Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Foss
Just going to throw this out there....... CVR may have been stocked in the same way but it is still a different lake with different hurdles. I believe through help of the a couple bios on board, we have somewhat unofficially established that PCR has an issue with blue-green algea that is creating a issue for establishing high populations of forage foods..... In order to compare one lake to the other, it is only acurrate if the both suffered from all of the exact challenges. And when considering lakes, each one has its own DNA so to speak.
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Even though CVR gets Bow River water, there are similarities between PCR and CVR in terms of water quality. Also, both are offstream reservoirs with inlets and outlets placed along adjacent areas (not flow through systems). As discussed earlier, this is not the best arrangement as it creates ideal water column stability for growth of cyanobacteria. Thus BOTH reservoirs suffer from nuissance blooms of cyanobacteria (infact we did conduct sampling on CVR this summer and fall to document phytoplankton community assemblage and biomass - results pending analyses).
I think there are some key differences between the two that influenced the initial biota and the resulting fisheries of each reservoir.
In the case of CVR, construction of the reservoir incoprated two existing mature waterbodies - namely Barkenhouse Lake and adjacent "South Reservoir" (see Atlas of Alberta Lakes). Resident species (incoporated into CVR) include: white sucker, longnose sucker, shorthead redhorse, burbot, fathead minnow, spottail shiner, trout‐perch, and brook stickleback (Mitchell and Prepas 1990). This means CVR had a diverse assemblage of fish including forage fish to feed a growing sportfishery.
Unlike PCR, CVR was originally stocked with brook trout, brown trout and rainbow trout during its first year of operation in 1985. These species have varied diets and are not strict piscivores. Only later was CVR stocked with walleye (over a three year period from 1990 to 1992). In addition pike and trout migrated in from the EID north Canal system.
So compared to PCR, CVR likely possessed far more biodiversity and thus a more balanced ecosystem able to support large predatory fish species - from the time the reservoir was created.
I think with time PCR will balance out a little more. What's needed is greater diversity in its biota.