Old timer on the Mississippi taught me a trick about reading the current that saved me 3 days of work

Last summer I was working a job near Baton Rouge on the Mississippi and this guy named Hank who's been dredging since the 70s comes up to me. He pointed out how the surface ripples tell you exactly where the sandbars are gonna shift, not just where they are right now. He said "son, you're fighting yesterday's river" and showed me a specific ripple pattern that means the bottom is gonna move in about 4 hours. Has anyone else picked up something like that from an old hand that just made everything click?

2 comments

2 Comments

alicesingh27d ago

Yeah that ripple thing is legit, an old deckhand on the lower Mississippi showed me the same pattern and it saved my butt more than once. He called it "the river telling you its next move" which sounds cheesy but honestly it works. I still catch myself looking for those ripples every time I'm on the water.

simon71727d ago

...and honestly, I used to roll my eyes at stuff like that. I figured if you knew the river well enough, you could just learn its patterns the hard way over time. But then I saw Hank do his thing and watched a sandbar shift almost exactly when he said it would. It kind of humbled me. @alicesingh is right, it sounds corny but once you see it work you can't unsee it. Now I find myself scanning for those ripples every time I'm near the water too.