Dredging has begun (AuSable River mouth)

[Slodrift]

What a mess, they have tugs, a barge and pipe every where, they have about 1/4 mile of tubing running out the mouth and south a couple hundred yards where they are dumping the material. With all the commotion I don't see many fish coming in this weekend, if you go out in a boat beware of the tubing, they have a boat patrolling keeping others away from it.

[HemlockNailer]

Slodrift,do you know the extent of the the project ? How far upstream/downstream? They have been talking about dredging for a couple of years now,all of a sudden it's in your face.

[Slodrift]

I was told they are going from the launch, out the mouth a ways not sure exactly how far out,( they are roughly half way now) If you do go in a boat stay to the north of the barge or you will get trapped between the tubes and the south pier and fishing from the south pier is difficult to say the least. This is in your face for sure, there wasn't anything in the paper and didn't hear a word about this.

[Hamilton Reef]

This is your congressional earmark money at work. Talk to your local legislator.

[Slodrift]

There's no question it needed to be done but it could have been handled better, a little warning would have been nice. There were a few boats that got trapped between the discharge tubes and the south pier, they had to back up and find room to turn around. Luckily no boats ran over the tubes in the dark, would have tore your lower unit off.

[Slodrift]

We fished the pier this morning and as soon as it got light we could see a good sized oil slick(diesel fuel) on the water.:rant: It was coming from those dredging barges, when we left at 8:30 there was still fuel coming out to the mouth. The fuel at times covered the whole channel and extended a couple hundred yards out the mouth. The boats that went out were going right thru it, the dredgers must get Sundays off, there wasn't anyone around on the barges. I have reported this to the DNR and the DEQ, like I said this was a good sized slick and growing when we left, did anyone one else notice this? I guess they were just sleeping in, they are hard at it now.

[Slodrift]

They have finished dredging and are taking everything apart and heading to Bay City, the pipe's should be gone this evening.

[Fishndude]

I guess you have to break some eggs to make an omelet. How deep did they make the channel? I can remember this being done in the past, and it seems like they normally dredged it to be around 7 or 8 feet deep. That was COOL for Steelhead, back when lots of fish returned to this river.

[Slodrift]

You know I stopped by there today and wanted to talk to the guys doing the work and the lady in the toll booth would not let me go in for 5 min without paying the $6.00 entry fee.:lol: So needless to say I didn't find out how deep they went because I didn't feel like paying for the info, all she could tell me was they were done and taking the discharge tubes apart. She sure is dedicated to her job!:)