trash talk

For the past 20 or so years the Kraken has been attempting to keep his home kayak waters cleaner. Sure, I would help occasionally, but was never as relentless as Scott. Over the last few years we have been better about documenting the trash we collect on our typical river drifts.
I thought we might show some of our hauls in hopes to inspire others and maybe start a thread where folks can post pictures of the trash they removed from their own sacred waters as well as the occasional useful tackle.
Some of these pictures are disturbing, especially the day we collected 24 flip/flop sandals.
The first is my personel favorite. An old school shot of the Kraken in his Ann Dwyer Kiwi with so much trash packed into it that...well.....check it out.

good for you guys! Never have understood peoples thinking. They can pack all this stuff down to the beach or river but when its time to go they suddenly are to tired to carry everything back out  .

That's friggin' awesome.
When I kayak Tahoe in the summer I like to dive for trash.
It helps develop bottom time and helps acclimate your body to cold water diving.
It's amazingly refreshing too.
Here's something interesting I discovered doing this. Among all the golf balls and beer bottles I have collected what I see the most on the bottom is Bud and Coors cans.

Great Sticky, I've always picked up a little trash on most trips but never made a day of it, great idea,

BTW where were these pics taken, looks like a safe and fun float.

Totally frickin awesome guys, its so easy just go past it all and do nothing. Thankyou

Wow, you had to use that old photo. That was a circa 02/03 trip I did with my dad and the only kayak I still had at that time was my original 1991 kiwi (which I'm way to big for). I didn't fish at that time, so river cleanup was just another thing to do while going down the river. My dad was that cub scout/eagle scout in the 40's/50's and he still loved doing things like river cleanup. First thing you did when camping with him was "police the area for trash" and when we left he would always say "we have to leave the camp site cleaner than when we found it." I guess these things stuck with me.

My first pic is why I do river cleanup. It's just your average day on the San Joaquin River and it can be nasty. REDWOODFOX I totally agree, why would people dump their trash in the same river they fish and swim in? I don't get it?

Earlier this year, it had been slow fishing so I came up to this vegetation mound in the middle of the river to clean and I saw this duck. She was about 12-15' from me trying to lay flat and hide. Very "un-duck" like behavior. Usually, they drift away or dive or fly to the bank. So after a while I go around and I see she's tangled in fishing line. When I grab her, I find she's actually hooked in the right wing shoulder by about a 12# line and that's connected to another thick ball of +25# line. I finally get the duck unhooked, give her a test toss to make sure the wing wasn't broke and both wings came out nicely. I then went to work on the ball of line, clearing it out so nothing else gets tangled in it. So now besides trash, I'll grab these fishing line balls as well.

Anyway, we do actually "fish" on our kayak fishing trips, but when it's slow, river cleaning is just another thing to do.

That is so cool about the duck. Awesome.

 

Great thread and even better for the duck rescue. WTG. 

+1, Outstanding and inspirational!  True Outdoorsmen you guys are.  I've always picked up trash here and there but you guys put me to shame.

Strong work, Men!

Love to see these sort of reports.

All those flip-flops and not a wearable set!!!  Even some matching same-footers, wtf???

WTG !,nice work, the wife and I worked the dam area( on foot ) at Whiskytown lake last summer and filled
2 - 35 gal. trash bags in under 2 hours,( very sad )

Well bless your trash picken heart. That's outstanding.

Great job guys. That's some great karma built up. I get a lot of tennis balls floating around lakes from dog parks along the shoreline. Just watch out for ziplocks of yellow liquid. PB'rs can be ridiculous.

Z

That's a wonderful job guys and well done!! 

I remember one time when I was testing yaks at CCK at Jack London Square after a rainy period . That's when the drains empty into the Bay.  It was sad to see how much trash was floating around.