Tales of Strainers Past (not passed)

[Guest]

Crap, that strainer came up unexpectedly, I’m on the fast outside of the curve, and this seat is too low to comfortably get my feet under.

Ok, story time.

I have, knock nearest wood, yet to wrap a canoe or end up gasping for air in a pile logs across the river. But for some Oh Crap desperation moves I could have.

Not to say I haven’t taken a strainer bath, but usually in relatively benign conditions when I was a bit more daring; trying to squeeze under a fallen log in mild current and, ooops, there really isn’t enough room. Or doing the step out and balance on the slipperly log, haul the canoe over and re-board on the other sid. . . . glubglub.

The memorable strainer incidents have involved companion’s mishaps. Running our narrow homeriver at high water with a seasoned WW companion. Let’s re-letter and number to his posting moniker and call him “D3H”.

I knew that stretch of water very well, came around a sharp fast corner and found a new, uh, “sweeper” log across most of the river 3 feet above water. I cannot explain how I avoided swimming, but I did.

Heart pounding I immediately put ashore (I needed to bail anyway) and, knowing D3H was following, looked in my canoe for what I should grab.

Throw bag or camera? Camera or throw bag. Safety first I opted for the throw bag.

I was ready with the throw when D3H came around the corner on an even worse line. He caught the sweeper log chest high, gripped it with both arms, and somehow flipped ballerina like so he was chest down holding onto the log. And then attempted to catch and hold the still upright canoe with his toes hooked on a thwart.

He was successful in toe catching the thwart, but not successful in maintaining that position. He hung there stretched out horizontal for several seconds before letting go with both hands and feet and splatting face first into the river.

When he surfaced I hit him with the best throw rope toss of my life. Which he didn’t need; he and the boat were in the shallows seconds later and he walked it ashore.

Throw bag or camera? Camera or throw bag? I made the wrong choice.

I know some of you have better (or worse) strainer stories. I’ve even seen photos.

Let’s hear ‘em. Probably some lessons to be learned.

.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

Mike,

Your story confirms my constant recommendation that paddlers should run every river as though they are making a first descent. Even rivers they have run many times. Rivers change, sometimes dangerously so.

My paddling career began on rivers around Vancouver, BC. Sweepers and log jams very commonly clog the outside bends. The mantra for Kathleen and me has always been

Where do I want to be?

Inside bend.

When do I want to be there?

Now.

There are obviously exceptions to this mantra, such as when seeking the fast water on a shallow, clean river. But the mantra has served us well.

 

[yellowcanoe]

sometimes the fast water pushes you to doom.. The Current RIver is full of strainers and root wads.. It is a gravel bar river and selecting the wrong channel can require a walk and a carefully choreographed fast reentry to avoid a tandem canoe leaving with only one occupant. This is a gentle river but its amazing how powerful mild moving water is.. Lots of standing in the boat and scouting each unseen around bend..

But I failed to make love with my root wad. I should have given up and hugged it on the left rather than drawing to the right and highsiding it.. Missour water is cold in Oct.

Its always a gamble inside or outside as on that river the worst clogs are often years old from springtime floods and with lower summer water nothing gets flushed out

I will add on the Yukon...where do I want to be to find that historical site somewhere around me.. Other bank. Yesterday

 

[Robin]

Woodland Caribou PP, a small creek between two lakes, straight shot so I had plenty of warning and I spotted a take out rock just above the strainer. Kinda of a nasty carry up and around but it worked out.

 

[frozentripper]

Beauty pic... very nice color. We should have a thread for favorite photos from 2018.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

Ha! Just a few weeks ago.....Not a strainer actually, but a sweeper. Poling with a group (others were paddling) on our local river at low flow. Yes, familiarity does breed complacency. Not paying real close attention at a bend that had a narrow channel. I ''knew" I could just poke the pole toward the outside and push away (done it there before at low flows). This time, even at such low water, there was no bottom. Just like that, I was in the shrubbery, then in the water. Swam right out of it, but I'd managed to hit myself in the face with my pole. Knocked a lens out of my sunglasses and gave me a black eye. If I had just moved to the inside earlier, it would have been a nothing.

