[tkwalker]

Originally Posted by Lepomis

I was at Cordell Hull dam years ago and saw what I would call a "drift dump" (I'm sure the COE has a more proper term for it). There was a huge amount of woody debris piled up behind the dam. They raised one of the spillway gates clear of the water and sucked the debris, which included sizeable logs, over the spillway. It took a while, but eventually the gate could be closed. This was within a few years after the dam was closed, and there was probably much more drift on the lake then than there is these days.

There's no way to know if that's what you encountered, and I don't know that they still do that, but seeing that much drift suddenly appear that close to a dam sounds like it.

I guided these waters for many years, The drift comes and goes. Primarily in the Spring, which is caused by high water which then recedes. This also causes the bank slides ... The COE Has a work barge that removes the drift in troubled areas, also most of the Buoys have to be reset or replaced... <'TK><