It Ain't Over Till The Fish Don't Swim

The season is winding down as temperatures fall. Things are getting lethargic, and soon they’ll disappear. Riffles that were chock full of fish become barren and soon trips are more for experiencing the architecture of the stream than they are for watching the drama of aquatic survival. Every winter I chase life till it mysteriously disappears. I want to know where the fish go when it gets cold, and each fall I learn the winter time fate of another species. I look forward to the November when I discover where all the other species go.

While its time to celebrate the fall harvest, and give thanks, this time of year I often find myself mourning the loss, even if only temporary, of schools of fish and abundant macroinvertebrates. I certainly didn’t expect to see life still making a living two weeks before Thanksgiving on the Brandywine. This trip was more about logistics: finding good access points, and getting a feel for the hydroscape. This trip to the Brandywine was going to be one about structure more than life. I wanted to learn the topography of riffles and pools of this part of the Brandywine that is bordered by the ChesLen preserve, in preparation for trips I hope to run this summer. ChesLen is the largest privately held preserve in south eastern Pennsylvania at 1,263 acres, and is owned and managed by the Natural Lands Trust. Natural Lands Trust (www.natlands.org) has preserved 21,000 acres in eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and I look forward to exploring the underwater world of all 40 Natural Lands Trust preserves.

The water in the Brandywine was invitingly clear. Clear that I haven’t seen since I snorkeled the Conesauga River in Cherokee National Forest. This was going to be a good trip regardless of whether I saw shiners or trout or darters or any other life. Stream structure and geology can be just as intriguing. I waded into knee deep water and laid down over a sandy bottom. It was difficult to hold against the strong current without any rocks to grab. Drifts of sand played across the bottom as mica flecks sparkled. Small scalloped dunes formed and washed away with each flow change in this temporary place. I crawled upstream on fingertips and toes and headed toward the cobbly middle. Brilliant green algae with strands of red covered the rocks and stood at down stream attention. Orange yellow quartz boulders were scoured clean of any growth on their upstream sides, and perfectly round smoothed caddis fly cases were glued fast.

I enjoyed trying to solve the puzzle of the Brandywines geologic past. I admired how water shaped rock and rock affected water, and how the hydroscape reflected all of these eons old forces to produce this view that lasts for just this one moment in time and then is forever changed. I noticed a cylindrical tube of fish hunkered down into the gravel, between two pieces of mica, which drew my attention to this spot. I would have never seen this northern hog sucker if it weren’t for the glint of mica. Northern hog suckers are one of those fish whose wintertime whereabouts puzzled me. Is this where they go for the winter? Are they always present, but are just so well camouflaged that I can’t detect their presence unless I am literally on top of them? Their motion gives them away when its warmer and they are more active. They usually shoot off before I can decipher them from their background due to their cryptic coloration. But this one stayed put, probably because of the cold and I was able to appreciate its gold tipped fins and green banded body.

The force of the water was still tremendous here in the center of the stream so I struggled upstream and toward river left, where a nice eddy swirled behind a finger of gravel that protruded into the river. As I crawled along I found two spiny checked crayfish mating in the gravel. More life and the drama of its procreation here on the cusp of the winter, when life slows, hides, seems to just hang on. But maybe that’s just my perception based on not seeing life out and about flaunting its existence the way it does in our summer time streams. Maybe life is always there and abundant. We just need to look in the right way to see it, from the right perspective.

I floated into the eddy and rested. Movement caught my attention. A school of common shiners with brilliant peach pectoral and anal fins fed in the drift. The fish held against the current, then drifted down stream, shot into the eddy and repeated in a swirling calculated pattern of hunting for prey I couldn’t see. They were intent on feeding so my presence was hardly noticed, except that they enjoyed devouring the stuff I inadvertently kicked into the water column as I clawed upstream.

The cold water started to chill through my dry suit and fleece layer. My mouth was getting numb and hands were hard to move. It was time to leave. I let go of the rock that kept me stationary on the edge of the eddy and floated in the lifeless flow. There was plenty of life there below me between the rocks and cobble that I couldn’t see, just nothing obvious in the water column. I enjoyed the weightless flight as the current pushed me downstream so fast boulders were blurred. It ain’t over till the fish don’t swim, and even then, it ain’t over.

