Changes after the flood

I went down to the 494 access on Pool 2 yesterday just to look at the high water. And the 90 foot long cottonwood trees floating by, the channel markers getting pushed completely underwater, etc. It’s amazing right now.
I’m guessing that millions of tons of sand and mud are getting moved around by all that fast water. I can see how some wingdams might get covered with silt, maybe other wingdams get blown clean. But that’s just a guess on my part. I haven’t been on the river long enough to have gone through this before so I’ll ask the river rats out there: How much do things change after a flood?

Rootski

Not sure what or how much will change down there but Im looking forward to getting back on the water and seeing it. Ever year its finding out which areas will be holding fish for that year.

Don’t worry about the fish. They’ll find their way back to their old haunts.
Some wingdams will get covered with more sand/silt and others will stay clean. That all depends on how the CoE had them built and which direction they lay in accordance with the flow of the river.
The biggest problem with floods is the silting in of the backwater areas and side sloughs. And it doesn’t take all that much high water to accomplish this.
Even at normal pool levels these areas are filling in due to sediment stirred by propwash from the towboats being carried there and settling after hitting the slack current in the backwaters.
And the floods also bring in a lot of new garbage to be picked up.

Depending on ones point of view the ever changing river is good or bad.

I’m just hoping I’ll be able to find all those trees once the sink!

Hey Steve,

One thing I will look for is new wood lodged into wingdams. It will change up (force) how you approach fishing known fish producers and brings in new fish on otherwise fishless wingdams.

I’m with Mike, can’t wait to get back on Pool 2!!!

-J.

Water turbidity is perhaps the one characteristic of a high water period that is often times overlooked outside “tomorrow” or “next weeks” trip. CFM and pool or stage level often times get the most immediate attention. Good bits to know but the turbidity of the water will have a much longer lasting impact on the fishery than flow rates or crest levels. This of course assuming we don’t have levy failure leading to the introduction of invasive speices like Flying Carp or a quick water drops stranding fish in the shallows.

Take the epic flood of 93′.
I happened to be preping for college by working the summer months as janitor for a company in Dubuque, IA.
When the onslaught of water subsided that June I spent 2 months for that company cleaning 3 to 5 inches of Mississippi river silt deposited on absolutely EVERYTHING that was submerged. When she runs high & dirty she deposits a rather significant amount of silt. You are not going to convince my back anything different to this day.

The ole river is running violent & high in the infancy stages of this spring but it’s predomoninately snow & ice melt at this juncture. Not excessive precipitation from a stalled out stationary front that saturated soils simple couldn’t absorb like back in the spring of 1993 & 2001, or in the height of the 2007 summer. It doesn’t take much of a widespread or significant amount of rainfall over the course of the next 6 weeks while crop grounds are still brown that will trigger a dirty runoff. Water clarity on pool 9 this spring to date has been exceptionally good as compared to spring run offs in years past. I very highly doubt we’ll ever see her clean & fast enough to goudge deeper channels, especially in the back water sloughs but I don’t anticipate loosing too much of the water column in those back bays to settling turbidity once she slows down at this point. The higher flow this spring and the fact some pool 9 islands are now submerged for the first time since the spring run off of 08′ is most definately going to lead to some new submerged structure downstream as well as reposition some of the oldies.

In conclusion I hope we crest in the next few days and expeirence a 6 to 8 week slow drop with moderate rain fall to keep the turbidity levels in check. That’s a win-win.

Excellent points Bos…
I would add that the arrival of milfoil in the backwaters and sloughs in pool 10 in the years since the big flood of 2001 seems to have accelerated the speed that the sediment is loading up and choking off the backwaters.
The biomass associated with the carpet of vegetation that is laid down each summer just adds to the problem – then a heavy dose of sediment laden runoff the following spring/summer caps it off and you can actually watch the river banks encroach on the open water areas each and every year.
I wonder if any of our government agencies (state/federal) are measuring the size/speed that the non-navigational channel waters are being reduced in size? It seems to me that the slack water areas are filling in faster now.
barc

Quote:

---

Excellent points Bos…
I would add that the arrival of milfoil in the backwaters and sloughs in pool 10 in the years since the big flood of 2001 seems to have accelerated the speed that the sediment is loading up and choking off the backwaters.
The biomass associated with the carpet of vegetation that is laid down each summer just adds to the problem – then a heavy dose of sediment laden runoff the following spring/summer caps it off and you can actually watch the river banks encroach on the open water areas each and every year.
I wonder if any of our government agencies (state/federal) are measuring the size/speed that the non-navigational channel waters are being reduced in size? It seems to me that the slack water areas are filling in faster now.
barc

---

Do we really need more Gov’t involvement? The Mississippi has been here for about 10,000 years. I’m sure in that time, there have been backwaters that have come and gone. That’s life on the river. I hate to tell you, but the river will be here long after we are gone, and so will some of the backwaters we know.

Ruger, come on down here to pool 18 and I’ll show why you need gov. involvement. We no longer have any backwaters. No vegitation whatsoever because the river constantly runs muddy and swift. And sloughs that when I moved here in 1973 had 20 to 25ft depths that now when the river is 2ft above normal pool, you can’t even run a jet boat in them cause they are filled in so bad.
This has happened because of bad gov./CoE management. Whenever we ask CoE about getting any of this reversed, they tell us “We are only concerned with maintaining a 9ft channel for the barge industry”. We’ve heard that for so many years that I believe they have it printed in their text books and shop manuals.
But it will most certainly take gov. involvement to get any of this back. They are already doing it in pools 8,9, and 10. Ask the guys who fish the stoddard and PDC areas about the dredging projects done and whether gov. involvement was right or not.
Most of us who have lived on the river our whole lives will tell you we don’t like what the gov. has done to the river, but in the same token we need gov. to get us back the river we once had.

I have to agree herb. Sadly, Gov’t won’t get involved if there is no big business or special interest groups to give money to their campaign. “We the people” just aren’t worth it to them.
Hmmmmmmmmm, I think a blockade on the river of about 3k boats during the height of shipping season may get some attention.