 

[ATwaterGA]

My Son or I have guided a Boy Scout troop down the same river for at least 20 times. This year my son was guiding the group and I was paddling with him. We always go first to check out the river. This year we had one bad strainer blocking the only way down a river rapids. It had never been blocked before. Our son enlisted the aid of the senior patrol leader to lift the canoes around a large lime rock to avoid the strainer. It is never the same river.

 

[Guest]

Yes, familiarity does breed complacency.

The most dicey strainer episode I have been involved with was due to my own complacency.

Doing a blackwater run at moderately high water I had kayak friend Vitas trying one of my solo canoes. Everything was going well, and I got complacent about leading the pack. I was back dawdling mid-pack when I heard a shout from ahead “Vitas is in. And the boat is GONE”

I sprinted up to find Vitas safely perched on a strainer pile, but no canoe visible. Vitas had broached sideways in the strainer and, quite wisely, pushed himself up onto the logs using the hull for leverage.

The canoe was fully submerged, fortunately (as Vitas felt around for it) open side facing downriver, but several feet down in the strainer pile, and blackwater invisible. Vitas was safe, so before we extracted him I threw him a rope and asked if he could reach the submerged canoe. He could, but only the tip of the bow.

I asked him to pass the rope through the painter loop, which was a blind, one-handed task.

Vitas did so and after we roped him off the strainer several of us began to try first to manhaul the canoe out before resorting to Z-drag magic.

The pull felt odd, like we were taking up stretchy slack in the rope, when suddenly the canoe shot out of the water like the launch of a Trident missile. Sideways, with some velocity, aimed right at the rope pulling crew, knocking helper Joe off his feet and backwards into the swamp mud. Joe, who had here to fore been dry and clean, was less than amused.

Vitas, in his blind one handed feel, had passed the rescue rope not through the painter loop, but beneath the oversized bungees on the bow deck plate. The bungee had stretched out, miraculously not breaking, and sling shotted the canoe out from the strainer pile when it finally released.

I learned a bunch of lessons on that trip. Leading means being up front, especially accompanying novice canoeists. Throw bags and rescue ropes are your friend, even on seemingly benign swamp trips. Loose gear in the boat may be a goner (we did not recover everything), but even a bailer or small dry bag tied on with a length of cord might have further entangled in that strainer pile, preventing us from pulling the canoe out.

And through hull painter loops are handy in pinned boat rescues. At least if you can see or feel them.
..

 

[gumpus]

I was coming back downstream on the Huron River in Ann Arbor after paddling upstream. It was Spring and the water was faster than usual. I had my black lab in the boat and we had paddled this section hundreds of times. We were in my Bell Merlin II which is great for going upstream but it's not a river boat. Came around a bend where a submerged rock wall blocks about 80% of the river. Was a bit off ideal line so decided to spin the boat around and point it back upstream to give myself time and space to get back on line to go through the 8 foot opening in the rock wall. Was much too casual about spinning the boat and didn't quite make the u-turn and ended up solidly pinned against a downed tree. I'm now sideways to the current with water coming up to just below the gunnel and the dog giving me a worried look. Best thing I did immediately was nothing...I took a few moments to think about the situation. Ended up slowly and carefully pulling us back into the main flow by grabbing branches of the tree we were pinned against.

Not sure of all the lessons learned. Probably should have just backpaddled instead of playing arou d with u-turns. For sure I should have horsed the boat around much more aggressively once I decided to spin it around. I do think it was good that I didn't immediately try to power out of the situation once we were pinned since we were right on the edge of getting swamped. It was also a good reminder that lake boats aren't the best river boats.

