Nice Surprise At Valentine Creek Boat Ramp W/Pics

[rsd612]

With the high winds out of the NW I made a trip down to our Valentine Creek boat ramp to check the tide. With very low water, went back home to get the truck and some shovels to clean the boat ramp of sand from the September storm that had filled it in (About 2 Feet Deep). The sand had also buried the end of the pier at the time. This sand had washed in from up the hill and from a county check dam that washed out during the record rain event that night. Most of the of the sand had been removed months earlier but the tide was to high to finish the job on the lower portion of the ramp. As you can see in the pics. It took Kim, Seth, Kaelee and I about an hour to remove the sand.

Before Cleaning

After






Now its ready for some serious fishing this year.

But the nice surprise was all the grass clumps growing on the other side of the pier where the water is 2 to 3 feet deeper. Hard to see in the cell phone pics but nice to see. It had to be anywhere from 10 to 15 clumps that I have never seen before today on low tides. I thought I would share this good news with the club. Not a lot of grass but its a start.

Hard To See But It's There

[J.A. Veil]

Thanks for the update. Any time we can get aquatic vegetation established, it should help the water quality.

[27 sailfish]

What we will not do to go fishing.

Shoveling wet , heavy sand - that's hardcore.

Great news about the grass growing - hope it spreads.

[hard ripples]

Nice job with the cleaning. Try to find someone w a snowplow next time, it would be a lot easier.

[rsd612]

Nice job with the cleaning. Try to find someone w a snowplow next time, it would be a lot easier.

Yeah, I have access to a snow plow and a Bob Cat. It was probably less time to shovel then load and unload the equipment.

Attempting to teach a 13 year old the meaning & feeling of some manual labor and that all is not achieved through a Video Game (Too Many Types To Count) or TV. Its hard enough to get him to retie his shoes when he puts back on. And if I remember correctly the definition on a Backhoe was a young man with a shovel.

Hot Rod

[outcast99]

Thanks Rod @ Kim the ramp looks good I cleaned it one time it took 2 hrs

[Hookin-Up]

I used to keep my other ( earlier) boat on Valentine Creek. There was always a ton of grass around my pier ( on the Herald Har. side) and it was nice to see all those spawning beds in the Spring. Too bad DNR or CBF doesn't germinate grasses for groups to buy ( hell, individuals for that fact) and plant.

[TDLewis]

The grass around there seems to die off as soon as the salinity goes up in the summer. Till it dies, it will hold a pickerel every now and then... (c:

[J.P. Williams]

Too many typos. See next post.

[J.P. Williams]

That grass that dies in late June is horned pondweed, the earliest of the Severn's five or six species. It makes its fruits in June and then dies out, just the way springtime azalea blooms do. The catch is having the river clean & clear enough for later grass species like redhead ("redtop"), sago pondweed, and widgeongrass to come on behind. About five years ago in June, I did a short grasses seminar for SRRKC'ers. Is it time for another?

Best, JPW