On Saturday, Nov. 28th, six intrepid members of FATC’s Stream Team #4907 caught a beautiful morning to make the 1/3 mile hike through the woods of Robertsville State Park in Franklin County to visit our remote sampling site on Calvey Creek, at the southeast edge of the park.  This outing was lead by Michael Chambers, and the rest of the team in attendance were Steve Baker, Sterling Short, Peter Harre, Chris Roth, and Dan Staggenborg.
Although we found that our sampling site had changed significantly since our last visit, and that it has been steadily eroding into a neighboring farm’s hayfield, the stream itself was in remarkably good condition, much better than our last visit when we found it very silted in and almost no bugs to be found.
We found quite a lot of bugs (macroinvertebrates) on this visit, with most of the types found being very sensitive to pollution – indicating that the water quality this time was very good.  The fly tyers in the group got a good look at Caddis, Mayfly, and Stonefly larvae and nymphs, got to see a Hellgrammite and a smaller specimen of the Crane Fly larvae, which Kenny refers to as a Mopfly nymph).  I think the main lesson learned here was that the actual bugs are usually smaller than the imitations that most people tie.
In addition to surveying bugs, we also measured the water flow rate, which we found to be 36.13 cubic feet per second, the highest flow we’ve measured here.  We also did the tests needed to determine the water chemistry levels of nitrites, dissolved oxygen, and chlorides, and measured the temperature, conductivity, and pH of the water – all indicators of pollution levels in the stream.

There was very little trash found, but we did dig out two more old tires to add to our growing mound of tires we’re building up in the woods out of reach of the stream.  Finally, for the deer hunters, on the way in and out we crossed and followed several deer trails, saw several rubs including one on about a 3 in. tree, and also ran across one very well-defined classic buck scrape.
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Michael Chambers