Little Fish Big Fish

[jarett39]

Besides the obvious changes that the flooding brought, I have noticed that the average size fish I have been catching seems smaller then in years past. I have been catching just or near as many fish as I am use to, and they all seem very healthy. I am guessing I have fished the Oldman, Livingstion and tribs 15 times this year, catching lots of fish, but what would smaller on average. On Michel Ceek, a stream I don't remember catching many cutty's below 14" and always a few over 16", I only had 1 fish over 13" and many 8-12", and I caught as many as I ever have. Even on the Bow, I am catching fish 6-8" taking my fly tight to the bank, I don't recall it as often before.

I had assumed larger fish were in a better position to survive a flood like the one we just had, but perhaps it's the smaller fish that are able to survive/adapt better? Maybe it's just that the flood put more small fish in to the main river systems? Could just be me also though, and I was just courious if others noticed a similar trend. I have caught some larger fish, and saw a 23-25" rainbow in a pool Sunday, so I know there is still larger size fish left... Just that my average fish seems noticeably smaller.

[DaveJensen]

One of the things we found this past year in New Zealand was post the 5 week flood cycle (and we're talking 26" of rain in 22hrs kind of rain with vertical depth changes of 14 feet in that time frame), was that after 5 weeks of it, fish gave up on the shoulders of runs, having been pushed. If it was a gorge (canyon) river, many fish were pushed from the canyon sections as there was no escape from the flow rates (out turns too violent, gravel wash in turns of no break structure). If it was a floodplain, the fish weren't to be found until stable pools. This was confirmed by drift divers later in our trip who did extensive drifts of rivers and literally found over 90% of the bigger fish in the pools remaining deep as it was the most stable environment. That, and the fish were so skinny (much like pretty much every brown I'm seeing on FB, blogs, and websites from the Bow since the flood this year) that they had to find the most stable, quietest places. It didn't make for great sight-fishing but we also weren't about to dredge just to catch something. The drift divers' observation was fewer fish as well. Again, floods will do that, which is why it takes a few years to bounce back. And floods aren't the wonderful magic eraser, habitat enhancer that some folks are touting, cart blanche. When such killer floods occur every 3 to 5 years, populations simply can't keep up. Maybe this hasn't been happening on the Bow, but it certainly is in other areas of the province and some streams need more consideration in regulation to limit human impact on sensitive populations. Of course, much more to it than a forum post, but some thoughts anyway.

Cheers

[RedBeard]

I was catching a ton of small bulls on the RDR last weekend. I assumed that they just were washed way down the system from the tribs. Just my guess though.