I knew a guy that built a pontoon for salvaging sinkers back in Little River area in NorCal- it was welded 55 gal. drums for pontoons with an arch over the top and a winch, one old growth log at a time he get from upriver and would deck them at the mouth of the river on the beach. Considering back in the day they could take schooners nine miles up river and now you can barely get a canoe upriver thats a lot of sediment to cover old growth logs. They used to blow up temporary dams in the spring and send the logs to the coast, losing some.
He was shut down because nobody had figured out the env. or ownership laws. Funny thing is it was really just a cover for his upstream farming operations......
I brought some American Chetnut scraps home the other day and am working on a little piece from slivers I "milled" out with a table saw. BUT, there's a whole log (about 50")down there on the side of the mountain, I keep reminding my boss to send the jammer back to that perch and yank her out to see if theres anything in it- I bet you could get at least 20% recovery with a lucas type mill. We pulled a oak burl out that was 5'x6' the other day. Just for fun.....another piece to sit at the log yard, maybe I'll slab it out one day.