Now this stream should really be better than it is.

[Bigstone]

Everyone knows what happened to the Cardinal. After over sixty years all those rotten Brook Trout in Muskiki invaded it and killed everything off - oh no just the guy in Edson thought they would and wanted to do something.

So the idiot's in charge changed it to a trophy Cutthroat lake where you can keep one fish that is impossible to eat and half of the others you turn loose go belly up. So went the best and most productive brookie lake I have ever seen.

[rycoma]

The way water looks has nothing to do with its ability to support a tremendous fishery. Look at the Elbow river. Oh man the hours I have walked it fishing it. What a pain it just doesn't support the fish the same way the Bow can. Another two examples are Onion creek and hummingbird creek. One is a stellar fishery and the other not so much. Onion sees way more fishing pressure and it still fishes fantastic. Hummingbird is poor to say the least. Both join together into to the south ram and really should be equal. Gradient temperature bottom strata and food are all factors in producing a moderate fishery as opposed to a stellar one.

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by rycoma

The way water looks has nothing to do with its ability to support a tremendous fishery. Look at the Elbow river. Oh man the hours I have walked it fishing it. What a pain it just doesn't support the fish the same way the Bow can. Another two examples are Onion creek and hummingbird creek. One is a stellar fishery and the other not so much. Onion sees way more fishing pressure and it still fishes fantastic. Hummingbird is poor to say the least. Both join together into to the south ram and really should be equal. Gradient temperature bottom strata and food are all factors in producing a moderate fishery as opposed to a stellar one.

My theory on the Elbow is over fishing of whitefish and overall historical biomass removal is not replaced by incoming nutrients.

Some over fished stream may just require some nutrient input to rebalance.

[walking buffalo]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

My theory on the Elbow is over fishing of whitefish and overall historical biomass removal is not replaced by incoming nutrients.

Some over fished stream may just require some nutrient input to rebalance.

What would cause the Elbow to be nutrient poor now compared to historical levels?

I suspect the Elbow is simply suffering from over harvest and degradation/loss of tributary habitat.

And of course the continuous stocking of many farmed fish hasn't helped.

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by walking buffalo

What would cause the Elbow to be nutrient poor now compared to historical levels?

I suspect the Elbow is simply suffering from over harvest and degradation/loss of tributary habitat.

And of course the continuous stocking of many farmed fish hasn't helped.

I see the nutrient load in mountain streams to be a cummulation over thousands of years as it doesn't see salmon spawning and dying and historically animal inputs was not common ie cow and people were not around ie sewage.

So then take the last 100-200 years. People have been harvesting like crazy with no replacement. How many thousands of pounds get removed from the nutrient cycle? Large bull trout, whitefish, cutthroats.

So today can fish really re-establish number and size back to historical proportions in 10 years...25 years...100 years...1000 years. I don't know. The Bow and Crowsnest were fisheries were built on sewage and sustained significant harvest.

I am not completely advocating spiking the creeks with nitrogen etc...however... it would be an interesting experiment.

I feel the upper Elbow would benefit from a nutrient source. Can't over do it however there could be a balance or some short term shots to the nutrient cycle to give it a boast so as to supporting more and bigger fish.

[walking buffalo]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

I see the nutrient load in mountain streams to be a cummulation over thousands of years as it doesn't see salmon spawning and dying and historically animal inputs was not common ie cow and people were not around ie sewage.

So then take the last 100-200 years. People have been harvesting like crazy with no replacement. How many thousands of pounds get removed from the nutrient cycle? Large bull trout, whitefish, cutthroats.

So today can fish really re-establish number and size back to historical proportions in 10 years...25 years...100 years...1000 years. I don't know. The Bow and Crowsnest were fisheries were built on sewage and sustained significant harvest.

I am not completely advocating spiking the creeks with nitrogen etc...however... it would be an interesting experiment.

I feel the upper Elbow would benefit from a nutrient source. Can't over do it however there could be a balance or some short term shots to the nutrient cycle to give it a boast so as to supporting more and bigger fish.

