South Fork of the Eel mussels.

The Top three photo's are what I call the Eel River Papershell Clam. (anodonta californiensis)

I was talking to a young friend of mine today about the terrible load of gravel in the South Fork of the Eel River. I explained to him what the river used to look like before the '55 and the '64 floods. He is a person that is very familiar with the course that the river used to take in the area of Tooby Park. He told me that he has a photograph taken from the air of that area from the 1940's. He said that it showed the huge whirlpool that was just above the bridge that goes to the airport. He was impressed by the size of it. I told him that in the summertime we used to jump off the rock bluff just west of the bridge into the hole, and that nobody could dive to the bottom of it. He said that he had heard many stories about how deep it was. I told him that the flat piece of concrete under the bridge is where they used to bolt the community diving board. He didn't know that. As I went on talking to him I began to realize that, as much as he knew about the river, and where it used to run, he didn't really know much about what the flora and fauna of the river used to be like.

My friends and I used to call the big whirlpool “The Lorelei”, after the legend about the ship eating whirlpool on the Rhine called the Lorelei. ”Lorelei rock, the point where the gorge is at its deepest and the Rhine at its most treacherous - the rock and attendant whirlpools claimed the lives of many a sailor in days gone by” We used to wonder if any boats ever got sucked into it.

In the winter when the water was high and treacherous, we would walk out on the bridge and watch the logs coming down the river get sucked into it. They wouldn't spit back out again until just in front of the rapids that were beside Tooby Park. The logs would swirl around the edge of the whirlpool a few times, then they would up-end with one end straight in the air, and slowly be pulled under. When they popped back up again downstream, they usually came up at an angle like a whale breaching.

The whole summer of 1955, when I was ten years old, I lived in the stretch of river below Garberville. So I was very familiar with the river before the '55 flood. I told my friend about the top ten or twelve feet of water being warm, and in the bottom of the holes the water was icy and still. We would imagine that there were monsters down there. It took a great amount of courage to dive to the bottom of some of the holes. Those of us that swam in the main Eel River by Alderpoint, or Fort Seward, had seen twelve foot “Monster Fish at the bottom of the holes. Fish that we were not sure whether they were fish or alligators. Kids can scare the hell out of themselves with just a small amount of imagination. The “monster fish” were green sturgeon that used to be here in great abundance, in the main Eel river, when the holes were deep and cold.

I told him about the abundance of trout and fish that lived at the bottom of the warm water, right at top edge of the cold water. I told him about the great abundance of fresh water that welled up as a spring that came out from under the Redwood grove just east of Tooby Park. Large schools of fish lived in that spot, the water swirled, and so did the fish, they moved around at all levels like you might see in an aquarium. I would spend hours as a kid watching the fish and trying to imagine what kind of fish that they would grow up to be. The fish were steelhead, silver salmon, king salmon and several kinds of trout that the Old German immigrants had planted. It was hard for me to tell them apart, but there was a great variety of fish.

Along the banks, and under the large car size boulders that were in the river, you could find small catfish that we called “bullheads”. Some of the banks of the river were undercut. The roots of willows and other shrubs held onto the surface soil and the river would undercut small caverns into the banks most of these places would have Sucker Fish in them. We would use homemade broomstick spears to spear them and throw them onto the bank. The game warden would say that it was alright to spear the suckers, but to leave the other fish alone.

When we got tired of “exploring the river” we would go back to the swimming hole and let the girls flirt with us. The area under the bridge was a popular spot in the summertime. Most of the kids from town would be down there, and a lot of families would eat a picnic dinner down there. The Chamber of Commerce would build a barrel and board raft every year, and anchor in in the swimming hole. The girls would usually take over the raft for sunbathing. No boys allowed! It was the legendary “Old Swimming Hole”.

The sandy edge of the swimming hole was teeming with baby Eels. If you took both hands and scooped up the silt, just under the water, it would be filled with baby eels about three inches long. They were great for chasing the girls with. We would look for the tell-tale signs of a crawdad. They burrow in around the edges of rocks near the edge of the river banks. You can tell because the mud looks freshly moved. We used to use raw chicken liver to lure them out. If you were incredibly fast, you could catch then with your hands. They were great for chasing the girls also.

When I got around to telling him about the fresh water clams and mussels, he was surprised. He had never heard of fresh water mussels in the river. Then of course I was shocked that he hadn't heard of them. They were important to the local Indians. They used the shells for spoons, scoops, scrapers and jewelry, and just about anything else that you might imagine. They made great buttons. The mussels are very long lived. Some live to be fifty years old, some as old as one-hundred years. They are filter feeders and live off the crap that settles to the bottom. You can find them along the edge of the river in the muck in between the roots of the willow banks, or in the front edge of a riffle, were the muck of the river bottom starts to turn to the rock and gravel of the riffle. They are usually about two inches long. They are hard to see, they look just like the other muck on the bottom. But if you look carefully you can see their clean lips. Most of then will come loose with just your hands.

How do they move upstream you ask??? Good question, but the answer is even more ingenious. The spawn attaches themselves to the gills of fish. The fish swim around awhile, then the mussels drop off and start a new colony. The mussels can be found far upstream, even in small creeks. They are found in great abundance in the South Fork of the Eel. Laytonville creeks and the headwaters of the South Fork at Branscomb have many Mussels. You can even still find them around here. But you have to know just a little bit about the river.

They are an indicator species. Much can be told about the river from shells, because they live such a long life. I would imagine the the two floods just about wiped them out, so there will not be that many that survived the '64 flood, but some must have survived, because they are still here. I am still surprised what people don't know about the river!




This bottom photo is a Pearl Shell Clam (margaritifera falcata)

lINKS:
Eel River Papershell Clams
Fresh Water Mussles South Fork of the Eel