The summer has presented us with a never ending supply of angler and non-angler opinions as to fishing quality since June 22 & 22, 2013, when the Bow River and Highwood grew to levels not seen by anyone alive today.
It all started with "experts" indicating the fishery would be decimated, news media showing a single fish left on Memorial Drive but leaving the impression that populations were decimated. A few weeks later some media did interviews with individuals who make their living from the river who basically said things would be "business as usual". And most recently there were television reports with Bow River guides who, on television, said that fish populations were the same as previous years, somewhere around 2500 fish per mile.
Well, as we get to the end of a summer's guiding season it's pretty clear that we are faced with some changes to the river. Obviously, the appearance has changed. Never have we seen the significant changes to the Bow River channel that were left after this past June. Having said that, this flood didn't play by the rules. Normally, a large flood event will tend to widen and shallow a river channel. This one did that in some places but for the most part the increase in depths along banks is amazing. We lost some great old standbys (holes, runs, back channels, etc.) but we gained a bunch of really neat new stuff. Some of the new bar structures between Calgary and Carseland are pretty cool.
When it comes to bugs, they're all still there (don't know about the fall Baetis, we'll see). Without question, pretty much every species is affected this year. Certainly more sporadic, often appearing later, and arguably less in numbers, the bugs are impacted by a flood event of this severity. We are seeing bugs in enough numbers to bring fish up though, particularly in the last few weeks. Trico and Pseudo fishing has been pretty darn good of late. We saw the same type of thing in 2005 but things got back to normal in 2006. The Hopper fishing has been inconsistent, sometime great, other times hateful. But if someone told you that we were going to get almost non-stop rain from Mid-June until Mid-July, approaching record levels would you predict a banner hopper year.
Lots of this size around. Lots of rainbows, some browns.
And then there's the fish! The recent "expert" opinion on television, stating we still have 2500 fish/mile is very questionable. Ultimately we will see, there is annual electro shocking under way right now. The data will follow. Hard data aside, it's pretty obvious the population dynamics of fish in the Bow River are changed. We lost some fish. But before everyone freaks out, address all of the factors:
- A ton of people have made mention of the loss of this years Rainbow spawn. Without question it would have been entirely, or near to it, lost. This is not uncommon. High water events (and just as commonly, low water) result in loss of rainbow recruitment. This does not have a huge impact! Only when spawning efforts are lost in consecutive years will we see much effect.
- The adult Rainbows certainly fared better the the Browns in the flood. We are seeing good numbers of different size classes. From what our guides are seeing, we did take a hit on our over 22" Rainbows. But we are still seeing the odd one in the "very big" class. And there seems to be a good supply of 14"-16" specimens. Those will be our trusty 18+ fish next year.
- The Browns, certainly those over 18", took a whalloping! There are less around. The number of decent anglers who have told me they haven't caught a Brown this year is troubling. This is confusing, flood events don't diminish populations like this. But, if you take into consideration the number of 18+ Browns that were affected
by the "Sapro" fungus, combined with a record flood event it might explain things.
(Stressed fish + flood=mortality) Given what we were seeing last season, peaking last fall, and present again this spring in Browns, Rainbows, and Whitefish, maybe this was the best thing that could happen.
And before we get on the doom and gloom bandwagon, there are still a bunch of truly big Brown Trout out there!
We have been spoiled on this river, especially in the last decade, by the number of big Browns as well as the relative ease in which we could do it. If we (anglers, public, government) are careful, our Brown Trout will come back just fine!As an example, last fall when Sapro was getting out of hand, we contacted SRD about enacting emergency closure regulations on the river in and near the city. This would have negated the handling of these fish, which is recognized as being a major factor in the spread of Sapro. Were told that, in the opinion of the other flyshops, and SRD, there wasn't a problem. Well, in retrospect, that green, fuzzy stuff killed more fish than any flood!
Maybe it's time we put the long term health of a fishery over pissing people off, selling flies, etc.
Anyways, to wrap things up, the status of the Bow River.....things are going to be just fine. To put it in context, I know a bunch of people who spend a lot of money to go to Patagonia (both Argentina and Chile) for a week and see a whole bunch of 16-18" Rainbows, a decent number of 14-18" Browns, and maybe catch a two foot
Brown Trout (without lying) during that week. Sounds a lot like what we have today, on the Bow River!
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Thoughtful piece, thanks JIM
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