June 15 – Work Project #2 Summary and Pictures

On Saturday, June 24th GBTU along with members from Antigo TU, Northwoods TU, Oconto TU and the WIDNR conducted our second work project of the 2019 season.

We were on the Evergreen River above the Menominee Reservation. This section of the Evergreen had 1.7 miles of extensive work conducted on it from 2009-2014. Work then included dig and pile channel shaping with a hydraulic excavator, large wood additions and brush bundling. Most of the brush bundling was completed in the summers of 2012 and 2014. The section that could use some final touches is the brush bundling sections.

For this project, roughly 1800 feet of stream was lightly bundled as needed. Materials were limited so we used a combination of Christmas trees and tag alders. This section stream has a high bed load of sand and silt which made it a perfect candidate for bundling. Christmas trees were staged along the stream, loaded onto a boat, floated to the desired location and put in place.

We used a piranha mini dredge to fill the newly created bundles. This will speed up the establishment of the banks and will maximize the use of material by not having to refill the bundles in future years.

In addition, we also did some “touch up” brushing on the old brush bundles. Only tag alders that are on outside bends or extend over half the stream channel were cut and used.

The attendees were as follow:

  • Paul Kruse (GBTU work project coordinator)
  • Harold Becks
  • Taylor Curran (DNR)
  • Dallas Moe (DNR)
  • Jonathan Pyatskowit (DNR)
  • Dennis Dugre
  • Byron Dugre
  • Dennis Gusick
  • Mike Reeb
  • Terry Cummings (Northwood’s TU)
  • Jeff House
  • Matt Norem
  • Pat Hill
  • Wally Heil
  • Adrian Meseberg
  • Doug Seidl
  • Peter Tillman
  • Dani Long and Jonathan
  • Gary Gillis
  • Mike Heinrich (Antigo)
  • John Heinrich (Antigo)
  • Nick Klitzka (Oconto River)
  • Wayne Czypinski (Oconto River)
  • Dan Wink (Antigo) Griller
  • Larry Marmes (Antigo) Griller

A huge thanks to everyone who came out ! Check out the pictures below…

Work project crew is ready for action !
Matt N’s smile says it all 🙂
Passing brush bundles to the boat
Nice job guys !
Brush bundles being floated down the Evergreen River
Stakes are pounded into place to how brush bundles where we want them
Looking good !
DNR offering on the job direction
Uh-Oh…Looks like we found a nice, deep hole 🙂
Dennis G holds the pump in place. On one end…
…the hose is bounced off the ground (with the attached stick) to pick up sediment…
…and move it from the river bottom onto the other side of the brush bundles
The sediment from the river bottom will be pumped to the right side of the bundles…narrowing, and deepening, the river
Past sediment displacement is on the left. You can see how much it narrowed the river. It was submerged on this day due to the very high water levels.
Adrian M and Jeff H take a minute for a laugh or two
After a hard days’ work Dan W and Larry M (Antigo TU) fire up the grill !
This burger is fantastic !
Sharing some fishing tales ?
Catching up after the project
A nice-sized snapper…just another bonus to working on the river 🙂
Filed Under: work project