In the summer the river can slow to a trickle. It's also dotted with oxbows and old impoundments on the river, some side channels, and on tributaries. So there are plenty of places for stuff like leeches and sunfish, or worse, fallfish, to take up.

Be a lot cooler if we restored the natural water course and cleared some of the more swampy parts, as with any river. Less leeches. More trout.