Moonlight Snorkel

It’s a few weeks before Thanksgiving and I need to get into the water. Shorter days and longer nights mean I need to snorkel in the dark, which is fine. Except that I don’t like the dark very much. But still, I like snorkeling more than I dislike the dark, so I decided to take advantage of the first full moon after Halloween to get into the river, mostly just to get in, but also to experience this other worldly realm.
Terrestrial systems are different at night. They look different, they feel different. There are different creatures out. Things act differently. But still they are familiar. I expect the night time Octoraro to be completely foreign. This place I have visited underwater hundreds of times I am sure will be hard to recognize.
I get to the waters edge and look over my shoulder frequently. I am thankful for the full moon that lights up the stream valley with a warm blue hue. But I wouldn’t call it welcoming. There is a lot of human history here, and I have experienced a lot of the more recent tragedy. I have responded to drownings, overdoses, fatal car accidents, and shootings, all within a mile of this spot, and their ghosts seem close. So while the guiding moon light takes the edge off my nervousness, I’m still a little jumpy.
I zip up my dry suit, wriggle into my hood and mask up. I step into the stream, lay down and am instantly disoriented. This spot I have visited thousands of times is so different in the dark, where I can only see whatever is illuminated in a small foot wide circle of light. Familiar boulder, log and root land marks are hidden.
An eel rockets upstream out of my beam of light. They are supposed to be migrating right about now, on a no moon night near Halloween, so I figure I missed them by a week. Or maybe this mythical mass migration a just a ghost too, a figment of what once was. I’ve never seen it, and I’m pretty sure this eel is a young one who is just out hunting tonight.
Algae covers the bottom and waves in the current like fine black hair. Leaves in the drift come into view just before they strike my mask, which makes me more nervous. There doesn’t seem to be any fish, but I think I’m looking in the wrong places, or they take off as soon as my light touches them. The bottom is a monotonous expanse of sand and gravel, in a stretch of stream that should be riffle. Erosion puts more sand and gravel into streams and covers the nooks and crannies of a diverse habitat like rock and cobble, which cuts down on the number of species and individuals present. It looks like a hairy desert at night, and the algal fur comes from too much nitrogen that we unintentionally put in water by driving too much, not maintaining our septics, and overfertilizing our lawns.
Rocks come into view it seems only after I am right upon them, even though my beam extends ten feet upstream. A small school of minnows hang and feed in the eddy. Finally some life besides algae. Even though they are a non-descript muddy brown, their metallic sides glisten when my flashlight catches them just right. Always hidden beauty. Vision confined to a light beam becomes normal, and I start to head upstream into the current. I hope to see more nocturnal life, to observe the night time workings of this familiar day time ecology. Just as I get used to the unsettling feeling of leaves striking my mask without warning, and restricted vision, my light quits. I am in the middle of the stream with no light, and leaves plastered to my mask by the current. Time to leave. I drift towards the bank where I started and haul out of the stream.
Moonlight reflects like white paint swirled on a black sea as I un peel from wetsuit hood and dry suit. I feel more at ease. The only real ghosts here are the ones I concoct, and the ones of clean and abundant streams past.

