June 21st, 2025 - BRCS Betsie sweep
Jacqui Morgenstein | Published on 6/21/2025
Two groups cleaned the Betsie with the Benzie Conservation District. Recent rain meant a fast and deep river, quite a challenge just below Homestead Dam.
We were met by a lovely group of people from the Benzie Conservation District with muffins and cut fruit. Unfortunately when Bill and I arrived at the posted time of 9.00am, a lot of people were already there and ready to run the shuttle. So while we unloaded our boats, others just took off leaving Bill and Brian not knowing where to go. There were maps provided, but it's so much easier if everyone goes as a caravan train. One of the organisers led them down but their main worry was that the shuttle group might not know to wait for them.
Paul and Irene Marcussen led a group of 7 from the Winding River Campground down to the Smith Bridge takeout. They all got a lot of trash of all sorts, including some fishing line (but not as much as was on the higher section.) The most memorable thing was Irene deliberately grounding her kayak on a tree stump so that she could hold Paul's kayak while he stood up to reach 3 tangles of line in overhanging branches. Nice team work!
The other group of 8 (Wayne and Leslie, Gail, Terry, Dave Regalbuto, Brian Wolf, Bill Hyslop and Jacqui M) cleaned from Homestead Dam to the Betsie Riverside Resort (just the other side of the M31 bridge from Winding River.) Of course everyone was eager to get started and since there was no trip briefing, the early birds took off while the later ones finished getting their boats ready. Which meant that the group spread out right from the start.
Wayne and Leslie did a grand job with their spiked stick, standing up in their canoe to reach the hundreds of tangles of line high in the trees. The rest of us in kayaks retrieved the nests of line from the banks, on logs and hanging from the lower branches. Each knot of line contained multiple gel balls hiding hooks which snagged them tightly to the branches. Quite a challenge and very time consuming. All of us got a good haul - which looked much less than we felt it should because the fishing lines didn't take up much space in our bags!
However one of the consequences of the lack of the briefing was that people forgot that the we should keep each other in sight and particularly not to let the last person be alone. I found myself out of sight - and sound - of anyone several times that afternoon. I was particularly careful when I realized I was alone because self rescue in that speed of flow would not have been easy.
The other was that the instruction to keep left of the island at the end was simply passed by word of mouth from boat to boat and not everyone got it. The sight of several people going right was enough to tempt Dave to follow them and I (last as usual) did not want to go it alone again so I went with him, thinking that I knew where the takeout was - just before the bridge right? But of course, there was no landing there, no houses, nothing, just a marsh and a big grassy bank up to the bridge. Fortunately Norm texted me to say that Bill was lost and to look for him. So I phoned Norm and found out that we just had to paddle back upstream about 200yds into the left hand branch to reach the landing. Meanwhile Bill had actually dragged his boat up that grassy bank and walked back to the landing for his truck.
In spite of these learning points, we all had a good time in great weather and I will happily do this trip again, encouraging the Conservation Group leaders to channel their inner Lois next time!
This snake was tiny - maybe 3 or 4" across the whole coil
