Anyone hitting Illinois Bayou today?

[prophet]

[Roger]

Billy Williams called me to ask about it.

Only problem was that I was in Dallas visiting my mom. / (mixed emotions).

After driving the detour from hell on Friday afternoon.

But I was visiting my mom!!

But you guys really need to rethink paddling that little jewel when it's like that. :myday"

[GN YAKN]

As is our usual MO, we didn't make a decision until first light on Saturday morning about where to paddle Saturday. We saw the nice fat level on IB and decided to head that way.

We ran into Scott Wright at the put in and met a bunch of boaters from FSM and LR areas, Dallas, Doss & Laramie.

The level was great for the IB and there were a couple of nice surfing spots and holes and some sticky ledges. It was a great time.

Brent McQuiston brought his two sons Aaron and Ethan and they handled the river with zero issues.

We did get into one situation that was a bit dicey when we encountered a huge tree in the stream bed. It points down stream and has a huge root ball on the upstream end that looks extremely dangerous if one were to run into it.

The way it lay in the stream bed you couldn't see it was there in the outside of the bend due to the sun shining right in your eyes.

The hillside on river left cast a shadow that ended just upstream of the root ball. So you are blinded by the sun until you make it to the shadow and then BAM!!! Root Ball.

It was easy to get over to river right and avoid the obstacle if you have any boat control and all of us missed the tree, but, it would have been ugly if anyone had hit it.

All in all a wonderful day and fun to run into old friends and to make new friends. Also great fun to watch the two young guns have a good day.

I think we passed Billy W on the highway as we were headed south. Stopped at CJ's for a burger before getting back on the super slab for the ride home.

We are so blessed to live in such a beautiful state that has so many options for getting on fun streams!

[Roger]

Breuax Dave, put this in a previous thread about the new gauge on Snow Creek:


Roger

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Re: Good News - Gauge on Middle Fork Illinois Bayou!Edit postReport this postReply with quote
PostMon Dec 30, 2013 6:32 pm

Ran it Monday before xmas with the Scottsville gauge reading just above 8.0' and the 27 bridge marker was showing 8.75'. Tried to read the new gauge from my boat but couldn't get up to it since it faces the road on the lower portion of it. On the new gauge, it was just above 12.0' on the day run guestimating from the readout.

Eddies to be caught, moves through the rapids, a few boulders peaking up with one having a boof in the middle of the river in the next to last rapid, some wood to negotiate and plenty of water for laps that day. It was just above freezing but sunny.

The wood (some stuff has been in there before but I think this is new, correct me if I'm wrong) is at the top of the first rapid that turns left away from the river and then cuts right.

Tried to post a pic of it from my phone, but file was too big for attachment option.

It is a bit of an issue for sure.

[T Yamashita]

Here's my take after running the upper section of the snow creek section today.

New gage at middle fork was reading 12.6; the scottsville gage was reading 8.2.

Good level with most of the bigger rocks and boulders exposed & plenty of push in the rapids. I think it's about the same push and rock exposure as richland at 3.5. It's a great level for eddy hopping and working on getting the kinks out.

The downsides are that the road going up is getting pretty soft and you will leave with plenty of mud on your vehicle. If you don't have good momentum through some of the spots, you will get bogged down and possibly stuck (esp the section right after passing the gage). Also the last bit of road before the putin was still iced and slick! :myday"

The other downside is the tree that Dave mentioned is 1/2 mile below the putin, after you pass the rock wall on river left. It's on the left and a lot of the water is going into it. It's pretty big and will be there for awhile. In the pic below, I put an arrow, where the tree is.

Happy paddlin'! ty