susan649•1mo agoProlific Poster

Suction line clogged with mudfish on the Mississippi near Baton Rouge last Tuesday

We were pulling good material on a routine cut when the vacuum dropped to nothing. Took 45 minutes to find a 3 pound mudfish wedged right in the elbow joint. First time I ever had to pull a fish out of a dredge line. Has anyone else dealt with wildlife jamming up their system?

3 comments

3 Comments

price.gavin1mo ago

Same kind of thing happened to me a few years back on a job down near Vicksburg. We were running a cutter suction on a levee repair and the vacuum gauge just started bouncing all over the place. Thought it was a rock lodged in the elbow, but after an hour of fiddling and pulling the access plate, out comes this skinny blue catfish maybe a foot and a half long. Thing was still sort of alive too, gasping on the deck. Guess it got sucked in through the intake and just got stuck at the first bend. Made me start checking the suction screens a lot more carefully after that, I tell you what.

bell.felix1mo ago

Man I read a story about a guy out in Texas who pulled a whole catfish skull out of his cutter head last year. Thing was like a foot long and had been rattling around in there for days before he found it. Makes you wonder how many critters are just living in our lines without us knowing.

lindal131mo ago

Hell yeah, that's creepy. Bet there's all kinds of stuff living in those dark pipes nobody ever sees.