Strangest thing ever found while on the water????

[Conor]

I always try to pickup some trash while out enjoying the rivers.  Sometimes you find something useful such as a stainless steel water bottle or speaker along with the crap.

What is the strangest thing you have found?  Here are some of my contenders.

-Flaming vacuum cleaner from old homeless camp.  I plugged it in outside at home and the motor was frozen up.  It caught fire right as it started to free up and put on quite a show for a couple minutes before it melted down in and inferno!  That has to be my first choice for the strangest trash found.  I have video of the best part as the thing really put on a show!

-WORKING mini fridge.  This is like one of the 3.2 cubic ft ones and I was able to get it down the river on my kayak with straps and some creativity.  It didn't look to be in terrible shape and I set it upright for a while and plugged it in when I got home.  I didn't put on a show like the vacuum but definitely works.  The freezer part had frost after leaving it on for a couple hours.

-Headless Santa

-Halloween skeleton decoration

-Wilson, as seen in "Castaway".

-TWO meth labs unfortunately.....  One was a propane tank discolored by ammonia and the other a gatorade bottle filled with noxious crap.  Unfortunately I was just dumping out the contents to reduce weight and they went right in the river.  I was greeted with some of the nastiest fumes you have ever smelled.  I was unaware of what these were until after I picked them up.  Luckily there was a cop at the river access with the propane tank so I told him about it.

-One drug needle in a remote area along the Big Piney.  I am surprised I haven't found more of these.

-Dumped household goods like someone got kicked out of their house.  I found tools, DVDs, baby pictures, home movies, and about 100x votive candles at a Meramec access.  I found this another time near Ft. Leonard Wood so don't know if someone got deployed or kicked out of their house.

-Several propane tanks which I used as trade ins.  I made sure they weren't meth labs before picking up after that one incident.

-Jacuzzi hot tub!  I was unable to carry that one on a kayak but another group found out about it and removed it on 2-3 canoes like pontoons.  This was a fullsize hot tub, not some dinky inflatable.

-CANOE bent in half!  It was one of these cheap platic Coleman ones but popped right back into shape and I towed it down the river.  The aluminum bracing was busted in several locations but I repaired that and it seems to be a serviceable canoe with no leaks.

-300lbs of jello shots, full cans of beer, water, airplane bottles, and other gear.  This came from the destroyed canoe episode for sure and the canoe became a floating trash can to collect all the crap.

-Kayak high above the banks in flood debris.

-Smoking bongs and beer bongs, both on the Huzzah of course!

 

Anyone else have some good ones to share?

Conor

[fishinwrench]

Numerous treasures.  But I guess the "strangest" was a fully loaded Swingline stapler.  

 

Who takes a stapler with them on a float trip?  🤔

[BilletHead]

31 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

Numerous treasures.  But I guess the "strangest" was a fully loaded Swingline stapler.  

 

Who takes a stapler with them on a float trip?  🤔

  For a single live well situation. One fin staple for me and two for Glen Mr. Goodwrench. 

[fishinwrench]

36 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

  For a single live well situation. One fin staple for me and two for Glen Mr. Goodwrench. 

Never considered that.   I bet someone (biologist 🙄) was marking fish.    I never thought to check if the staples in it were stainless.    

[BilletHead]

Body recovery. Most gut wrenching traumatic thing Pat and I have went through. A guy decided to ride a little rubber raft over the caplinger mills dam while Stockton lake Was generating on purpose. Tried to get to him in the rip as he was rolling in the washing machine. He broke loose and began to go down stream. Pat got ahold of his hair and we got him into boat. To this day I don't know how. Took him to shore where I did CPR until the first responders took over. They followed protocol to no avail. 

[fishinwrench]

2 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

Body recovery. Most gut wrenching traumatic thing Pat and I have went through. A guy decided to ride a little rubber raft over the caplinger mills dam while Stockton lake Was generating on purpose. Tried to get to him in the rip as he was rolling in the washing machine. He broke loose and began to go down stream. Pat got ahold of his hair and we got him into boat. To this day I don't know how. Took him to shore where I did CPR until the first responders took over. They followed protocol to no avail. 

OMG!    That would definitely ruin your day.   😳

[BilletHead]

4 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

OMG!    That would definitely ruin your day.   😳

It did. Pat cried and I got totally sick to my stomach. 

[Conor]

1 hour ago, fishinwrench said:

Numerous treasures.  But I guess the "strangest" was a fully loaded Swingline stapler.  

 

Who takes a stapler with them on a float trip?  🤔

That was my thought about the vacuum cleaner like 4 miles from the nearest power outlet.  Why????  Then they had left all kinds of tents, sleeping bags, blankets, clothing, and other gear.  Maybe they got run off and forced to move on short notice but no one picked up their stuff afterwards.  Found a full box of Depends adult diapers at a couple of these sites within close proximity so maybe the same person....  The clothing was new with the tags still on it but one side was sun faded and bleached while the other was soaked with black mold.  I just piled all this crap in the tents and hauled it to a dumpster.

Also, why a WORKING mini refrigerator?????  I guess it could have been on a boat dock or something and got taken away by a flood.  There were some regular properties along that section and at least one camp nearby that looked like it might have been from a homeless person or squatter.

Sometimes it is just household trash in black bags so I guess whatever people use up and throw away just ends up in the river.  The Big River is unfortunately plagued with this problem, especially on the lower 30 miles or so.

Yes, I have found knives, water bottles, and other valuable items as well.  Paddles, PFDs, etc. are all common.

I really do think the flaming vacuum cleaner takes the cake through!  I am trying to upload a video of that but it is quite large.  I missed the first part when it ignited but quickly grabbed my phone once I realized it was going to put on a good show!

Conor

 

[Conor]

46 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

OMG!    That would definitely ruin your day.   😳

Not good.  I was asked to go on a search around Morse Mill on the Big for this a year or so ago but had something going on.  Apparently the guy had jumped from a bridge in the area and was never seen again.  The group that went didn't find him but he showed up on the first warm few days from what I remember hearing.  That is definitely not a good story.  Of course he did it when the dam was releasing lots of water.

My most harrowing experience was actually on the Bourbeuse which is definitely the slowest river in the Ozarks, just not the upper part at higher water.  We put on at Mint Spring and portaged the next low water crossing downstream.  I was taking pictures and realized I was being sucked back into the pour over.  Got the camera put away and was rolled over.  Luckily it wasn't as bad as other low dams or crossings I have seen.....  I only lost a stainless steel bottle full of water in that incident.  It was barely buoyant since it was full so probably trapped under the roller.  I wasn't going to go looking for it.

Conor

[Johnsfolly]

Just a funny river story that I may have told on one of the forums previously.

One of Sue's uncles was bear hunting up in the mountains of PA. It was later in the afternoon and he saw a big bear and shot it. It went up and over the ridgeline. He found it about 100 to 150 yards below the crest of the ridge. This was  300+ lb bear. So instead of trying to drag it back up and over the ridge, he rolled it down to the bottom which had a small river. When he got to the river he floated the bear as he walked down stream until he got to a bridge crossing more than a few miles downstream. It was now well after dark. So he went up to the roadway to flag down some help. A couple of conservation officers saw him and pulled over. They mentioned that they were searching for a lost hunter and asked whether he had seen anyone that might have been lost. He told them no he hadn't seen anyone else. He did ask if they could help him get the bear up to the road and they did as well as offer him a ride back to his camp. As they were talking on the way to his camp they soon realized that he was in fact the "Lost" hunter that they were looking for that evening.