The first day I woke early and left camp solo for a day on the Clackamas River collecting gravel, driftwood and rocks for my river tank (I’ll post some progress pictures soon) that is still in the building planning process.
My first stop was on this gravel bar.
I found some river rocks for making caves and hideouts for the upcoming Hillstream tank but the real prize was this gnarly old piece of driftwood. It’s too big to fit in any tank I’ll be setting up but maybe somebody could use it for a large terrarium?
What I really had my heart set on was to find some good gravel which was turning out to be more difficult then I had imagined. Most of the rock in this section of the river is large and heavy and the only small gravel that I could find was scattered in the occasional eddy behind large boulders. I probably never would have found any this morning had it not been for some old root balls that caught my eye on the opposite bank of the river. It was pretty deep and I was carrying a couple buckets, saw and camera. I put the camera in the buckets and managed to swim across without getting the camera wet. It wasn’t until I got across that I spied a large boulder with some real nice gravel behind it. The problem was how to get the gavel back across the river without drowning myself.
I excitedly filled my buckets with the new found booty and planned my crossing. It appeared that if I crossed a bit up stream that I could wade out to a gravel bar that ran down the middle of the river and if I followed it downstream far enough, I could complete the crossing without going in over my head. Well, I think there’s an old saying about all good plans? Well, the buckets were much heavier and created a lot more drag than I had anticipated but these were the least of my worries. In my haste to get across I charged right off the edge of the gravel bar into deep water. Now most of you are thinking, no problem, let go of the buckets and swim to the surface. Well that was the last thing on my mind. I had just spent half the day finding this gravel and I wasn’t about to do the intelligent thing. The only thing that saved me was the bucket in my left hand snagged on the ledge that I had just walked off and I managed to use it’s anchorage to pull the other bucket up onto the ledge. Once I had both buckets secure I pulled myself up on the ledge and used the ballast to my advantage and trudged into shallow water for a breath of fresh air.
You can see in the picture above the boulder on the opposite side that I collected my gravel from behind and also the gravel bar that I was supposed to follow downstream and the ledge that I walked off of into deep water.
I hiked back to the truck for more buckets and made a total of four more trips without further mishap. I found a nice place to sit along the river and sifted out the fine sand.
I’m very pleased with the results. Martin had mentioned in another thread how natural gravel has variability in size and color not found in store bought gravel and boy is he right.
This stuff is plain by store standards but I love it.
The next couple of days were spent up the Collowash River with the kids. The Collowash in my opinion is the most beautiful tributary of the Clackamas River. It's wild scenic and my kind of place.
This deep swimming hole had rock formations on both banks to jump from, nice little water falls for the kids to play in and lots of small fish and frogs to catch.
A short hike through the boulders above the swimming hole was this huge log jam that was full of good driftwood. I had to leave lots of pieces behind because it just wasn't safe or practical to carry it back down through the boulders but I did manage to bring home some select smaller peices.
Red legs are the common frog in this area and the kids had fun catching them. I did my little magic trick and put them into a limp trance by holding them on their backs.
This Red Leg is amongst algae covered rocks that brings a question to mind. I’ve read in other threads where members have collected algae covered rocks to feed their fish. How can one know what is safe and edible? Would these rocks be a safe snack?
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Rachel was kicking up bottom debris to attract fingerling trout. It wasn’t long before they were feeding all around her.
She was pretty proud of herself when she caught this one.
Caleb is the patient type. He waits for them to come to him and managed to catch an interesting little fish that’s still unidentified by me. I’m hoping one our members will be able to ID these little beauties. Next time I’ll have to come up with some kind of container for better photos but all I had at the time was my mask.
These fish in the hand photos are way hard (fish always flip out) and don’t show the natural fin display. I’ll do better next time.
Rachel impressed me with her total lack of fear when she caught these snakes. These are the common Garter Snakes of the area. The larger of the two is most likely the female.
I’ve seen one large female being mobbed by as many as fifty of the smaller males at one time.
Here’s a baby Crawdad that Rachel caught for me.
This is actually a picture of a large boulder but it gives you an idea of some of the wild color variations that can be found here. I collected some smaller specimens of this type rock in both pink and blue shades.
Towards the end of the day I moved down to this quite pool and used my snorkel and mask to collect some beautifully colored rocks from the river bottom.
It was during this rock collecting that I came across what I thought was the highlight of the trip. I was floating along with my bucket of rocks when I noticed a small motionless Sculpin like fish hugging the bottom. Before long I noticed that there was a whole colony of them all around me. I quickly retrieved my net and found that without too much trouble at all I could coax them into the net. Again not having anything better, I used my mask for some pictures.
Once I got home I couldn’t wait to search out some info on these cute little buggers (and I mean that in an American way). Here’s an article that to my pleasant surprise actually describes these fish as being very suitable for keeping in a river tank aquarium.
http://www.nativefish.org/articles/goodbad.php
Right now I still have my heart set on Hillstreams but one never knows what the tank of tomorrow holds.
Thanks all for putting up with my modem clogging mega thread adventures and until next time, keep your water fast.
Love the storyline and yer kids are great 
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.