First off…this isn’t a fishing report…well…I got skunked on Monday…so if you were looking for a report..there it was 
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There were a few pleasure craft out when I reached the launch at Prescott at 7:30/8:00pm and a couple fishing boats in the confluence…but not many. I did notice a barge heading south as I launched.
For those of you who fish P3 frequently, you know there is alot of train traffic along the WI side and frequent barge traffic…
Monday night it was just the a zoo with barges. There were barges behind barges…most of the night. On the way home around midnight, there were two barges heading down stream and one pushed up on shore waiting for the Hastings train bridge to rise.
I’m not sure what’s causing all this traffic…low flow…makes it less expensive to ship via barge? Maybe it was just one of those days when everyone decided to go for a joy ride..not sure.
If your traveling the river…and more so a night, I’ve found my marine band radio to be a BIG time saver with barges and locks.
If a barge is coming my way, I simply call to the barge on channel 14 by saying “pleasure craft to barge by mile mark XX”. If I don’t know the marker, I’ll give a location like “2 miles S. of Prescot”. When they respond, I’ll ask them which side they would like me to go around them on. Generally they tell me the RED or GREEN side (Refering the color of channel markers)…once I had a captian tell me to wait inside two red channel markers until he passed…(by the way…between two channel markers, just out of the main channel is safe harbor if you are getting nervous with an approaching barge..WATCH the depth though!)
Most times the captians will light my way…I want one of those spot lights for Christmas! 
Once we pass, I’ll always say “thank you” and “have a good morning”.
The marine radio works great at the locks too. Just radio ahead and find out if a barge is coming and if so, how long it’s going to take to “lock through”. My father in law got stuck just above the Hastings lock for 2 1/2 hours on hot summer day waiting for a barge to lock up! That was not a happy boat…it was a sunburned boat…but not a happy boat.
Treasure Island Casino monitors channel 14 on the weekends too.
I bought a hand held marine band for days when I’m with someone else and mostly because of it’s weather radio. Most models have “weather alert” features built in. This feature cuts off your marine band radio and will let you know about approaching severe weather. It won’t let you know about approaching rain..unless you listen the the National Weather Service manually. Even then it’s spotty.
One of the other nice things about marine radios is when your buddies are fishing in your area, you can have instant reports on how the fish are bitting in thier boat. Many of P3 areas you’ll have a hard time getting your cell phone to work.
Obviously a marine radio is not required to have a good time fishing, but it sure does help out knowing that the barge captain does see you and you always have instant contact with someone out there on those lonely catten nights!
In the pictures below you can see how bad a barge can blind you…but it sure makes it easier to see your rods!
If I was sponsored by Jolly Ann Marine…this is were thier logo would go. Or I would have thier link http://www.jollyannmarine.com posted.
). I know what your saying about the power there. We had one up on p2 miss his corner and got caught crooked on a wing dam. You could hear them cussing over the loud speaker the whole time. Entertaining but he dropped about a foot of water out in front of him as he corrected the barge.