Food For Thought...or Food For Fishes Thought!

[Guest Sundancefisher]

I would like to here some comments on this thought.

 

As everyone knows, when a farmer grows a crop they have to rotate, add nutrients, fertilizers, fallow...whatever it takes to maximize crop yield. Soil does not have a finite growing potential for just any old crop a farmer wants to grow.

 

I feel the same is for a mountain or foothills stream. Take for instance the premise that over 50 - 100 years people have been harvesting and in the past over harvesting streams for food and entertainment. There are lots of historical pictures for instance of massive stringers of monster bull trout mixed with big cutties.

 

Our mountain streams like our mountain lakes have short open water seasons and relatively infertile ground in which to replentish itself. Mother nature designed salmon to absorb nutrients from the oceans and then deposit them in streams and in turn those nutrients not only feed the new crop of salmon fry but also all the other fish in the streams as well as bears, birds and believe it or not trees! Yes trees. For those of you that has never looked into this or read about it, trees along salmon streams have growth rings that scientists track to show the success or failure of historical salmon runs.

 

Now let's take a step back and look at Alberta. Our mountain streams and foothills streams have the same issue. Over time we have removed tens of thousands of pounds or more from each stream of critical biomass...fuel for future generations of fish.

 

People ask...where did all the monster bull trout go? My thoughts are the streams are no longer productive enough to grow and sustain them.

 

So where does this thinking lead me one would ask? Well the far end of the spectrum would be the release of nutrients like the Crowsnest River and Bow River experienced. Granted the fishing below the sewage inflow is awesome, there is a public outcry to releasing fertilizer into any natural water body. The other end of the spectrum would be a wholesale ban on killing any fish out of a low productive system.

 

I believe a middle of the road approach with well studied release of a moderate amount of fertilizer and/or nutrients and the resultant impacts to determine if this would help in a number of places.

 

The Elbow River upstream of Calgary would be one to try. Close to Calgary for monitoring and study. Fairly well documented. Fish populations are severely depressed. Capable of being a significant fishery close to a highly populated area. I am not saying Elbow would be the only one but for sake of discussion it makes a good example. There are some problems which will always need to be addressed. In this instance the protection of Bull Trout. I would say a study mitigation would be the release of fertilizer well below spawning areas or well above should suffice. In turn the Bull Trout should do way better due to a more productive and "healthy" stream with recovered nutrient levels with a larger quantity of invertebrates to feed not only young bull trout but also mountain whitefish which feed even bigger bull trout.

 

Healthy refers to bringing the system back to a pre-public fishery era insofar as nutrients, productivity and fish population is concerned. Also I am not saying dumping tons and tons of urban liquid waste into the rivers but as a trial a slow trickle, a few pulses and a low enough rate that only the invertebrates and some algae and macrophytes would ever notice.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Cheers

 

Sun

[Harps]

Great post.

 

The University of NB is looking at adding nutrients to Atlantic Salmon streams in NB... same idea.

 

I think first studies need to be undertaken to look at the invert populations and find out what is available to trout. If biomass isn't the limiting factor, then what is? Could be habitat (available spawning, cover, overwintering, etc), could be temperatures (I think this is the big one), or could be fishing pressure.

I don't know what work has been done on Elbow Inverts?

[DonAndersen]

Sundancefisher,

 

The City of Calgary has successfully got both Banff and Bragg Creek to stop adding nutrient load via sewage to the Bow and Elbow. And you're suggesting a replacement of ..... more sewage. Certainly having Calgary return the sewage upstream of Calgary would prompt the City to make sure that the effluent from the city was clean.

Great idea - talked the same thing over with SRD about the Crow. The sewage outflow nutrient has been reduced over the years. Allowing a slip-stream of P04 and N04 to slide by the plant would certainly help the hatches. They suggested that such enlighted management was really beyond them.

Curiously, SRD [ F&W] did add some fertilizer to Obstruction Lakes some years ago. Worked till the load went through the system.

