Saturday February 6, 2016 Monte Rio CA.
Late start boating
I got going late this morning as I was up most of the night with the itches. Seems I got into some corn somewhere in the food I ate yesterday. Unfortunately, I don’t know where? :O)
Anyway, I was down at the Monte Rio boat ramp around noon. I finished shoveling off the boat ramp of mud before putting my boat in the water. I was almost done when Nick came by to put his boat in the water to go Steelhead fishing. I was almost finished shoveling the ramp off, but got winded, so Nick finished off the mud and we both put our boats in the water.
There were four boats in the slot fishing for steelhead fish that are coming up the river to spawn.
Steve was just landing a steelhead as I pulled in just to the right where I stopped to shoot the bull with the guys.
Steve said it was a female about nine pounds. He was the only one that had caught anything so far today.
I left them at it and continued on down the river, just drifting along.
I spied a turtle on the shoreline. They seem to go to shore this time of year instead of just sitting on logs. It may have something to do with laying eggs as I don’t see them on the shore at other times of the year. This one is about eight inches long, shell wise.
I paddled down to the Villa Grande Area and sat for a bit, then drifted down river some more to the Sheridan beach area where I sat for a bit. Then I started back up to the Villa Grande area where I saw Andrew put his boat in the water to fish.
I followed Andrew up the river a bit shooting the bull.
He hooked a fish, about a one pound hardhead. Shortly after that, he hooked another hardhead, about a three pounder. Most people don’t keep the hardheads and throw them back which Andrew did.
You can see the three pound hardhead Andrew hooked from his kayak.
I left Andrew at it and continued on back up the river towards Monte Rio.
I was paddling along here just below Monte Rio.
I got too close to this great blue heron which took off with a squawk
I was just below Monte Rio here, moving on up the river, just enjoying myself.
There were only two boats left in the slot as I paddled on up the river. No more fish were caught while I was gone. I have them my report of what I saw down river and moved on.
A dreaded Waddle
I moved on up the river past those guys and was looking around just below the Monte Rio bridge when I ran into this big waddle. No, not the ducks. It’s the big straw filled plastic thing in the background.
The ducks are saying, hey Bob, here’s one of the dreaded waddles. Couldn’t you guys keep them off our river?
This waddle is about twenty feet long and about eight inches in diameter. They are used and required by our state government for dirt moving projects. In my opinion they are over used and should not be used in our waterways or floodplains as they will all eventually end up at the ocean at Jenner. Just think thousands of these things are put out each year and intentionally are not picked up, but left out there to work their way down the water ways each year.
Here’s a little closer look at this dreaded waddle laying on our river bank just below the Monte Rio bridge. I call it pollution on a big time scale, authorized by our government for pollution control.
There’s something wrong with this type of pollution control when you are putting out plastic nets that can entrap wild life. They are likely putting out several thousand waddles into the Russian river water shed each year and they do add up.
Not to mention they are putting out thousands of waddles each year into all the rivers in all the states in the west as this is now an accepted and required by law practice in all our waterways.
How do things get so screwed up like this? When did it become acceptable to put plastic netting by the thousands into our waterways?
When will we learn?
Nice day otherwise.