Black bear road

[bobcat2]

Hello all,

People love to fish the outflow of the dam I work at, the problem is that it is a swampy mess to walk the last 100 yards of, and the road getting to that is horrible at best. I'll put a short description of what we have done, but I still need to get some end result pictures.


Here is what we started with, you can see how swampy the area is.

Getting a basic footer dug. I think we hauled about 15 loads of the worst smelling mud out using a 5 ton dump truck.


Here we're starting to get the geocell and drainage lines installed.

After a lot of #4 and 2A stone.

Had to clear brush next.


After the brush was cleared, I was able to clear off mud from the concrete.

 

[bobcat2]

The road to get to the outflow was pretty bad, I've always called it black bear road after C.W. McCall's song. Due to big rocks protruding from the base that was built using spoils from the dam construction, we never plowed it in the winter, figured since I had the equipment down there, I'd dig them out, how big could they be?




After all of the rocks were removed from the road bed, I added roughly 75 ton of #4 stone to the swampy areas, and I'm not even going to guess how many ton of 2B I used to put a surface on the 1/2 mile of road.

 

[bobcat2]

I need to get some after pictures of all of this, but after the heavy construction was done, we added some creature comforts to the outflow fishing area and canoe launch like bear proof garbage cans, benches, and utility tables.











Even made a friend.

 

[SupplySergeant]

I need to get some after pictures of all of this, but after the heavy construction was done, we added some creature comforts to the outflow fishing area and canoe launch like bear proof garbage cans, benches, and utility tables.

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Even made a friend.

I've never referred to a snapping turtle as "friend"! More like "HOLY CRAP that thing is huge, get out of the pond!"

 

[bobcat2]

Lol, I've been pulling buoys and seen some that wouldn't fit in a 55 gallon drum. We pull 3 or 4 about the size of the one in the picture out of the spillway each year.

 

[KennyP]

Turtle soup?

 

[bobcat2]

Not me, used to have a guy that would save them.

 

[Shorty]

I helped butcher a few snappers as a young lad. Tough critters.

 

[oldedeeres]

Have you ever had one bite on a minnow while fishing? Can't say as I recommend it, but I will tell you that they can pull like crazy and truly resent any efforts on your part at removing the hook when you finally get one landed.

 

[olcowhand]

Have you ever had one bite on a minnow while fishing? Can't say as I recommend it, but I will tell you that they can pull like crazy and truly resent any efforts on your part at removing the hook when you finally get one landed.

Many a time I "thought" I had a large catfish hooked, only to find when I dragged it close to shore that I had a big ole snapper on my line!

 

[Toomanytoys84]

me and my son were catching baby snapping turtles the lake last year. Piece of worm on a hook and they would snap it up. It was a bear to cut the barb off the hook and slip the hook out of their mouth though! Little guys would try to tear your hands off.

 

[Sawdust]

Nice work on the road I'm sure a lot of folks will appreciate that. When our girls were little they were playing with a pretty good size snapper. I had a branch messing with it to show them how mean this "pretty turtle" could be. That thing jumped about 6" off the ground & snapped my branch like a toothpick. It surprised me too!

 

[Greasy6020]

Nice work on the road I'm sure a lot of folks will appreciate that. When our girls were little they were playing with a pretty good size snapper. I had a branch messing with it to show them how mean this "pretty turtle" could be. That thing jumped about 6" off the ground & snapped my branch like a toothpick. It surprised me too!

One time I was bumming around on the back roads, came across a snapper on a bridge... let’s just say even though I had the steel toe sh*tkickers on, I was careful getting him off the road. I ended up punting him off, so nobody would run him over...

For scale, that’s a size 14 boot

 

[SupplySergeant]

One time I was bumming around on the back roads, came across a snapper on a bridge... let’s just say even though I had the steel toe sh*tkickers on, I was careful getting him off the road. I ended up punting him off, so nobody would run him over...

For scale, that’s a size 14 bootView attachment 18439View attachment 18440View attachment 18441

I stop for box turtles on the road and put them in the grass, but I draw the line at wildlife that is meaner than I am!

 

[Greasy6020]

I stop for box turtles on the road and put them in the grass, but I draw the line at wildlife that is meaner than I am!

Note the words “punt, steel toe, sh*tkickers” lol

 

[Toomanytoys84]

I never worried about that kind of stuff in the road till I started driving a car again

 

[Greasy6020]

I never worried about that kind of stuff in the road till I started driving a car again

I never worried about that when I drove my Honda Civic. Granted I got it for scrap price and got a BS safety certificate from a co op education program...

 

[JDJake]

One time I was bumming around on the back roads, came across a snapper on a bridge... let’s just say even though I had the steel toe sh*tkickers on, I was careful getting him off the road. I ended up punting him off, so nobody would run him over...

For scale, that’s a size 14 bootView attachment 18439View attachment 18440View attachment 18441

We had a real big one down in the creek on the farm dad worked on. He had a nice deep hole under the bridge going up the access road, about 6ft deep there. We headed out to do some field work one day and he was in the middle of the road. My dad stopped the tractor and grabbed a broom handle we kept on the tractor ( didn't know why until that day). He started to shove it off the road and then it spun around and proceeded to snap about four inches off that broom handle. Dad finally managed to get him off the road and needless to say I stayed as far away from that bridge from that day on.

 

[MFDAC]

Looks like an interesting job you have Bobcat! Nice work getting the place more accessible and less prone to erosion! Where are you at?

When I was a kid we lived right on a creek. We had a kiddie pool in the yard for the dog to cool off in. I found a snapper, he seemed huge to me! Somehow me and a buddy got him in that pool to show all the other kids. Even went down to the crick and caught a couple sunfish and thew in there for it to eat. Needless to say he was getting pretty cranky being cooped up in that pool! Do you think we could get it back out? No way! We finally decided that since everything that get near he bites so I went and got a broom. Thought it was going to be simple, bite the handle and flop him out. Nope handle just broke when he bit. I found a shovel and that handle didn't last either and now I had to explain the broom and the shovel to Mom when she got home from work! We finally found a tree branch that was big enough when he bit we got him flopped out! Chased him towards the crick and he hit the water!

We have them wander around at work a from time to time too, but they seem to stay away from the water clarifiers at least. They just head back to the crick there too.

DAC