Leaf dump on the way this weekend.

[Red Childress]

Get ready for a leaf dump on the middle and lower sections of the river this weekend. Kinzua is going to dump some extra water which means bank leaves will be washed in along with the rest still falling off the trees. Old weeds will be pulling free as well.

[RapRunR]

It was amazing the amount of leaves falling yesterday driving up to Warren !!!

[Red Childress]

They will clean out of the dam area pretty quickly but the rest of the way to Pittsburgh might have some issues if trying to run a jet.

[Red Childress]

According to the ACE discharge forecast, the flow increase starts today so the bank leaves should be cleaned out by the weekend. Now we just have to see how many will hit the water with the 21mph SW winds coming on Saturday.

[lowbidder]

A month ago when the water was in the 70's I didn't care so much about jumping into the water to clean my intake, but I had a bit of a problem with leaves two weeks ago that left me in a real bind.
So I stopped at home depot on the way home that day and picked up a few things to make a home-made weed rake. It's narrow, angle-adjustable and just under 6' long to fit in my rod locker.
The LoPro's don't come with a fancy foot-powered intake cleaner! :)

[Red Childress]

I used to put a piece of "screen door" screen over my intake during this time of year so when I shut down the engine, most leaves would fall off instead of being sucked partially into the intake grate. Worked pretty good.

[lowbidder]

That sounds like a good idea. How did you keep it in place... tie wire?

[Red Childress]

Yea, tie wire.....used the little twist tie thingamagig like you would use for securing rebar (sp?).

If you use the real tightly meshed stuff, it caused too much disruption in water flow creating cavitation. The stuff I used had the holes about the size of a nickel. Long XXXXXXXL size dishwashing gloves also came in handy to keep hands and forearms dry when yanking out the stubborn ones.

[Red Childress]

Just thought of something Mike........you have an intake like me so it might be impossible to put the mesh on it. I forgot you upgraded to the inboard gig.

The wire/mesh trick works pretty good on outboards.

[SportJet120]

I went with a grate that has closer tines and seems to help keep leaves from getting jammed in the intake. I also run an inboard jet. I also made up a rake just in case like Mike did but mine is plastic and says "Dora The Explorer" on it. LOL.

[lowbidder]

Lol... I'm a tinker and tend to go overboard... no pun intended.

Kevin from RiverPro gave me a good idea about the weed rake...Put a piece of pipe insulation around the handle near the rake end. That will give it additional bouyancy and help keep the rake up near the grate.

[McDunnoftheAllegheny]

I hit the river today winds were already picking made boat control a lil hard,theres definetly some leaves but not as bad as I expected. trolling was definetly out of the question though even with rods down in the water i was still picking up alot on the lures.