backgrounds. For years I’ve been taking lame pictures of fish where I try to show the type of water I catch them out of. This day it was every imaginable type of water, including some of the fastest roiling water where I thought for sure nothing would be living. This was found out by accident as I dragged a lure through the rush of water.

This is the most piss poor shot I’ve ever taken of an 18 inch smallie.

And for those that must know such things… A Cabela’s 1/16th ounce plain head jig with a 1/0 hook. Three inch Producto Spring Grubs, in pearl.

I thought of switching to something else, but really, how stupid would that have been.

All fish were on the bottom whether in 1 or 4 feet of water. A few came up off the bottom as I reeled in the lure, I could see them come up.

If you don’t know how to get a 1/16 ounce jig on the bottom in fast moving, three foot deep water, you’re on your own. I don’t show anyone how to do that. I only cast downstream, so casting upstream is not the answer and doing that definitely won’t catch you that many fish.

I give it the rest of May and then we enter the summer doldrums where all fish have lockjaw and only dynamite in well placed eddies will get you anything.

So go out and get it while you can.

Blackberry Creek Dam Removal Update, Brief Interlude

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To play catch up, you can read the past progress reports here.
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There was a lot of noise all week coming from the dam removal project on the other side of the river. When I got there this morning I expected to see a lot of progress. Progress there was, but they’re digging a ditch for the bypass channel.

Picture a ditch.

I couldn’t, so I didn’t take any pictures.

It’s a ditch.

Maybe next week it will be more picture worthy.

Till then, you might like to listen to some music.

Or, if you’re not so inclined, here’s a picture of a possum.

That’s right, a possum.

Blackberry Creek Dam Removal Update, Mostly Done With One Section

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To play catch up, you can read the past progress reports here.
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In case you haven’t done it, you might want to download this pdf of the construction plans first. I’m fascinated by this stuff.

Whenever I see a bunch of construction equipment lined up nice and neat at a construction site, it usually means they are done with one part of a project and waiting for the next to begin. Up until this day the equipment was spread out all over the construction site.

On the down side of the dam, it’s hard to tell that anything has been changing. All of the water is still coming through a breach on the east side.

On the west side of the dam a metal retaining wall is propped in place. I’ll get to more on that further down in this post.

Back at the construction site where I’ve been documenting things as they move along, it looks like they finished riffle number three and also finished all the shore structure that goes along with it.

They have even laid down the layer of grass seed embedded stuff made out of coconut. I know this stuff has a name, but I’ll be damned if I can find it.

They’ve even thrown down grass seed where the cover ends and the dirt begins. Seems a little premature to me considering that it’s January and the ground is pretty well frozen. I’m sure they’ll be putting down more come March.

What seems a little odd to me is that they left a fair amount of dirt in place on the creek bed where riffle number three ends. The dirt is at just about the same level where the riffle ends.

The dirt goes on for about 50 feet then abruptly slopes down to the creek bed.

I’ve waded a lot of the Fox River and almost a dozen of the creeks that feed into the Fox. I’ve also fished a number of other rivers and creeks in Northern Illinois. All of them have hard rock bottoms even in the more level, slower sections. Flowing water will always wear everything away down to rock. After a year or two of high, fast water events, all this dirt is going to get washed away. Especially since it’s sitting at the bottom of that man made riffle. The churning water at the end of the riffle will do a pretty good job of getting rid of all this dirt.

In the following image you can see the difference in the rock on the opposite shore where the dirt slopes down to the creek bed.

I already know what’s going to happen. All that dirt is going to get blown out, including the dirt under the rocks. The rocks are going to slide down the now man made embankment to fill the void and expose more of the shore to erosion. I’ll bet they come back here in a couple of years to dump more rock along this 50 foot stretch in order to fill in what slid down into the creek.

We’ll see.

Right now it looks like a pretty well manicured channel waiting for water.

At normal water levels, right about where I was standing to take that picture, it will be about two feet deep because of riffle number two that they built. I want to come here when the creek is flowing high, fast and muddy to see what it does to all this rock.

The next phase will be an interesting feat of engineering. Now they have to remove the upper coffer dam, cut off the flow that has been diverted through the park pond, and redirect the creek to what they are calling a temporary drop outlet.

Basically they have to go from here…

To here…

Through here…

And I’m assuming at that point the creek will be flowing through these…

Connecting up to this…

And winding up back in the creek once they take out that metal retaining wall you saw in the picture back at the top of this post. Then they can start dredging out the next stretch.

I have a feeling that’s going to take a little longer than the stretch they just completed.

Barely a hundred yards upstream of the coffer dam, you would never know you were standing right near this construction site. Maybe some day the reclaimed part of the creek will look like this, but I have a feeling it won’t be in my life time.

The creek is flowing along like it probably has been for a few thousand years, oblivious to anything man is doing further down stream. Down at creek level I stood on the bank at the only spot where the creek could be easily accessed.

A few years ago I fished from that spot up stream for a good half mile. The usual carp were around. Caught some creek chubs, rock bass and largemouth bass. Hopefully when the dam is gone the smallies will come in and replace the largemouth.

But remember what I said about that being the only easily accessible spot. If you come fish here, after hiking up stream to fish, you’re going to want to wade back down stream to get out at this easily accessible spot.

I didn’t do that.

I thought it would be much quicker to cut through the woods to get back to my car.

That trip back to my car easily makes my top ten list of Stupidest Things I’ve Ever Done While Out Fishing Creeks.

You’ll just have to take my word on it.

Blackberry Creek Dam Removal Update, So That’s What all the Noise Was

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To play catch up, you can read the past progress reports here.
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If there’s a benefit to sitting around waiting to be called back to work, it’s being around the neighborhood to see what’s happening on a daily basis.