Jumping Back In

I haven’t been in the water for 3 months, at least not to snorkel for the sake of snorkeling. I led some ridiculously large trips with kids on the upper Chesapeake in 1 foot visibility that turned more into free swims than snorkel explorations of bay grass beds. The trips got kids who never swam in the Chesapeake into the water and a few of the 100 students I saw each day for two weeks really got into snorkeling. For the majority it was a loud screaming free swim. Not a bad thing, necessarily, especially for kids who otherwise would have never had the chance to experience the Chesapeake. But they weren’t the snorkeling explorations I envisioned when I organized the trips. A few factors led to the dry hiatus, and I really started to question the point of it all. Water stayed murky late into the summer, so visibilities never really got good. The more I questioned why, the more it seemed that human existence, even at its most basic simple level, meant impaired waters. What actions could creek snorkeling possibly inspire that would improve water quality if human existence impaired it? Funding for environmental education continued to get slashed and while there was (and is) a ton of hype and saber rattling about no child left inside, funding for environmental education programs is not only lacking, but diminishing. Opportunities to get kids out snorkeling seemed to be disappearing. Thunderstorms dumped, rivers got muddy and flashed, water levels slowly receded and the mud settled. But the small windows of clear water seemed to always conflict with my schedule, so I finally conceded to what’s the point, and quit trying.
I felt the effects of not being in water. Water is so primal to our existence. We need it physiologically, and I need it spiritually, so after three months without being in a creek I started to feel disjointed, ungrounded, and floundering on land. I decided it was time to jump back in.
I stood on the bank of Basin Run on an early November afternoon. I knew the water was going to be cold, and wasn’t sure what to expect. There have been a lot of big flows between the last time I was here 4 months ago and now, including the largest rainfall event since Hurricane Agnes in 1972. I expected things would be different and not necessarily for the better, but this spot on the side of the creek still felt like home.
The stabbing sensation of frigid water on my face and hands felt comfortable. There weren’t the mounds of sediment I expected after the heavy runoff we had over the summer. Rocks weren't smothered by sands and gravels. The bottom, while different, was the same as I remembered it: cobbles and boulders, clean of sediment and sand. I pushed upstream against the swift current and fresh cold water shot down the front of my wet suit. I crested a line of cobble and boulder and watched a school of black nosed and rosey sided dace hold in the pool. Even the fish are here. The point is, to answer my question from three months ago, that life goes on. Rivers flow. Things change, but there are also constants. Basin Run is here, and it will be. But it will be different. Life finds a way. Creek snorkeling helps me remember these truths, and this short dip reconnected, reengaged, recentered and reinspired me to take up the cross of clean water once again.

Feeding Frenzy

I could hear the faint clicking intensify as the school approached. Then the bottom of the river downstream of where I lay started to wriggle, and I realized that the school had arrived beneath me. The stonerollers were here. They moved across the bottom in a crazed grazing frenzy. Hundreds of them in the same school swam along the bottom scraping algae from rocks as they moved upstream. Their sides flashed silver with every twisting bite they gouged from the algae covering rocks and their jaws snapped, which explained the clicking sound. Stonerollers are some of my favorite fish partly because of the elaborate stone piling mating rituals the males use to attract females in the spring. But I also like them because they are really a non-descript fish for most of the year. However, careful observation reveals how well adapted they are for keeping algae in check in our rivers and streams, and the non-descript, even unnoticeable, become incredible. Their mouths slightly protrude downward, and hard bony plates on their upper jaw leave u shaped scrapes in rock coating algae. Dr. Mary Powers conducted an interesting exclusion experiment. Bass are stone roller predators, so she excluded stone rollers from sections of river by keeping bass there, and eliminated bass from other sections. The sections where the bass were kept became overgrown in algae. This demonstrates the importance of the stonerollers to the system, but it also illustrates the often unnoticed, and very hidden interrelationships between everything in nature. Everything matters and as John Muir said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” Algae, bass, and marauding stonerollers.

Swimming With Snakes

Misidentified and Misunderstood
“There’s a copperhead down there in the creek bed. I wouldn’t go down there.”
“Thanks for the heads up” I said and continued to the stream as people piled out of a favorite swimming hole. Better visibility and more room for me. I knew it wasn’t a copper head. It was a northern water snake. The same kind of snake that bit Mike Rowe numerous times on my favorite Dirty Jobs episode.
Water snakes like any animal, including humans, will lash out when threatened or captured. So Mike was bitten time and again. I have never been bitten by a water snake, but then I’m not trying as hard. I don’t like snakes. I like to watch them, but I’m not big on handing them. Water snakes are common this time of year, and every time I see one in the water, I try to swim with it, but usually can’t keep up. They are incredibly striking animals, graceful and adept in the water, and fast on land. Unfortunately they are constantly confused with the poisonous copper head. Water snakes are not poisonous and will not come after people. Their diet is almost entirely fish and it is really amazing to watch them hunt and successfully snag a fish that are often surprisingly large for the snakes’ body size. But still they are regularly the target of rocks thrown by people who just don’t understand how harmless they are or how important they are to the stream system. Maybe they just can’t see past their unfounded fear to notice the beauty and agility of these extraordinary reptiles.

