River Day 05/13/2013

Jay, Ted, Tim and I (Mark) were all down at the river this week to enjoy the holiday.  The river had been up the previous from the heavy rains across the area, and even though it was almost back down to a normal level, you could see where it had been up in the yard, and even in the roadway.  We had a windy evening with temps near 60.

Tim and Ted both brought helgies, and we found about the same amount near the edge of the water.  The fish were also biting good this week.  We caught a good number of "bait fish" along with a few nice small-mouth bass.

Ted opted for cleaning up flood debris instead of fishing, and did a great job of cleaning up (as usual).  All of the debris got burned up in the fire, and it made for a great gnat smoke as well.

We didn't see any of our usual visitors this week.  It's been a while since Freddy hasn't at least made an appearance.

Not sure what it means for the rest of the spring and summer, but the fishing and helgie activity is about 2 months later than last year.  We were catching (both) regularly in the middle of March in 2012.

Oh well, another great River Day.

River Day 04/22/2013

As the month of April winds down, I thought I'd better get caught up on the River Day posts from the last few weeks.  Sadly I (we) haven't made any posts since the last Monday of March.  Rest assured that there has indeed been a River Day celebration on each and every Monday since that date, but the blog hasn't been kept up to date due to: laziness, forgetfulness, didn't bring a camera, bad attitudes, and on, and on.

Instead of trying to tell everyone what happened, what the temperature/weather was, who showed up, etc., I'm just going to post some pictures from the last several weeks.

I will also add that the fish have finally started biting - Jay caught the 1st for 2013 (again).  Just wanted to get that on record.  I'm also going to post a video showing the annual burning of the Christmas tree from the Tim Harper household.  The video was a little too large, so I'm editing it down some.  You'll still get the full effect.

I promise to try to do better to keep up with the weekly posts (especially since I'm posting this on National River Day).

This post contains photos/comments from River Days on 04/01/2013 - 04/22/2013.

1st catch of the year!

Tim, Pat and Jay

Building under restoration (again).

River Day 03/25/2013

Despite all the snow we've had over the 2012/2013 winter season, this week was the first time we've had any on River Day.  And here it is the first week of spring already.  Better late than never.  Ted, Jay, Tim and I (Mark) were all able to make it down this week to enjoy winter's last blast (or am I being optimistic?).

The temps weren't too bad, upper 30's, and while we had snow at the top of the mountain, there wasn't any on the ground at the river.  Every now and then we'd get a pretty heavy snow shower that would just start to cover, then it would melt as soon as it eased up.  Either the ground's warming up, or the fire was just that hot.

  Jay brought down a truck load of scrap lumber from his latest domestic project. That, combined with the wood we're still picking up from the flood, made for what was most likely the best fire on the river.  I tried a little fishing, but I don't think the bass liked the snow very much. 

Freddy joined us for a while for his weekly visit.  Kinda makes you feel better about yourself knowing we all share similar problems, no matter what our backgrounds are (my philosophy for the week).

I think everyone enjoyed the weather we had, and as usual, another great River Day.

(Failed attempt at a group shot)

River Day 03/18/2013

River Day was a little wet this week, but that didn't stop us from celebrating.  Tim, Ted, Jay and I (Mark) were all able to make it down to the camp.  It started raining shortly after we all got there, and it fell pretty hard for a while. Temp was right around 40 degrees.

We did get a window of a few hours without precipitation, and we took advantage of it.  We got a little fishing in, or casting anyway (no bites yet), but we weren't disappointed.  We were even able to get in a long game of washer-toss.

It does look like spring is right around the corner; you can see some buds on the trees, and there are a few lily's starting to come up.

We did a little cleanup in the "blue room", but there's a bit more work to be done there.

Freddy came down for a while, but none of the other locals were out and about.

As usual, we had a great fire, with a little extra flare now and then.

The rain settled back in about the time we were ready to leave, so all-in-all, another great evening on the river. 

