Bow River Update

[Garhan]

After taking a walk along the Bow River today past my usual beats. I think I will like the new water that has been created. Many of the locations are deeper, wider, less debris, scoured clean of weedbeds. The confluences of some of the feeder creeks like the Fish Creek in my opinion is now a better deeper and more turbulent piece of water with some deep and larger holding water. She is a whole new river.

[SnoWolf]

Sounds good

[Junior]

Good to hear. Thanks Gary.

[DennisS]

I would amagine that there will be some huge changes new bends new pools. It will be like exploring a new river.

 

Thany Gary for taking time with your observations of the River.

 

Have a great summer

 

Tight Lines Always

Dennis S

[Junior]

I like that it'll even the playing field for the championships this fall.

[fsabac]

Fair enough. The disappearance of happy salad beds is not necessarily good. Those translate into food and shelter. I used to have good pike, goldeye, and walleye fishing in the city on the river close to my home before the flood in 2004. Not anymore. And the happy salad beds are gone, together with beavers, etc.

Keeping in mind the most recent flood of 2004 in cental AB, my question is whether the flood was enough to do damage to the fishery. Does anyone know anything? Are we going to have to wait almost ten years for the fish to recover, like with the Red Deer? Also, do you guys know how far the flood damage extended? I checked the water level histories on many of the fishy rivers and they all show quite the spike around the 22nd of June. What I cannot tell is whether these levels are normal runoff or catastrophic flooding. Any information would be helpful.

I am thinking of a few days of stream fishing in mid-August, and I wonder if it is even worth bothering South of the Athabasca drainage. Any thoughts on that?

Florin

[dipperdan]

You could try Dismal Creek

[Garhan]

Florin, your comments on the happy salad beds holds lots of water. Although with the ever presence of high nutrient outflow from the waste systems in and around the Bow. I feel confident that those weeds will be back by next year. As for fish loss, so far I am not hearing much out of any of the organizations here in Calgary. The common speculation is that most anglers on the Bow feel that a loss of the last 2 year stock has been wiped out. I am not sure about that, but I would think that there was a high percentage of loss. Personally during my walk I did not see or smell any dead fish. So I am not sure. I also spoke to some people about the fish rescues that went on down here. There were some fish trapped in some areas that were rescued. But the people involved felt that there was surprisingly few fish trapped and captured for release. Maybe that is a good sign, maybe not. What I do see is less Rock Snot Algae at this time. It was building up over the last couple of years in some areas. That might be good. But likely spread it further downstream.

 

Another couple of weeks and there will be good fishing in the southern part of the province I am sure. Central Alberta is fishing good now even with higher water flows. I will be checking out the Red Deer, Raven and Stauffer Creeks today. The Brown Drakes are coming off a few of theres rivers right now and I am going to go get me a fish.

[Junior]

I know a few people that were involved in the fish rescues, and they said it was a testament to the superiority of trout; hardly any were found stranded, it was mostly suckers.

[fsabac]

Thanks guys, this is helpful. I also forgot that we have "good weeds" and "bad weeds". Flushing is of course good, that is the job of runoff and that is where dams screw up rivers. I will take my bug net to see what the river bottoms are holding. I am not worried so much about the fish, they swim in water and can return as the waters return to normal. What I am curious to find out is whether the substrate gets scoured to such an extent that the invertebrates living in it and on it are wiped out

[Garhan]

I would agree that many of the invertebrates are reshuffled. Those further up stream are now further down stream and so on. The Bow might just end up being a little more on the vertebrate feeding side of things for the summer. I was looking for Stoneflies on the Bow and didn't see any. This should be the next super hatch in the coming weeks. But I am sure they are there in droves, just no sign off them yet.

 

Raven and Stauffer are very fishable and we last night was good fishing on both. The Red Deer at Range Road 20 has had the road rebuilt. The boat launch is gone so I doubt anyone will be able to launch a trailered boat of any kind or pick up a trailered boat at this location. Pontoons will be OK as long as you dont miss the tiny channel that is there. The big bend above upstream from RR20 is wider and has eroded the bank away significantly. River is still high with 12 inches of visibility. Enough to drift and dryfly fish the banks with Brown Drakes.

[Garhan]