Old timers

I use to speak with an old man that would tell me how the river use to be back in his days. He would tell me about how asian mussels that took over, he could remember when the river didn't have tons of small asian mussels. When blue cats were a common sight as were skipjacks, Pike, etc... He would tell me about invasive fish species such as carp and musky. What the river was like before the dam.

Anyone else speak with elderly people about the way things use to be before our impact?

I always try and talk with experienced people when I'm sampling. Some of the most interesting and disturbing stories are about mussels. On my local river (Kankakee) I've been told they would tow these large drilling machines right up to the river. They would then dynamite the shoals and remove the mussels to be drilled for buttons. Apparently they would drill only a few buttons from each shell then pile up the dead mussels where the rotting flesh would smell for months. Once the smell subsided a bit, local kids would climb the pile of dead mussels and play king of the hill. Apparently these button drilling operations traveled all around northern Illinois as I've heard similar stories from many seasoned anglers.

Most of the people that we view as "friendlies" when doing field work are the old timers. They'll tell us how the creek/river has changed over the decades, and it's almost always for the worse. These are the people, once they find out why we care about minnows and bugs, that really open up to us. The new blood on the rivers (translate as new money) tend to be more hostile and stand-offish by thinking they own the water, from my experience. We are always ready for a confrontation from the get go, but it's amazing how quickly people defuse once they find out we're from a university and not a gov't agency. I've tossed around the idea of going to some of our old river contacts and getting old river photographs from them to retake from the same standpoints now. I think it would make for a cool presentation when coupled with water quality and biology surveys.

When I was growing up I lived on the pocatalico river, we called it the Poca river, but I used to listen to the old timers talk about the river back in the 1920's and all the fish and other animals there were present. I can remember digging up mussels that were almost a foot long and making stew out of them. I also remember the gas wells being drilled and the brine water being dumped into the river and all the mussels dying as well as almost the fish other than carp. I guess now days I'm one of the old timers and remember the good old days but my good old days weren't as good as the old timers I listened to "good old days" I no longer live on the Poca river, i live a long ways away in NC now but from what I understand the riving is coming back and has fish in it now I never saw back in the 50's 60's and 70's. Being an old timer is not all that bad and occasionally the new timers news is good. oh yeah, the Pocatalico river is in Southern West Virginia, a tributary of the Kanawha River

I talk to old timers as often as possible. They are the ones with the most fascinating information and stories. I do this not just during recreation, but at work as well. I will never understand a site as well as a someone who grew up on it or has farmed it for a lifetime. I can get more information during an hour or so at a kitchen table than I can in a week of work with a 4-man crew.