The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

• Although not at all what they could be, the Dayton area rivers do provide excellent boating and fishing opportunities {the good} . . . see more fish!
• The Great Miami River is plagued with dangerous rebar, protruding from chunks of concrete left over from bridge renovations. {the bad} . . . see more rebar!

These pieces of concrete (with rebar sticking out) have been shoved into the water and along the shore at several of these construction sites.  Not only are they an eyesore and major inconvenience to fisherman, they provide a serious risk to kayakers and/or canoers who could easily be impaled by one, were they to tip over onto a submerged piece.  Many of these dangerous pieces lie hidden under water, especially when river levels are at their normal level or higher.

• Another issue that faces the rivers of the Dayton area is the inordinant amount of trash and litter that is being allowed to enter undetered, every time it rains. {the ugly}     . . . see more river litter!

This litter lines the shoreline, gathers in quiet pools, and covers much of the bottom of the Great Miami River.  Often times a major eyesore, this litter is a blight on our river, and our community.  It also does a lot to discourage people from considering the recreational opportunities our rivers have to offer.  This has a negative impact on our local economy when residents travel elsewhere to spend their recreational dollars, which often includes gas, meals, and lodging.

 Fishing for Smallmouth Bass(a top game fish)  is very good here in Dayton, but it could easily become outstanding with a few simple changes. The GMR has been nuetered to make the shoreline easy to maintain, and almost no efforts are ever made to make it better.  There are countless opportunities, like each time one of the bridges were renovated, but instead of making fishing better, it has been made worse. In the near future, I will be making numerous posts that show my ideas for cleaning up the GMR and its tributaries and making it a more productive fishery.  All of these changes would go a long way toward improving it for kayakers as well.

Here’s one of my posts on this.

Related posts:

1. River Nutrient Removal A serious and growing environmental problem in our country is the vast amounts of nutrients...
2. River Clean-Sweep Apparatus Occasionally I will discover that one of my ideas has already been thought of by...