High Water At The Flint, Again, For Driftnetting

The new moon is tomorrow, so we went out today to driftnet at our site on the Flint River. It was a mild, sunny day after a week of dank rain off and on. Because of recent rains the river was at the highest level we've done yet, so that we only set one net for reasons of safety and not having to walk out into the most treacherous part of the stream. Below is a view of the net, with 4 of us holding on to it. By the end of the hour one of the pole sleeves was mostly torn out, and a small hole had appeared in the bag of the net. But then, water velocity 6 cm off the bottom was 0.8 m/sec so we were running a form of stress test.

Water temperature was 11 deg. C, while air temp. was 10 deg. C when we started. Here's a shot of Doug with the bridge to his front. If you look closely in front of Doug's mouth, one of the bridge supports has a huge tree wedged against it. We had a plan to retreat quickly if it came loose and rolled towards us. Luckily, it didn't.