Watching a Creek Die!

[Don Andersen]

I must apologize. I posted this onto the Fishing Section of this Forum and finally realized there was very few ice fishermen/walleye guys interested. The creek is typically used by FF types and perhaps they are interested. I copied the info here.

regards,

Don



WATCHING A CREEK DIE! ONE MAN’S OBSERVATION

It isn't pretty but it's happening to the premier spring creek in Alberta. The North Raven River [Stauffer Creek] is internationally renowned. From when it was first stocked in the late 1920's or early 1930's it was largely ignored by most anglers and like a lot of streams in Alberta was severely abused by agribusiness. In the late 1960's the Red Deer Fish and Game funded Fish and Wildlife [now Alberta Sustainable Resource Development SRD] to do a fish population study. The study plus the availability of monies raised from the newly created Buck for Wildlife Fund resulted in tens of thousands of dollars spent on livestock exclusion fences, bank stabilization and land acquisition. The Fish and Wildlife Division efforts were augmented later by thousands of volunteer hours, plus further thousands of dollars from the Central Alberta Chapter of Trout Unlimited. As a result the fish populations exploded.

Way back about 2002 or so I had a gut feeling that Stauffer Creek was suffering some type of problem as the number of decent fish I and others were catching dropped dramatically. The drop was to the point that most anglers voted with their feet and didn't go there any more.
My gut feeling was reinforced by the Alberta Conservation Association's [ACA] Population study undertaken in 2005. It showed a marked drop in larger brown trout. The brown population peaked in 1985 at 770 fish/km decreasing to 400 in 1995 and falling further in 2005 to 270.

In an effort to confirm what I "thought" was happening, over the past 6 years I have paid attention to the number of redds that I see and to that end I've walked the upper reaches of Stauffer upwards of one-half dozen times each fall/winter looking for evidence of spawning trout demonstrated by the amount of redds. For example, in the section just downstream of the Buck for Wildlife parking lot, the redd count dropped from 14>16 five years ago to 12 fours years ago to 9 three years ago and dropped again to 5 last year and finally to 2 this year. This is a 85% reduction in just the last five years. Other sections showed much the same decrease.

For the complete report see my web site:

http://bamboorods.ca/Stauffercreekstory.html


regards,


Don

Interesting observations. I was wondering if the didymo takes over that stream in the winter/early spring? Brown trout numbers have decreased in several areas of Alberta over the last decade, one factor finally being discussed is didymo and effects on incubating eggs during the winter. Just wondering if it could be occuring there?
Would definelty be nice to see some research done along the Raven to see what's occuring fish population wise. Appreciate your takes on it.

[pikergolf]

Sadly Alberta lacks the resources to tackle stuff like this, our bio's are overworked as it is. I wonder if clubs would be willing to take over some of the work, creel surveys come to mind immediately. Don't know what the answer is, no matter what the question is, everyones got an angle and the F&W is left to sift through everyones angle and try and find what's best for the masses. The chit storm over wanting to place restrictions on random camping and off road vehicles comes to mind, how do they deal with all those opinions?

[Bhflyfisher]

Frick throw some rainbows in there and be done with it......

Ive voiced my concern on the other thread.

[grinr]

I just read your report Don,and the most obvious thing that I took from it,if not overly simplistic answer,is possibly predation?It mentions an increase in brook trout over the same time period,which I think suggests two things?
One,that water quality isn't the issue,since as far as I know(?) browns can tolerate less favorable,warmer,siltier water conditions better than brookies can?A healthy brookie population is generally a good indicator of a healthy watershed.And two,that perhaps the increase in brookies is having a negative effect on the brown population thru predation on eggs and fry,if not directly responsible for the decrease?
Mink and otter are also mentioned but the effects of their predation seems to be dismissed as minimal,apparantly because they haven't been observed streamside very frequently,which is a mistake IMHO?
First of all,both mink and otter are generally elusive animals,mink especially so.Think back over the years how often you've actually seen mink in the wild?Not very often I'll bet?But they are there nonetheless.Hell,aside from walking 100s of miles of streams fishing over the years,I also trapped for the best part of 2 decades,and I can say without question I've trapped far more mink than I've ever seen running wild.Same goes for otters to a lesser extent,since they are substantially larger and more visible.Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they aren't there,and any trapper worth his skinning knife could walk a stream and observe the tell tale signs of mink and otter on streams where they are rarely if ever observed in the flesh.
On otters,they often have large territories or circuits that they run,covering miles and miles of interconnected lakes,streams and rivers.Sometimes that circuit takes them 2-3 weeks to run full circle.Otter trapping is often an exercise in patience,and setting on hot sign from yesterday might mean 2-3 weeks before that otter returns to that location.As predators,they can absolutely devastate sensitive,isolated trout populations during winter in small lakes,ponds,and beaver dammed streams where the trout can't escape.They will literally clean out a beaver pond of trout before moving on to the next.Lastly,it appears that the decline of trout began not long after the end of the fur boom in early 90's when fur prices crashed,lots of trappers hung up the steel and furbearer populations exploded in many areas.In NB,I witnessed the effect that an explosion of coyotes in the 90's contributed to the demise of our whitetails,which have never recovered to this day and I'm not optimistic ever will due to other contributing factors,most significantly the change in forestry practices over the last few decades.Eastern coyotes are a relatively new predator,first appearing in NB in the 50's,and filling the niche of wolves that were for all intents and purposes extirpated around the turn of the century,allowing whitetails to thrive almost predator free for close to a century.Coyote numbers for decades were kept in check by high fur prices,but when the fur market crashed,they overran the entire east coast,even finding their way across ice flows to PEI first and now NFLD also.That said,I don't think it's too big of a stretch to surmise that a lack of trapping pressure and the likely resultant increased mink and otter populations could have a serious effect on trout that were doing quite well when furbearers were kept in check thru trapping pressure?