 

[Odyssey]

Alder Tea Strainers
On an Algonquin stream years ago we chose to forgo the shortcut portage and allow the fun high water to sweep us around a few fast bends to the eventual takeout. This is normally a dainty paddle but heavy spring rains had swollen the ribbon of tannic stained stream into a brute. We've never been moving water advocates but it looked like fun so off we went. Besides, it wasn't very far to the takeout so how hard could it be?! Willow scrub and alders leaned and waded out into deep water on both sides which made the maneuvering more annoying than thrilling. The flow took us bumping and sliding over stream slick logs all the while trying to draw and pry between the tea water strainers on both banks. It stopped being fun after the first bend but there was no changing our minds. Normally lazy knee deep water was on this day chest deep and roiling; the knitted branches on both banks fenced us in to the channel. Not really harrowing but it was harassing. Could've been worse, we easily could've been pinned and swamped. How little water does it take to drown in? That was neither the first nor the last time we paddled that stream, but I'll never again underestimate the mood swings Mother Nature throws at us. Fun fast little swifts can be adventures but the slow road of portaging has become more appealing to us these days. A dry uneventful walk in the woods suits our leisurely pace in life nowadays. Call us lame and tame, I'm not bothered.

 

[pblanc]

I have helped extricate pinned canoes from out of and under strainers a number of times, and once broached and pinned a kayak on a rock in strong current on the Ocoee due to inattention. Fortunately, that boat came off with help and the big dent in the bottom popped back out, mostly.

Kim mentioned the Current River which brings back one strainer memory. Many will recall the Federal government shutdown in October of 2013 which affected the Current River as much of the upper Current and the campgrounds on it are part of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways which is under the National Park Service. Our Ozark Rendezvous group had planned to meet at Pulltite campground on the Current the second week of October but had to divert to the North Fork of the White River due to the shutdown. But the shutdown ended toward the end of that week we were on the White, so a few of us decided to do a quick day run on the Current on the way back home. I believe the date was Oct. 20, 2013.

There were four of us in three boats, my wife and dogs and I in a fairly heavy 16' whitewater Royalex tandem, and two other pretty experienced boaters in solo canoes. Counting our gear, dogs, and boat, my tandem probably constituted a total weight of around 500 lbs. We all knew the stretch of river from Pulltite down to Round Spring very well and didn't anticipate any trouble.

The problem was that virtually nobody had run the river for a week or two so nobody had reported any new obstacles to the outfitters or Park Service. In the latter half of the run we came upon a new strainer. If you enlarge the photo you will see there are actually two trees down. The upstream tree had fallen a good while earlier and represented a speed bump log that could easily be run over at the low spot. But the tree a half boat length downstream with leaves still on it had obviously come down within the last week or so.

My wife and I were following a pretty experienced solo paddler a short distance ahead of us when we came upon this. My vantage point from the rear of a tandem behind another boat and boater was pretty limited, but I could see my friend had decided to go for it, apparently thinking he could jump the second tree or somehow get around the river left side of it. It quickly became very clear to him he could do neither and was attempting a back ferry toward the gravel bar at river right, which would have been very difficult since the trees were so closely spaced. The back ferry didn't work to get him out of trouble but it did present his boat nearly broadside to our tandem, and there was no putting the brakes on. There was no way I could cut to the left or right of his boat to strike the second strainer head on. We smacked his boat, sent the boat flying over the log and my friend under it. Fortunately, there was a deep channel there and no limbs sticking out the bottom to trap him, so the only casualty was a pair of boots he had loose in the boat. My wife and I were left in a bit of a ticklish situation broadside on the tree in the current. I had to get her out onto the tree trunk and then the gravel bar, then get myself up on the tree and do a lift over of the boat with 50 lbs of dog still aboard.

Bill W. will recall a well-pinned canoe he helped extract from under a strainer on the Buffalo River a couple of years ago. Not his boat or mine but a member of our group.

