Trash

[John Andrews]

I am a transplant here from Washington state. Some of the most beautiful outdoors on the planet. My dad taught us boys to respect the land. When I go camping I pick up after myself. I pick up litter every time I am outdoors. The rivers here are no exception. EVERY time I leave the water, I end up at the garbage can. I pack a plastic bag every time, just for that reason. I do know this as FACT. In the two years I been kayaking our rivers, not ONE time have I ever seen another kayaker, boater or floater pick up so much as a bottle cap that was not their own.............Now why did I just say that????? I was at the gas station with my kayak on the roof and over heard the OLD man next to me say " another one of those S.O.B's that go around trashing our rivers....... Well I had a BAD day and he managed to push my "hacked off" button. The ONLY thing that saved me from jail time was the fact he was so OLD. I do know this, after I got done giving him a verbal butt whooping, he probably had to change underwear. If you go the extra mile and pick up others trash I THANK YOU. If you DONT,,,,,I dont understand it. It's not that hard to do, and it only takes a secong to reach down, pick it up and drop it in a bag...........Thanks for allowing me to vent

[John Andrews]

Oh and by the way. when I got done screaming at the old coot. I turned around to see about 5-7 people standing there staring at me. I'd been embarrased if I cared what they thought. LOL

[Smalliebigs]

Good for you John.....Bravo!!!!!! I'm like you....I pick up trash and it starts wear on the psyche after awhile.....you think who are these people just dumping trash all over the place??? someday possibly people will quit dumping but, Wouldn't count on it.....I;m just glad there people like you out there.....It also sucks to lug around peoples trash to the nearest trash can

[John Andrews]

Smallie, thank you for the extra effort. Something we dont see enough of these days.

[Hog Wally]

You two can fish my creek anytime you want

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

Only trash i throw in the water are Carp and Drums after i catch em

[Geoff]

One of my friends just got into fly fishing, I told him a simple rule he needs to make every stream or creek he goes to, he needs to make it look better then when he got there. Slighty confused by this, he simply nodded and said "ah" as he saw me picking up all the trash at the road side parking we had pulled off to and threw it in the trucks bed. Everything I ended up grabbing them went into my recycling bin at home. I always try to make an effort to clean up everyone elses junk.

[Greasy B]

Yea, have picked up trash right in front of the slobs who threw it down, they never gave so much as a glance. Me having long ago gave up on fixing or setting people straight just loaded the garbage in my boat satisfied that more than likely I would never see their sorry selves again. Let me ask this, at what point are we just pissing in the wind? A couple of weeks ago I floated a stretch of a party river. Passing through at dawn I hardly seen any of the bums but holy cow, the river bottom had so many beer cans a team of scuba divers couldn't have picked all them up in month. It's depressing.

[John Andrews]

I know I am not going to make a dent in the litter, but I can look at myself in the mirror knowing I am trying

[Al Agnew]

I don't go out of my way to pick up trash along the rivers...in other words, I won't stop fishing to dive for sunken trash or paddle across the river to a gravel bar to pick it up, but anything that's close to me and floating, or anything that's on a gravel bar when I stop for a stretch or for lunch, gets put in the trash bag and carted home to recycle or burn. I've "shamed" a couple of families with toddlers into picking up the used disposable diapers they were going to leave on the river bank by saying in an incredulous tone of voice, "You're gonna LEAVE that crap here for somebody else to clean up?" And I once picked up a worm container and lure package that I'd just seen two old guys in a canoe in front of me toss into the river, paddled hard to catch up to them, and threw the trash into the bottom of their canoe while saying, "Here, I think you dropped this stuff." I went on by, and I figure they tossed it again as soon as I was out of sight, but it made me feel a little better.

Neither the city river dorks nor the locals have a monopoly on being slobs. I've come upon everything anybody else has seen after a weekend on a popular river, and I've also come upon plenty of piles of trash around and in the remains of campfires on gravel bars with an obscure road leading down to them which only the locals would know about.