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rant

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 1:17 pm
by The Wiz
I fish from the bank at different lakes and ponds and I am sick and tired of the crap that I find on the shores. From fishing line, tackle, empty worm containers, bottles and food wrappers. I have found discarded clothing, shoes, etc. As a Boy Scout, I was always taught to leave your area cleaner than you found it. Apparently, that is not taught at majority of house holds anymore. I am always picking up crap but it does not make any dent in what I see. Any what drives me absolutely bonkers is there are trash cans all over the freaking place! Today took the cake. Two teen boys fishing with father and when they moved on, food wrappers , plastic bottles littered the place. How are the boys going to learn if the dad is head pig. Ok, I am done. I feel better.

Re: rant

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 1:41 pm
by dave77
Really doesn't surprise me. I live alongside a nice little creek, down the road there's a low rent area where houses were allowed to be built very close to the creek (now the state and county have minimum setbacks). A lot of them use the creek in their backyard as a dumping ground. They had a Make a Difference Day clean up a couple of times and you'd be amazed at what we pulled out of the creek. It was mostly a waste of time as we just made room for more garbage.

If they will do it in their own backyards why would it be any different when they are away from home.

Re: rant

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 2:47 pm
by Cofisher
I once hiked 3/4 of a mile in to a mountain lake. And found a dirty diaper rolled up left on the shore. There ought a be a law...Oh wait, there is.

Re: rant

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 4:45 pm
by CT_Shooter
Iron Eyes Cody, an Italian-American who lived his life as if he were a Native American (married a NA woman, adopted two NA sons, and wore traditional NA clothing for most of his life) appeared in an iconic 1971 television PSA that coincided with Earth Day to tell the story of the impact of personal pollution. It made a lasting impression on me (so did being a Boy Scout). Ironically, it was produced by corporations whose product's packaging were and continue to be discarded by thoughtless, careless people all across the country.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm66Ww6qTpA

If you can pack it in, you can pack it out.

Re: rant

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 7:57 pm
by RanchRoper
Leave only hoof prints behind is how I always try to keep it. But we have the same boneheads here too.

Re: rant

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 10:08 pm
by Mags
There was a time many decades ago, before garbage collection came to rural areas, garbage was buried and/or dumped in rural rivers and creeks. Just the way it was back then. The place we live in now is from that time period, one previous owner before us, now deceased. When we bought, the place was overgrown by blackberry and english ivy. Took five years to get the place somewhat cleaned up, the heavy lifting part. Even today 25 years later we're still at it in some places. The house overlooks a creek and I think a lot of stuff in the day went off the back porch and onto the creek bank and into the water. All sorts of glass, plastic, bones, tires, car frames, mattress springs, batteries, oil cans, gas cans, beer cans, oil drums, milk jugs, on and on. Many trips to the landfill cleaning this place up.

Re: rant

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 10:24 pm
by PT7
Iron Eyes Cody, along with many other folk today, would agree with you, RR.
Sure would save many tears and rant laments...
RanchRoper wrote:Leave only hoof prints behind is how I always try to keep it.

Re: rant

Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2018 11:21 am
by clovishound
Having spent two and a half decades diving the local rivers, I can tell you that nothing surprised me to find on the bottom of a river or creek. I could tell a few stories about that.

Of course, I was looking for the "trash" that someone threw away or lost 100+ years ago. I was quite happy to find soda bottles that had been thrown into the river before the Civil War, or as my wife's grandmother used to call it "That late, great unpleasantness".

Re: rant

Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2018 11:55 am
by Mags
clovishound wrote:... nothing surprised me to find on the bottom of a river or creek.
Likewise. The Tualatin River used to be a mess where it passed through farm land. The river and river banks were littered with junk from generations past. Everything from old farm equipment, wagon parts, leather harness, rotting lumber, tires, first and 2nd generation refrigerator carcass, model t bodies and the like. Took years for the Tualatin River Keepers and other sponsors to get parts of it at least cosmetically cleaned up. No doubt still stuff hidden in black berry bramble, buried in the river bank or submerged. There are places yet off limits to canoers and rafters because of hidden dangers.

Re: rant

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2018 1:37 pm
by BrokenolMarine
A friend of ours, we first met on our kayak fishing website, is always going to new remote fishing holes. He asks permission when he can locate the owners and if he can't he'll drag his kayak in and fish the spots if it's accessible for the yak, but will hike back and fish from the bank if it's not. He always takes a trash bag with him and never just picks up HIS trash. His rule has always been, "Leave it cleaner than you found it." He uses Google Earth to find likely spots and found a nice lake hidden behind a power plant, hiked in from the back side and was having a great time fishing when the power company security folks showed up. The lake was outside the power company fences and he didn't know it belonged to the power company. They took him into "custody" and took him to the "Chief of Security's" office.

They were at the top floor of the power plant and you could see the entire lake from the bank of windows in the office. The Chief told our friend that they don't allow fishing on the lake at all, and when HE spotted him on the lake, he sent the boys to pick him up. They quit letting folks fish the lake because they got tired of all the trash everyone left behind. My friend told him that HE always left the locations cleaner than he found them, in fact he had picked up two bags of trash, BEFORE he started fishing. The Chief buzzed his secretary and had them call the "detaining" officer back in and asked him about it. "Yup, he had two large garbage bags filled with trash sitting beside his tackle box waiting to be carried out... he used the same line on us, Sir." ;)

He sent the officer away, and sat and talked with our guy for about an hour. When our guy left, he not only had permission to fish, he had a non-expiring gate pass for the power plant, and a launch permit for the maintenance ramp at the lake so he could fish the lake from his kayak. Less than a dozen employees had permission to fish that lake. 8-)

Our friend is a conductor for a Rail Road running out of Ohio, so he isn't in town much. He only gets to fish there a few times a year, but he'll get a text now and then when he does fish the lake... "Good to see you back." He still fishes trash out of the lake, and off the shoreline. He fills a trash bag he keeps in the kayak. :P