I am still confused with your suggestion that incoming nutrients are being suppressed by human activity.

I'm pretty sure that the repetitive flooding of these watercourses is responsible for keeping them "clean" of accumulated nutrients.

This is the same reason why the Bow was a relatively poor fishery when compared to today. The combination of dams controlling flood events and increasing summer flow rates along with increased nutrient loads from sewage is certainly the cause of today's Bow being loaded with trout.


I suspect that over harvest and loss of tributary habitat is the main reason the Elbow has a low trout population, when evaluated against historical records.

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by walking buffalo

I am still confused with your suggestion that incoming nutrients are being suppressed by human activity.

I'm pretty sure that the repetitive flooding of these watercourses is responsible for keeping them "clean" of accumulated nutrients.

This is the same reason why the Bow was a relatively poor fishery when compared to today. The combination of dams controlling flood events and increasing summer flow rates along with increased nutrient loads from sewage is certainly the cause of today's Bow being loaded with trout.


I suspect that over harvest and loss of tributary habitat is the main reason the Elbow has a low trout population, when evaluated against historical records.

I think I am not explaining it too you well. The biomass removed from the stream via fish harvest depletes the available nutrients built up in fish. Stream are not productive enough to replace harvest as readily as if there was zero harvest and dead fish return the nutrients to the streams they die in. Similar to salmon in BC however not to the same magnitude.

If fertilizer/ utrients were added then the stream gets a biomass boost as a result and bigger and more fish would result.

That is the hypothesis.

[kilgoretrout]

The Elbow has no fish you guys should leave it alone and concentrate on the Bow

[Jadham]

Originally Posted by walking buffalo

I suspect that over harvest and loss of tributary habitat is the main reason the Elbow has a low trout population, when evaluated against historical records.

? Historical records? Makes me curious as to what the Elbow was like, say a hundred years ago.

[walking buffalo]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

I think I am not explaining it too you well. The biomass removed from the stream via fish harvest depletes the available nutrients built up in fish. Stream are not productive enough to replace harvest as readily as if there was zero harvest and dead fish return the nutrients to the streams they die in. Similar to salmon in BC however not to the same magnitude.

If fertilizer/ utrients were added then the stream gets a biomass boost as a result and bigger and more fish would result.

That is the hypothesis.

Yes, i thought you might be intending to be describing the loss of Nutrient load and fish biomass as one.

I suspect that is part of the issue.

I think a more significant issue is the habitat loss in tributaries and old channels,oxbows.
A lot of productive water that held a large non-fish nutrient load and most of the trout in the system, has been lost.

Originally Posted by Jadham

? Historical records? Makes me curious as to what the Elbow was like, say a hundred years ago.

I wish this was available another way, but the author does deserve to make some money for his efforts.


Fish Wars and Trout Travesties:
Saving Southern Alberta’s Coldwater Streams in the 1920s
http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120239

A local Calgary professor from UofC wrote this interesting book a couple of years ago. While George is not a fisherman, as a historian he did a good job researching historical stories and government information on the early days of Alberta foothill fishing. It does give good insight into fish populations and locations of those fish in the early days of Alberta's history, and in particular a great read into how fishermen forced protection of the resource.


If you ever see this George, thanks for the coffee and the manuscript.

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by walking buffalo

Yes, i thought you might be intending to be describing the loss of Nutrient load and fish biomass as one.

I suspect that is part of the issue.

I think a more significant issue is the habitat loss in tributaries and old channels,oxbows.
A lot of productive water that held a large non-fish nutrient load and most of the trout in the system, has been lost.
.

Outside of the reservoir and the recent flood what significant habitat has been lost in the Elbow?

Habitat loss can be a contributing or key factor for sure when applicable. I don't see that in the upper Elbow.

