Yeah, It Was Freezing At Sipsey Fork In The Bankhead National Forest

And, I have the pictures to prove it. Taito and Andrew joined me going to the canoe launch to collect silverstripe shiners WAY out of breeding season. The water level was higher than last July but manageable, and the current was faster. It's been so cold locally that the fine white sand on the bank was frozen solid, making for more of a challenge descending to stream level. In about an hour of seining, we managed to catch about a dozen silverstripes, mostly small ones, and two or three burrhead shiners. We had to break up fringing ice along the banks to pull the seine up, and if the seine was left out of the water for any period of time it would freeze solid. Air temperature was about -5* C, and water temperature was 2* C. Unfortunately, my old waders that Taito was using leak so he had to get out of the water. After about 30 minutes sensation returned to my hands, and we had found the best stretch of bank to seine for fish. Then, as we were walking the seine back to shore with what turned out to be a large burrhead, my left foot lost traction in the loose sand in the water and I fell to my left, soaking my left arm and shipping some water in my waders. That was the end of the day... I took off my shirt and sweater, and put on my coat over my wet t-shirt. This was as brutal as it gets locally. The fish are all in the deep freezer now. We'll go back to them later to remove their brains. We still have to collect telescope and scarlet shiners from Estill Fork next week, when the weather should return to a more normal, moderate range.

Anyway, here are some pics of the scene. The first one is icicles hanging from the sandstone cliff across the stream from our access point. You can see how clear the water is now (it usually is, even in summer).
I have a series of pictures of the view downstream from this point; this one is different with ice along the shore. The sand along the left is solid...
And finally, a shot of me looking colder than I realized after having stripped out of my soaked shirt and sweater. It was one of the rare times I wear a hat around here.