From my front porch I can see through the trees, across the Fox River and to the ridge on the opposite side. All week I could see heavy construction equipment moving around by the Blackberry Creek Dam Removal project. It also involves replacing the deteriorating bridge, but that’s not anywhere near as exciting to me.

I fight the urge to go look at the project more frequently. I don’t want to see baby steps being accomplished, so on the weekends I go wander around the construction site. Last week, every day, I could hear a lot of banging around going on.

They’ve started to put in the rock along the shores that will keep the shores from eroding.

This same rock was put in along the shores of Waubonsie Creek in Oswego. Bitch to walk on, but not impossible. I’ll always find a way down to fish a creek. I know the ways here already. Explored them all years ago.

The way they’re layering everything is interesting.

The edges look extremely man made at the moment, but over the next few years the edges should get softened a bit as running water does what it wants with it.

I had sent off my observations to date to a few people I know that are managing the project. I questioned the necessity of building the midstream riffles right away and whether they can wait.

The response let me know that the project has a March deadline and so far it looks like they’re going to make it. As for the riffles, he reiterated the stream bank erosion issues that come into play. I still question that. The creek was here for a few thousand years before man decided to put a dam across it. Stream bank erosion is always an issue. Walk around any creek or river to see that. It’s part of the natural process. I would prefer to see what mother nature does, but I seem to be alone in that viewpoint.

They are moving along with one set of the riffles.

Looks like it’s going to create a pool about three feet deep. I’ve seen this creek at flood stage and I’m sure it won’t take too many years for this to get knocked down a bit. The way it’s being built though pretty much eliminates wading down the middle of the creek. The rock they’re putting in is brutal to walk on and even if the water does knock the height down a bit, I can’t recommend walking on it.

Which is fine. It’s only about a quarter mile stretch of the creek. I have some vague notes that Blackberry Creek is 26 miles long. As long as the fish are migrating around all these rocks and heading upstream, I’ll be happy. Years ago I marked spots on a map all along this creek. I knew eventually that dam would be coming out.

Somebody has to go do the research to see how far upstream the fish are migrating.

Blackberry Creek Dam Removal Update, Moving Right Along

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To play catch up, you can read the past progress reports here.
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With the short week due to the New Year on Tuesday, it’s only been three days since I was at the Blackberry Creek dam removal construction site. Since I was off work all week I could hear the equipment busily moving around every day on the other side of the Fox River.

I approached the site from the west side this time wanting to get a different view of all the work. This is the side where the old bridge abutment has to be completely removed and a new one put in its place. I don’t expect this side to go as fast as the east side, but they are moving right along.

On the dam side, that’s where all the work is being done. It was cool to see that they have dug a hole down to the base of the dam and have even removed some of the backside of the dam. It’s a 175 year old dam and from the back side, it’s age shows.

It wouldn’t take much to take out what’s left of the dam once they get all the silt, sand and stone removed. It’s not that wide of a dam.

Just upstream of the dam you can see limestone ledges along the shore. Here the creek makes an almost 90 degree turn. Based on old maps I’ve seen, this is what the creek has always done, even dating back 175 years. I still think it’s going to wind up looking a lot like Waubonsie Creek just up stream of the Route 25 bridge and be limestone all the way down to the original creek bed.

When I got to the downstream coffer dam, a guy was there checking on the generator and pump that was keeping the water from pooling up behind the coffer dam. We stood on the coffer dam for awhile and talked about the project.

I forgot to ask him his name, but he’s one of the workers on the project. The construction company is apparently local and he doesn’t live that far away. He’s pretty proud of what’s going on and mentioned a couple of times that he’s looking forward to bringing his kids to see it and tell them he helped do all this work.

I can understand that.

He described how everything was going to look as things went along. He showed me where a couple of the man made riffles would be and described how they would look and function. At the info meeting on the dam back in March of 2012, I had asked if the riffles could be put off for a year to see what the creek does and whether or not they would even be necessary. It was mentioned that might be possible. He liked that idea and said he was going to bring it up again to his boss. We also talked about the limestone outcroppings further down. I told him to go look at Waubonsie Creek. He thinks the limestone will go down to the creek bed too.

In three days, they’ve removed quite a bit of the sediment. The original creek bed has a pretty steep gradient up to the old dam and in the length that was removed, they had already dug through a good six feet of the sediment. In one spot I swore I saw a limestone ledge that dropped a good foot.

It makes sense that there would be limestone ledges here. On the other side of the river, I’ve walked up the ravine near my house. Those limestone ledges are there, so why not here. It’s almost the same vertical distance to the river.

The shores are going to be lined with rock in order to prevent erosion. I’m sure initially it will look like hell, but eventually nature will rule and it shouldn’t look so drastic. That has worked on other creeks.

With the bucket in the background, you really start to get a feel for the scope of this project.

Off in the background is the upstream coffer dam which is sitting directly on the creek bed. The slope of the original creek bed is pretty impressive. Will be interesting to see how the water behaves once they let it start flowing through.

The construction guy asked a lot of questions about fish migrations up creeks. I filled him in on how all the other creeks in the area behave and what the smallmouth bass fishing was like. You could see his eyes light up. I mentioned that if the dam is all gone by April, the fish will all start moving upstream immediately for the spring spawning run. He said the only thing that would stop them from being done is whether or not the bridge will be done. It all depends on the bridge.

One thing he mentioned, finding a school of six inch long goldfish.

I guess they outgrew their fish tank. He thinks they were dumped in the pond that’s now being used as a pass through for the creek. They seem to like to hang out in one particular spot.

I never have caught a goldfish out of the Fox River or one of it’s creeks.

They’re just carp, could be interesting.