I was involved in fertilizing 3 small lakes utilizing milled barley. In this case, there was no water outflow and the nutrient load was retained yielding some larger fish.

Good idea but I'm not sure that sewage is the answer. although it is both cheap and plentiful - just yucky from most folks perspective.

 

catch ya'

 

 

Don

[Harps]

And as we speak the treatment plant on the Crow is getting an upgrade... a new pond to reduce the effluent releases even more.

 

Need more flooding habitats- Trees falling in, wet meadows, nearby marshes, vegetated banks, and maybe a beaver pond or 2.

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Sundancefisher,

 

The City of Calgary has successfully got both Banff and Bragg Creek to stop adding nutrient load via sewage to the Bow and Elbow. And you're suggesting a replacement of ..... more sewage. Certainly having Calgary return the sewage upstream of Calgary would prompt the City to make sure that the effluent from the city was clean.

Great idea - talked the same thing over with SRD about the Crow. The sewage outflow nutrient has been reduced over the years. Allowing a slip-stream of P04 and N04 to slide by the plant would certainly help the hatches. They suggested that such enlighted management was really beyond them.

Curiously, SRD [ F&W] did add some fertilizer to Obstruction Lakes some years ago. Worked till the load went through the system.

I was involved in fertilizing 3 small lakes utilizing milled barley. In this case, there was no water outflow and the nutrient load was retained yielding some larger fish.

Good idea but I'm not sure that sewage is the answer. although it is both cheap and plentiful - just yucky from most folks perspective.

 

catch ya'

 

 

Don

 

Don't quote me wrong Don. I am not actually saying sewage is the answer. Fertilizer, nutrients P04, N04 in some form is where the thought lies. It could be a trickle container of fertilizer upstream in beaver pond or something.

 

I was flyfishing in the North Sask one day when the Goldbar sewage treatment plant had an emergency dump into the river...and by dump I mean toilet paper, man made "logs" the works. Absolutely disgusting. That being said I still see the need for a little help to replace the nutrients lost. I would be very surprised if in careful moderation there would not be almost immediate benefits to the health of the fish population.

 

I also agree to the purists that this may seem illogical. I also believe in respecting nature so you can't necessarily ruin crystal clear streams that are the preferred habitat for species specific bugs. But in heavily fished areas and rivers that seems to be a logical choice...we should try and give some nutrients back to help grow our next crop of fish!

[cheeler]

Already being done in a natural way to rehab salmon streams with frozen salmon and a woodchipper.

 

http://www.lcfeg.org/LCFEG_Newsletter_March_06_1_.pdf

 

I have an idea that involves some frozen perch....

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Already being done in a natural way to rehab salmon streams with frozen salmon and a woodchipper.

 

http://www.lcfeg.org/LCFEG_Newsletter_March_06_1_.pdf

 

I have an idea that involves some frozen perch....

 

LMFAO

 

 

[jjthom2]

It's an excellent Idea but I don't think it would fly on the Elbow upstream on Calgary considering it feeds the Glenmore resevior where the city gets it's drinking water - maybe on the Sheep or Highwood.

I think if we're looking at stream management like crop rotation we may need to consider "summer fallowing" some of our streams - simply close them to the public for a season or two. I'm not saying we shut all rivers down, just identify crucial spawning and rearing sections and tribs and close them for a season or two at a time and rotate through different streams/rivers/drainages to take the pressure off them. I know no one wants to miss a season on their favorite stream, but this may be easier to police than C&R regs in some cases.

[Conor]

By the explanation in your first post, wouldn't catch and release regs reestablish historical nutrient levels by a more natural, albiet more gradual, method?

[Guest Sundancefisher]

By the explanation in your first post, wouldn't catch and release regs reestablish historical nutrient levels by a more natural, albiet more gradual, method?

 

I would say catch and release should over time (assuming no more fish are removed) accomplish that. But is it quick enough or practical enough given the fishing pressure? Is quicker better?

 

I would say the release of nutrients has to be categorized in time and volume. I see the release as being done upstream and slow enough and small enough volume to be absorbed by the system prior to reaching the reservoir. Even then the reservoir flushes and as long as the work is done in a controlled manner it can be managed.

