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It took me a while to hike the riverbed from the South Street bridge down to the islands. (I was hesitant to access the river from the Lathrop Forest Products lumberyard during their working hours.) There is a woods trail on river right that eases the walking for part of the distance.
That said, I cut the stuff near the top of the right channel that I wanted to, and then headed down to just above the S-turn to check out the big log that has been stuck there for the past year(?) or so. The good news is that it's aligned with the flow and is very passable on river left and is completely clean — no bark or branches. However, it's about 20 feet long and is supported on boulders at 4 points, with 3 long gaps. (The gap farthest downstream is the smallest.) The log is high enough above the bottom in those gaps to let a swimmer pass (probably) but low enough to pin a boat. It's pretty worrisome to have a hazard like that in the primary channel through those islands.
By the time I got down there it was too late to consider starting work on the log. It will be a hard project for a hand saw, because the log's downstream half is probably a foot or more in diameter, and the wood is well-seasoned ash or maple. A chain saw should make fairly quick work of it, with due caution as the pieces come free and start to roll.
Rolling the entire log off the boulders and farther to river right is another option. That would require a crew and some smaller logs to use as pry bars.