 

[Guest]

Bill W. will recall a well-pinned canoe he helped extract from under a strainer on the Buffalo River a couple of years ago. Not his boat or mine but a member of our group.

Wasn’t Willie’s canoe pinned atop that boat in that same strainer?

Throw bags and rescue ropes are your friend, even on seemingly benign swamp trips.

A tale on that throw bag topic. I now bring a throw rope on every trip, even on solo trips where I can’t very well throw it to myself. The few (fortunately I can count on two fingers) times I wished I had a throw rope and didn’t outweigh that minor inconvenience.

I was the Master of Ceremonies at a Canoe Orienteering Contest. Hand painted scrap wood “Duckheads” on stakes, hidden in the Marsh, denoted on a hand-out map with compass headings from a piece of surveyor’s tape at the water’s edge. As part of the set up crew I was ineligible to participate.

Side note – The set up was at least as much fun as participating in the hunt, maybe more as the production crew got more and more devious as the years went on. To wit:

“OK, #17 is 87 feet NNW of this surveyor’s ribbon marked on the edge of the marsh” Except that 87 feet NNW is measured across the water to the other side of the gut, and you landed on the wrong side before looking at the compass dummy.

“OK, this one should be easy, #20 is only 15 feet from the tape”. Except the flag tape is in the middle of a 200 yard long bank of pluff mud (we landed 100 yards away and salt marsh cordgrass hummock jumped over from there to place the marker).

Friend Vic landed directly at the flag on one such challenge, turtle swam spread eagle across the pluff mud surface in a wet suit and reached a marsh grass hummock only to turn and see that his orienteering map had fallen out 30’ from shore, resting smearily atop the pluff mud. Er, yer gonna need that map Vic, best flail back across to recover it before trying for the marker.

We held that Canoe Orienteering contest in the Fishing Bay Wildlife Management Area, a salt marsh with no end of guts and sloughs and back marsh lakes.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/F...df28f732edacd05!8m2!3d38.3312586!4d-75.931808

Friend Chip brought a spry bowman (lady) one year, an experienced Tough Mudder participant.
https://toughmudder.com/

Their sneaky plan was that Chip would put Tough Mudder Lady ashore on one side of the circuit, and she run a few miles across the marsh collecting tokens while Chip paddled the perimeter, capturing what he could on the outside rim.

Maybe not the best plan. Mudder Lady ended up on the far side of the river, after having swum across the serpentine river channel and assorted wide guts multiple times, not quite sure where she was, with no Chip in sight.

Where was I in Canoe Orienteering tales? Oh, throw bags. A newbie threesome showed up one year with an ancient and ill-kept Old Town Berrigan. They had crudely set it as a 3-person boat, with a third seat attached in the center cargo area.

It looked to me like an entrapment capsize disaster waiting to happen. I had brought a couple of spare loaner canoes, just in case, and put them in what I had left on the van, a Penobscot 16.

Not the best choice. They paddled 30 feet out into the river, performed a completely wrong-in-every-way pivot in the tidal current while I watched, and all instantly swam.

Dammit, I’m not even paddling. My task is just standing onshore waiting to welcome the contestants back, what the heck would I need a throw rope for?

It was a holy mess getting them and (my) boat to shore, and I really could have used a throw rope. Since then I bring a throw rope on every trip.

Beyond that each of our vehicles has a stuff bag with an old PFD, a throw bag (some DIY’ed), some spare rope and straps, and etc. Those stuff bags are the size of a shoe box - OK, a boot box – but I spend a lot of time around paddle-able waters, and it is a comfort knowing I have that stuff available in each vehicle.

That old PFD, throw bag, rope and straps have come in handy a time or three. Especially the throw bag; I would really like all of my companions to have a throw bag in their canoe. To throw to me, dammit!

BTW, that silly Canoe Orienteering Contest was the most laughs we ever had as a group of paddling friends, First, Second and Third Place finisher awards, Muddiest Canoe Award, Last Place Award (a new compass). We did not have Participation Trophies, but we really should have.