River Day March 4th 2013

I realize this is a VERY late post... better late than never.  Just as the last few weeks have been, we had another week that not everybody was able to make it down; Jay, Ted and I (Tim) were the only ones able to be there this week.  It seems like the last few weeks have really been playing havoc on everybody’s schedules.  I wish the rest of the world understood the importance of this holiday! Where have the priorities gone??!!

Anyway, we had a pretty quiet evening that consisted of the usual conversation about family issues, politics and a few other hot topics. We weren’t however able to solve anything, but it's always nice to get it out with good friends that understand.

A fair portion of the time was spend continuing to clean up from the recent storms that raised the river water levels, still plenty of work to do, but we're making low, steady progress. (Well... Ted is anyway)

We did  get a short visit from Freddy this evening, and it was short... he didn't stay around very long as the temperatures were a little bit chilly... It stayed in the mid to upper 30s most of the afternoon and evening, but it felt much colder when you walked away from the fire, which was of course, the best one on the river.

Jay tried a little fishing, didn't have any luck. However, it's nice just to back on the river’s edge throwing the line in. It seems like it won't be long before we start catching some again.

 Another great way to start the week, looking forward to everyone being able to make it next week!

 

River Day 02/25/2013

Only the three "founding members" of the group were able to make it to the river this week: Ted, Jay and I (Mark), and I only made it because of a change of travel plans for the week.  We had good weather, even if it was a little cool (low 40;s).  The river level was also good, so Jay and both tried some fishing, both in front of the camp and down-river just below the camp.  Neither of us caught anything, but I didn't have any real expectations that we would.  Just getting warmed up for the "season".

There's still a good bit of cleanup to do around the camp from the recent flooding, especially the debris out in the yard.  We've burned up all the large stuff; time to start raking up the small pieces now.  One of the locals apparently took it upon himself to get the "blue room" uprighted.  We're not sure exactly how he did it, but it's standing.  As you can tell from the photo, the door didn't fare so well.  Probably due to the weight of the mud and sand that was on it while it was laying face down.  There's also a fairly large hole in the sand that was left behind.

Ted spend a good bit of the evening trying to get the inside of the building cleaned up.  He swept, shoveled, and raked until he got nearly all of the sand, gravel and debris out of the shed.  It actually looks pretty good, but the building itself definitely took a bad hit on this one.

Just the usual activity this week as far as the locals go:  Leo arrived by Raleigh Express early in the afternoon, and Freddy dropped in for a visit after that.

We didn't have a huge fire this week, but it did a good job of keeping the chilly air at bay.

River Day 02/11/2013

Despite the lack of posts to the blog lately, River Day is still alive and well.  This week was the first return trip to the river since the big flood a few weeks ago.  Jay, Ted, and I (Mark) were the only ones able to make it down.  Temps were nice this week, low 60's, but overcast.

Although things didn't look nearly as bad as we expected, the flood aftermath was obvious; debris everywhere, lumber hanging in tree limbs, buildings torn open, toilets overturned, that sort of thing.  We spent a good portion of the evening just picking stuff up in the immediate area of the camp and tossing it on the fire.  A good bit of gravel was pushed up in front of the building, so we shoveled some of that out of the way and started spreading it out.  There's a lot more to go, but we made a little dent in it.  All but a few pieces of our woodpile were taken by the river, so we've started rebuilding that stack.

There was much discussion about the status of the building.  It looks to have a few pieces of broken lumber in the framework, and the skids under the floor have been rotten for some time.  There may be a new construction project in the near future, but that'll be up to Ron.

Once some of the mud dries up inside the port-a-potty, we should be able to shovel some of it out and make it light enough to stand back up.  Floating around in the water caused it to dig into the sand pretty good, so that'll be another chore.

We did get short visits from some of the locals this week; both Leo and Freddy stopped by for a few minutes.



It was good to be back at the river.