Spawning Cycles On The Bow

[alhuger]

Does anyone know if certain runs of fish on the bow tend to spawn outside of the normal times? My understanding is that in general terms rainbows spring spawn and char and browns fall spawn on the bow. Are there outliers to this? Do you ever see rainbows on the bow spawning in the fall for example?

 

-al

[rhuseby]

To the best of my knowledge, including talking with various fisheries biologists, there is no serious spawning outside of the normal ranges on the Bow. However, rainbows have been found spawning all the way from early April to very early July, and browns can spawn between September and December. In both cases there are distinct peaks of activity, and looking at closed seasons in the fishing regulations will give you pretty good ideas when those are for all species of fishes and waterbodies. Even with fish like steelhead and atlantic salmon, the summer run fish enter the rivers in the late summer and early fall months, but they don't actually spawn until the next spring with the winter run fish. That just totally blows me away, thinking of the energy reserves required to think of surviving that long with only minimal freshwater feeding going on. I have caught rainbows in the Bow in May that were clearly recently spawned out, beat to hell and very lean and poor fighters, and a very few browns in similar condition in early to mid October. By the time the Highwood system opens in mid-June, most of the spawners are returning to the Bow, and the earlier fish are rapidly regaining the stregnth and condition. If you look at a lot of the recently posted pictures of browns from the Bow, most of the bigger fish are fairly slim and are recovering from spawning, and more of those fish will continue to show up over the next month or so.

[alhuger]

To the best of my knowledge, including talking with various fisheries biologists, there is no serious spawning outside of the normal ranges on the Bow. However, rainbows have been found spawning all the way from early April to very early July, and browns can spawn between September and December. In both cases there are distinct peaks of activity, and looking at closed seasons in the fishing regulations will give you pretty good ideas when those are for all species of fishes and waterbodies. Even with fish like steelhead and atlantic salmon, the summer run fish enter the rivers in the late summer and early fall months, but they don't actually spawn until the next spring with the winter run fish. That just totally blows me away, thinking of the energy reserves required to think of surviving that long with only minimal freshwater feeding going on. I have caught rainbows in the Bow in May that were clearly recently spawned out, beat to hell and very lean and poor fighters, and a very few browns in similar condition in early to mid October. By the time the Highwood system opens in mid-June, most of the spawners are returning to the Bow, and the earlier fish are rapidly regaining the stregnth and condition. If you look at a lot of the recently posted pictures of browns from the Bow, most of the bigger fish are fairly slim and are recovering from spawning, and more of those fish will continue to show up over the next month or so.

 

Thanks, that's an excellent reply. My home water actually holds rainbows which spawn throughout the year. It's a large body with a number in incoming rivers and while April through June will see rainbow spawning you are also quite likely to hook into spawners in November, as witnessed here with this nice bow being caught this week:

 

http://www.reelfishingadventures.net/images/071115a.gif

 

Note the kype. In any event I had no idea if this was normal or not, I suppose it looks to be in the 'not' category. Thanks again.

 

al