I highly recommend setting up a devious Canoe Orienteering course if you have a half dozen or more paddling friends or belong to a paddling club. It will absolutely serve to heighten the participant’s map and compass skills, and their situational awareness, if not their level of trust in the devious set up crew.

..

 

[Guest]

The mantra for Kathleen and me has always been

Where do I want to be?

Inside bend.

When do I want to be there?

Now.

There are obviously exceptions to this mantra, such as when seeking the fast water on a shallow, clean river. But the mantra has served us well.

The shallow part applies to my narrow homeriver in the original post. That steep valley serpentine river is sometimes less than 30 feet wide at the turns, and anywhere near the inside bend the canoe grinds out in the wide gravel bar shallows.

Even on some wider rivers the inside bend is often best avoided. On the Green in Utah the river is plenty wide, but often oppositionally windy. There is usually a decent current, but in the too frequent 20+mph up canyon headwinds riding the faster bubble line close to the outside bends is the place to be.

You can see bankside Tamarisk sweepers or cliff projections a mile away, but I hate to pull off that fast moving bubble line too soon, and have had a couple of too close for comfort brushes with inattentive disaster.
..

 

[PaddlingPitt]

The shallow part applies to my narrow homeriver in the original post. That steep valley serpentine river is sometimes less than 30 feet wide at the turns, and anywhere near the inside bend the canoe grinds out in the wide gravel bar shallows.

Even on some wider rivers the inside bend is often best avoided. On the Green in Utah the river is plenty wide, but often oppositionally windy. There is usually a decent current, but in the too frequent 20+mph up canyon headwinds riding the faster bubble line close to the outside bends is the place to be.

You can see bankside Tamarisk sweepers or cliff projections a mile away, but I hate to pull off that fast moving bubble line too soon, and have had a couple of too close for comfort brushes with inattentive disaster.
..

Kathleen and I have also paddled rivers, particularly the Thelon, where ledges projected out from the inside bend. So we went outside. But still, our default position remains the inside bend.

 

[Will Derness]

Bill W. will recall a well-pinned canoe he helped extract from under a strainer on the Buffalo River a couple of years ago. Not his boat or mine but a member of our group.

Epic day on the river for mishaps. 4 swims with one resulting in the canoe getting stuffed into a strainer.

Our group was able to extract the canoe. It took 2 throw bags to accomplish it and one thing I noticed was my rescue partners on the other side of the river each had their throw bags in a waist belt. No rummaging around for things when they left their canoes, just get to shore, leap out, and head upstream.

I had a throw bag, but in my haste to get ashore and back up river I neglected to grab it. Made me decide to upgrade to a waist belt throw bag.

One year later that waist belt bag came in handy. This past spring I got an opportunity to run the Boxley section of the Buffalo River for the first time. Hard to catch the Boxley section up, but we again had flooding and were able to wait until levels were mid point of the runnable levels. Approximately 3/4 ways down river we came upon a surprise double S turn that weaves through strainers, the last of which takes 3 of our 6 canoeists out of their boats, myself included.

After recovering to the shoreline I found myself alone on the high bank across the river from my partners on the lower gravel bar. That throw belt on my waist let me make a downhill throw across the river and my 5 companions held on as I jumped in and pendulum swim/swung to the other side. When I left the canoe, there was NO time to grab anything.

 

[Will Derness]

Wasn’t Willie’s canoe pinned atop that boat in that same strainer?

No that was another Buffalo River event which occurred several days prior to the one Pete mentioned. Here is the tale of the only time I've had a boat of mine pinned.

The Buffalo River was running high following two springtime floods. Lots of new wood was on the river. For a week NPS Rangers have been on the river searching for a missing canoeist, lost while camping in those floods.

The groups I paddled with waited until river levels dropped into safer ranges, but trips were complicated by downed trees adding navigational challenges. Good boat control in swift water was called for. I had been paddling a week in these conditions without a problem.