Still Clear

I’ve driven over this little non-descript and forgotten stream hundreds of times on my way to and from work, and each time I peer over the low barricade on the short bridge to get a glimpse of the water, and every time it looks clear, even after heavy rains. But it’s a small creek and not very accessible due to fast traffic and overgrown banks so I never considered exploring it. I decided to snorkel this stream when I got frustrated with the seemingly perpetual murky condition of other streams in the area due to flashy downpours this early summer season. This stream never seemed to be affected, and I wondered if this was just an illusion, or if the water really was clearer.
I struggled through the climbing bittersweet, and poison ivy, to get to a pool that was out of sight from the road. I was paranoid about being confused with a body, which has happened before.
As soon as I stuck my face in it, I knew the water was clearer. Fish were abundant and diverse. Tessellated and johnny darters sent small puffs of sediment into the water with every jerky leap off the bottom. Chubs slowly came in to explore what I was, and nervously shot off into the distance. A common shiner in reddish hue breeding color danced before me as blue gill and pumpkin seeds put on aggressive displays to defend their nests. A small school of northern hog sucker worked the bottom and I’m pretty sure I saw a stoneroller. It was like swimming in an aquarium. While the water is clear, it isn’t without impact. Algae covers everything.
I checked out this tiny gem on the map, to try to determine why it stays clear when many of the other streams in the area turn brown after rains. It’s called Stony Creek, and its watershed is about 40% developed, mostly in new houses. So, this stream should be as muddy as the others, unless the storm water management requirements of newer construction, like storm water retention ponds, work. Maybe that is why Stony Creek is clear, but overfertilized. We have required technology to reduce heavy flows that come from impervious surfaces, which reduces scouring flows from reaching streams like this which results in clearer water. But we haven’t done too much yet to control nitrogen runoff, which makes this stringy algae that covers everything in this stream. Stony Creek gives me hope that maybe newer storm water management regulations do work in reducing sediment loads to our streams, which translates to healthier streams and clearer water to snorkel. And lots of fish to see.

Creek Snorkeling Isn’t Braille Diving

I heard a diver describe local diving conditions as braille diving because you dive by feel, the visibility is that poor. I used the same language when I was an avid diver and knew that there wasn’t much to see on the bottom of the deeper holes on the Susquehanna, or in the quarries turned diving destinations. But still, his comment bothered me, even if he did have a point. Maybe it was because that perpetuated the attitude that there isn’t anything of worth or value to see or protect in the rivers and streams in our neighborhoods, which certainly isn’t the case. But I think his comment hit a nerve because I caught the same attitude creeping into my psyche. There is a seasonality to water clarity here, and it seemed that the better summer visibility was really late in arriving. It seemed that in the last week I walked to the waters edge, gear bag in hand, watched clouds of sediments blur the bottom, shook my head, turned around and went home more than I got into the water. Maybe the comment from this diver bothered me because my reality, living in the developed east, is muddy water, compared to other places like Cherokee National Forest.
So when I got to the Octoraro tonight and saw less than clear water, my first inclination was to turn around. But it has been a few days since I was in any water, and it was hot, so I decided to get wet. I crept along in a foot of water with the bottom in clear view. Three feet of visibility might mean you can’t see anything in 60 feet of water, but in a foot of water everything is sharp. A small mouth bass confronted me behind his rock, circled around and confronted me again. Must have been in his territory. Further upstream, the water deepened, and things on the bottom of the four foot hole were hazy, but recognizable. I swam over a two foot long catfish. A small rapid dumps into this deeper pool, and I let the upstream eddy carry me into it.
A few male satinfin shiners were in a dog fight over prime breeding terrain. Their dainty iridescent blue dorsal fins and silver white pectoral and pelvic fins fluttered and flared like butterflies in a stiff breeze. I was able to watch this mid water column display of glowing blue and silver-white for quite some time as the males defended their spot, and enticed females, while creek chubs fed on the bottom. One of the males mistook me for another satinfin shiner and flared right in front of my mask. Maybe he saw his reflection in the lens. Either way it was an incredible display. The water was murky, and I couldn’t make out more than the outline of a large bedrock slab four feet away. But that didn’t matter. I had plenty of visibility to witness the beauty and drama of the Octoraro this evening. Creek snorkeling isn’t braille diving.