[Pudelpointer]

I fished Stauffer early last spring and had an otter pop up onto the bank right behind me. I was mid stream and hadn't touched a trout... or seen a trout, all afternoon (about 3 hours of fishing). When I saw that toothy bugger I clipped off my fly, reeled up my line, and walked back to my truck.

As much as I think otters are beautiful and fascinating creatures, they will severely impact a fishery like the N. Raven in short order. Unless the local trapper is targeting those buggers (I have no idea if otters can be targeted in AB or not, and if so, how many can be taken in a year) they will significantly reduce the density of trout in a stream.

[Fisher_man#1]

Looks like your doing your part to save this stream at least, as no one else seems concerned.

Only fished it once, not a stellar day, plenty of other brown trout streams that are closer and have fished much better for me.

Not sure what you want us to do with this information? just to open our eyes to it? or to try and get us to step up as a community and save this creek?

*some food for thought:
1. brookies may be out-competing the browns for limited resources. CULL necessary?
2. brookies may be out-competing the browns for quality spawning grounds. CULL necissary?
3. Have you noticed any white fungus on the browns, like there are on the browns in the Bow?
4. Perhaps just a bad winter of anchor ice or something formed and killed a couple generations, or not enough suitable wintering holes.
5. any water quality tests done, other than the excess nutrients noted.
6. have you contacted Fisheries and Oceans Canada instead of just F &W and some local game clubs.
7. Have you been catching any juvenile browns, or large spawning browns?
8. Set some night cameras to check if predators (mink, otter) are frequent.
9. What was Trout Unlimited response or some of these bio's

It is never just one factor that causes a population to crash, somewhere back in the 90's a series of events or factors plaguing this creek and is continuing to do so. Im not sure if it is just as simple as lack of money going into this creek.

Thanks for bringing it to our attention,

[Sundancefisher]

many streams have had flow problems. The flow can decrease over wintering and also prevent flushing of stream gravels. Floods in the Spring can wash out redds. Traffic on the redds from Cows and people can be a big problem on redds as well as harassment during spawning by anglers. Biomass of the insect life could be a determining factor on growth. Poaching may also be a problem. You don't need a rod to catch a brown during spawning. Poaching of large spawning bull trout in the Castle system has always been an issue.

[Dust1n]

Last season I haven't caught a a lot of juvenile browns maybe 3-4 the whole year. And I have caught big spawning browns but nothing much in between. It's 2 different classes.
Iv never got any browns with fungus on them but I'm not stomping through their when the spawn is on for ethical reasons.
I'm thinking the smaller browns are getting shut out by the brookies because this year we caught some larger sizes then what we have caught before. But I'm positive the larger browns in there are making a healthy living. It's not like your going to be seeing hue browns consistently because they reside in the beaver runs that run into the bank and wait there till the prime conditions occur.

There is a ton on stauffer and there's no shortage of food during winter with all those winter stones around the overhanging willows. I think it has something to do with the redds and being destroyed by anglers when they walk by.

[ironbutterfly]

Me and a friend tried to fish North Raven a few years ago. It was in fall and I remember we spent something like 4 hours fishing and walking the stream. We saw one small fish that darted immediately while we were still far away. Otherwise there was nothing at all. We did end up on the raven where it connected with the North Raven and there were some brook trout hitting our flies.

To be honest I've found that whole red deer drainage pretty ****ty. We did little red deer a few times and came out with a sucker only for 2 two days of walking around. I went to prairie creek and although it's much better, there's just not as many fish per km as you'd expect and the sizes were not impressive. I found the elbow near calgary looks and feels similar but seems to hold the number and locations of fish you'd expect.

I kind of wonder if the 'you've gotta be good to fish there' mentality is pushing people to fish it when in reality what should be said is 'it's not good fishing there' and just let a stressed fishery have some pressure taken off of it.