creek gravel

[TNhobbyfarmer]

FYI, you may need a permit to legally use motorized equipment to dig in a creek.

You are probably right, but what big brother don't know won't hurt him, especially when the creek runs right thru my property. That is probably a controversial statement to some, but just my opinion.

 

[mahlers]

Technically, I never drive a motorized vehicle into the creek - I back up so that my rear wheels are just short of the water, and then I use the backhoe to gather the gravel

 

[Tractors4u]

You are probably right, but what big brother don't know won't hurt him, especially when the creek runs right thru my property. That is probably a controversial statement to some, but just my opinion.

My 250 ft driveway is almost entirely made up of creek gravel from the creek on my property. It is only 12-18 inches deep so I just take the tractor into the creek and scoop away. I tend to have pretty good luck with the gravel. The various size gravel and the sand mix and pack well.

 

[SPIKER]

here is a pic or two of my creek when flooded, I took some pics of it yesterday showing how low in winter and bottom but they didn't turn out on camera, lost them somehow?

anyhow also is a close up of one of the larger flat rocks I was talking about as well


( I pulled this rock (still wet) out of the creek as an example of the bottom material, these rocks are part of the actual local bedrock where the creek is cut into it. the creek is a "Run off creek" that gets its year long flow from a 3~4 acre horse pond up hill. in heavy rains it floods as there is some 400 acres runoff going through this valley of mine. but usually only the seepage/springs flow in summer enough to keep the bottom running at a trickle in august to rain storm fast moving floods as shown below.



I also don't drive in all that much only when creek is dry can you get into it so no damage and all rock bottom makes it easy to get into/ out of. usually I'm using a lot of the gravel along the creek sides to STOP the flooding shown in one of the pics. all that water left some 4~8" of sand gravel mix into my nice park like lawn which sets up and to the left of the top pic and or up and to the right of the bottom pic. also if you click on the pics they will full size in new window. the center of the flow there looks like is a bush in above pic is actually a rock some 5' long and 4' wide flat top but rounded sides & bottom which sets ~1' high in the creek bottom gravel, as it sets now it is almost 2' exposed and still going bigger I tried to remove it but no luck it is too BIG.



I can't get into the section above to get any gravel as I'm standing on my bridge showing the top pic running down stream from bridge and bottom pic is Up stream of the bridge. I can usually get into the creek bottom where all that water is in the middle pic and push/pick up gravel heading towards the bridge (maybe 20' worth of movement is all.) and leave a pile of gravel under the bridge and sometime I have to pull that back as it is washing away under the bridge support on the side up stream for the bridge that arc the creek is making is leaving the bank eroded on the uphill side right of the bridge.


mark

 

[SPIKER]

Today I was out there checking my SAP in the buckets and when I stepped across the creek on my place I took a few pics to show the bottom gravel type that I have and as you can see the flow is from runoff/melt that is going on as it was mid 30's today. clean & clear water most of the year unless they are plowing up stream and or in a high runoff/flood situation.


here are the pics click on thumbnail to see full size of the material I get mostly sand stone as you can see...


hand for ref of size of much of the stone, but a LOT of fines and sand in with it.



the pics above that show the flooding are to my back when looking at these pics and about 20 or so feet down stream is the first one...



shows how clear the water is, when it is down you can find lots of stuff in the creek bottom, no FISH (unless they escape from the pond up hill) but often crawdads and a few salamanders can be found when the woods get real dry under the bigger rocks. just the small common ones never found any of the bigger rare ones. where I keep the bottom deeper (I can keep about 6" ot a foot in about 2 places by damming and or digging down the loose gravel) I'll get some frogs but the coon tend to visit those locations a LOT so they don't last all that long. the woman thinks I'm crazy when I scoop up every one of them and put them in a bucket until I'm done working in there lol. but as soon as it gets dark the skitters come out like mad and you can hear them frogs going after the bugs hehehe

markm