 

I would also say that seasonal closures would concentrate even more fishing pressure on fewer streams which would in turn be more harmful then catch and release. I don't think anyone can advocate catch and release fishing in Alberta. There has to be room for some harvest but managing it can be difficult. I just see the more nutrient poor a stream is, the more biomass that has been removed over the years the more likely the stream can not support a maximum harvest now or in the future.

 

Replacement of nutrients and biomass through the increased growth of algae and in turn invertebrates is key to bringing populations back. As everyone knows, food and shelter/habitat are principle components in maximizing populations.

[nebc]

Conservative seasons that use catch and release are good ideas.

 

We should resist any moves for closures for most areas since it has been a long term observation that once a closure is in place people tend to assume all is well, no more monitoring happens and as industry impacts increase over time an unused fishery has less value and weight in mitigating impacts.

 

[maxwell]

i think we need more enforcement so less fish get killed by campers........ saw quite a few this year get taken by people.... and was givin the same responce by most people.. just getting one for supper/breakfast... they dont get how small the populations are in these unfertile streams...... now hard too slay 100 fish per km in a small stream.. even if your only keeping one for breakfast...... it coudl be many other thigns aswell. but hte biggest thing ive seen in teh last few years is less fish but bigger average size... soi figure more room too grow for hte few fish left..... thoughts?

[jjthom2]

i think we need more enforcement so less fish get killed by campers........ saw quite a few this year get taken by people.... and was givin the same responce by most people.. just getting one for supper/breakfast... they dont get how small the populations are in these unfertile streams...... now hard too slay 100 fish per km in a small stream.. even if your only keeping one for breakfast...... it coudl be many other thigns aswell. but hte biggest thing ive seen in teh last few years is less fish but bigger average size... soi figure more room too grow for hte few fish left..... thoughts?

I think fewer fish but bigger average size points to less natural recruitment through spawning (possibly because people are killing spawning age fish). I agree we need more enforcement but with the budgets given to Alberta Fish and Wildlife, more officers are highly unlikely. Rotating closures of tribs, sections, or whole streams might be easier to enforce (I don't want it anymore than anyone else).

C&R regs on all streams is the way to go but it will take a long time to get everyone who uses the rescource on board. Lots of people feel it's their right to take a fish or two home for the table, just like some people think that if they don't want to wear a seatbelt it's their right. The change in attitudes will take time but hopefully people will eventually understand that with the ammount of people fishing and the ammount of back country now accessible to them, they'll have to get their trout at Safeway if they want to continue to enjoy the rescource.

If we can keep the next generation of fishermen involved and caring about the state of our rivers maybe I'll be able to tell my grandkids how BAD the fishing was when I was young (opposite of what my grandfather tells me now).

[gustuphson]

I would likely be opposed to adding nutrients or manipulating the chmical make-up of a water body to enhance it's productivity. Adjusting angler access and behaviour, in my mind, is preferable to tinkering with the system. That being said it's dfinitely an interesting topic, thanks for bringing it up.

[reevesr1]

Adjusting angler access and behaviour, in my mind, is preferable to tinkering with the system.

 

That's because you never actually get to go fishing, so changing angler access is no problem!!

 

 

 

[gustuphson]

Thanks for the nudge Rick, can you call my boss and explain to him why I won't be in tomorrow now.

 

Seriously though, thinking about heading SW of town tomorrow...

[reevesr1]

Thanks for the nudge Rick, can you call my boss and explain to him why I won't be in tomorrow now.

 

Seriously though, thinking about heading SW of town tomorrow...

Wish i could join ya! The wife is heading out of town, and she gets mad at me if i go too far away from the kids when shes gone. Id do it anyway, but she always catches me! Good luck.

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Wish i could join ya! The wife is heading out of town, and she gets mad at me if i go too far away from the kids when shes gone. Id do it anyway, but she always catches me! Good luck.

 

So rickr...when are you organizing a redfish trip?