Taken by surprise by a swift, very shallow (too shallow for an effective draw) current running 90 degrees to the main current I was shoved into a strainer on the bank and buried my canoe in the strainer. I flush out, but the canoe stays put, tightly restrained by the spread of 3 sunken limbs each about 4 inches in diameter. After getting to shore, returning to the strainer, and climbing out next to the canoe I discover there is a yellow kayak underneath my canoe. These boats are not coming out without a saw. I've got one - securely stashed in my canoe.

It is my great, good fortune that while standing on a strainer limb admiring my problem, NPS rangers came upon us in a jon boat and motored over to render assistance. They were part of the crew of rangers involved in extracting from a tree the body of the drowned canoeist who had been found a short ways upstream of us. Recognizing a saw was needed they radioed their comrades and left to go upstream and get a hand saw.

In the 30 minutes or so the rangers were gone another 5-6 boats got waylaid by the hazard. 10 swimmers, lots of gear floating away and a 3rd boat, blue kayak, gets stacked on top of my canoe. When the rangers return with the saw they did all the work to free the 3 boats ; my wrapped canoe is freed, driven to shore and stomped back in shape (Royalex) and paddled back to camp.

Later that week a paddler who is a soils scientist explained the pattern that forms
the side current that surprised me and is a common feature in narrow gravel rivers.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

I wasn't there, so I can't really know about your side current. But Kathleen and I often paddled rivers with gravel bars, which produced a side current more or less 90 degrees to the main current. In such situations, we usually forward or back ferried down the side current of the gravel bar.

 

[yellowcanoe]

Let's sing a tale of an underwater strainer that trapped a canoe that it's owner had lost a hold of while going across a log upstream.. You know the sort you can't paddle over. This time the hungry river was also an Ozark Stream ( those mild looking things can be vengeful). The North Fork of the White River in Missouri.
The renegade loose canoe floated downstream overturned partially filled till it met a branch that did not quite meet the surface. The webbed seat caught in the snags so badly that even a z drag did not work.. It was required to get in the water with a knife and cut out the webbing . April water in Missouri is cold.. And then after the boat rescued an ad hoc session on weaving rope to make a seat to finish the outing!

 

[Guest]

After getting to shore, returning to the strainer, and climbing out next to the canoe I discover there is a yellow kayak underneath my canoe. These boats are not coming out without a saw. I've got one - securely stashed in my canoe.

In the 30 minutes or so the rangers were gone another 5-6 boats got waylaid by the hazard. 10 swimmers, lots of gear floating away and a 3rd boat, blue kayak, gets stacked on top of my canoe. When the rangers return with the saw they did all the work to free the 3 boats ; my wrapped canoe is freed, driven to shore and stomped back in shape (Royalex) and paddled back to camp.

Willie, that’s the one I was misremembering. Maybe the most clusterF#$% strainer tale I have heard.

The renegade loose canoe floated downstream overturned partially filled till it met a branch that did not quite meet the surface. The webbed seat caught in the snags so badly that even a z drag did not work.. It was required to get in the water with a knife and cut out the webbing

Despite my preference for webbed seats over cane that is one instance where cane might have been better, or at least easier torn free from the snag.

That kind of snagged in a strainer possibility gives me pause when considering leaving in naked float bag lacing, and is one reason I prefer a float bag lacing system that is easy to remove and reinstall.

I’m not keen on using line between gunwales to tie in gear for similar reasons. Or even simply tying a bailer to a thwart (which stymied me in one boat-over-boat rescue).

When securing gear in the boat I rarely tie lines across, using D-rings on the floor & sides and webbing straps instead.

In that strainer snag possibility having spray covers installed may be a preventative help.

 

[yellowcanoe]

The dog would have not permitted that
The dog was bounding along the shore ISO her boat
The paddler standing on the log wondering wha hoppen
and the boat seeking its own trouble