[KegRiver]

Originally Posted by greatbigdiddy

Just wondering if anyone has come across this type of stream in your explorations of this fine province. You know you leave your usual streams for a day of exploration not necessarily to an unheard of secret place but just a place you don't normally go to and when you arrive everything just looks so perfect lots of awesome holes runs and riffles all set out in a perfect way you just know it is going to be an amazing day filled with 18 inch trout of whatever variety but as you hike along casting switching flies switching methods maybe with a little success or maybe none at all but the farther you walk the better and better the stream looks but the big payoff just never comes and you sit there and wonder why ... why isn't this place as good as such and such place it should be there is no reason for it not to be. eventually you head home left wondering WHY? then a couple years later you find yourself in the area again and you convince yourself that you will try it again because you know it has to be a big trout mecca its just to perfect not to ... so you go and start hiking and the story repeats it self once again WHY?

Not quiet the same but I do wonder about some steams around here.
The upper reaches of this whole drainage used to harbor vast numbers of Grayling.
At one time they were so numerous that local trappers used primitive rock corrals to capture them for dog food.

Now they are gone. 0 possession limit and I wonder why. Almost no one fished for them. The few who did, like myself, only fished for them occasionally and seldom kept any. Yet they are gone.

What happened?

There never was a commercial fishery for them. Sustenance hunters did not target them. Much of their preferred steams were not accessible by road.

I've asked some SRD people but no one seems to know.

I have to wonder if the answer may lie in the fact that they overwintered in the Peace River. I did notice that their decline started shortly after DMI opened for business.

Is there a connection? I don't know and if anyone else knows, they aren't saying.

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by KegRiver

Not quiet the same but I do wonder about some steams around here.
The upper reaches of this whole drainage used to harbor vast numbers of Grayling.
At one time they were so numerous that local trappers used primitive rock corrals to capture them for dog food.

Now they are gone. 0 possession limit and I wonder why. Almost no one fished for them. The few who did, like myself, only fished for them occasionally and seldom kept any. Yet they are gone.

What happened?

There never was a commercial fishery for them. Sustenance hunters did not target them. Much of their preferred steams were not accessible by road.

I've asked some SRD people but no one seems to know.

I have to wonder if the answer may lie in the fact that they overwintered in the Peace River. I did notice that their decline started shortly after DMI opened for business.

Is there a connection? I don't know and if anyone else knows, they aren't saying.

Sometimes stopping harvest after the damage is done doesn't fix it in a time scale that we can see.

That NW AB study area went from grayling everywhere to no grayling at all just due to impacts from researchers.

[MrDave]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

Sometimes stopping harvest after the damage is done doesn't fix it in a time scale that we can see.

That NW AB study area went from grayling everywhere to no grayling at all just due to impacts from researchers.

And as we all know, damage one species in the food chain, it can disturb other species.

[let it fly]

As I have been reading through these pages I can't help but wonder what the ph level is like and how has it changed over the yrs. Having moved here 10 yrs ago I don't know a lot of the history. The only reason I bring this up is that I was involoved with the salmon conservation group back east and there was another group in the area that was struggling to see salmon return to the river that once held a healthy population. It was discovered that the ph level fluctuated a lot because of outside influences/ industry/ terrain. Once they saw the ph level balance out( with the help of a lime source in the head waters) fish started returning to the system. Maybe this has been brought up before and I missed it, if not it could be something to consider.

[KegRiver]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

Sometimes stopping harvest after the damage is done doesn't fix it in a time scale that we can see.

That NW AB study area went from grayling everywhere to no grayling at all just due to impacts from researchers.

I don't believe harvesting had anything to do with the decline and therefor I don't believe it will do anything for recovery.

To understand the problem one has to know a bit about the streams they were in, Streams like Grayling Creek, Wolf Creek, Goffit Creek. And many more like them.

These are small streams far off the beaten track where almost nobody goes.
They average a few feet across and a few feet deep in the deeper pools.
They meander through unbroken forest where there are no roads or people.

Research has been done in some of the larger streams to the south, but so far as I know, no research has been done or is being done on this population.
At least I can't find any evidence of research on the internet. And when ACA was conducting a Walleye tagging program here a few years back I asked them about researching Grayling and was told that they were not aware of any work being done in the area with regards to Grayling.

[Jadham]

Looks like an interesting book.