The same goes for Lake Waco. Prior to the 7-foot pool surge in 2003, I spent countless hours surveying and cataloging areas around the lake and tributaries that would collect another 5 to 10 feet of water in the future. So if my memory and imagination got foggy my photos would remind me. I just wish I could find out where to put these things.
Of course, nothing stays exactly the same, and after almost 20 years some of these areas, especially the rivers and streams, have certainly changed. A moderate tide can cut a new river channel with ease, and entire bends in the river can be completely cut off by a high tide, turning a bend into an oxbow lake in a single event.
Oxbow lakes are formed in slow-flowing streams when the current moves on a winding, meandering path as the water finds the easiest route downhill towards the sea. Significant flooding can push the water flow over the bank and erode a new path right up to the next bend, cutting off an entire C-shaped body of water from the stream.
Oxbow lakes are around the world and they have different names, but they are a reminder that nothing in nature stays the same forever. Even if I found these pictures, some of them would be out of date.
Charlie Pack had the right approach to technology – rely on your own skills, then check them out with a device. He stopped at one point, surveyed the coast, turned and scanned another bank, then turned on his GPS and dangled a few feet from his pile of brushes, if not every time I watched him find them was removed.
