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Planting Along The Water's Edge
The most productive way of creating trout habitat on streams like the three in the BVRR&E Program, is to plant close to the water's edge along the stream banks, where the cover habitats created can provide both terrestrial and submerged aquatic lateral margin habitat. The plantings just over the surface can work as debris catchers for sedge grasses and woody debris. This further enhances the cover habitats and also promotes aquatic invertebrate growth and populations.
To plant along the water's edge is also beneficial to growth, if the plant survives the natural occurring events like floods and rodent damage. This is why saturation planting is the only approach to riparian recovery and our program has proven this beyond a reasonable doubt! This is why it is important to share this information with those that can understand the potential of this type of riparian enhancement and development along a stream that has suffered many years of topsoil loss and is now almost void of native willow and tree cover along the stream banks.
This 80mm brown trout was caught on a tiny trout fly - Just to Prove that the spawning of brown trout on west Nose creek is successful!
My Angling Survey
West Nose Creek Fish On A Fly
In 2016, Bow Valley Habitat Development obtained a fisheries research license to conduct a juvenile trout trapping program on West Nose Creek to determine whether the incubation of brown trout eggs from the 2015 fall spawning period was successful. The best way of doing this was to use a trout trapping technic that I developed in 1997 and it has also been published in technical manuals for fisheries research. The juvenile trout trapping involves the use of plastic bottle traps and it does not harm the trout. No baiting is used, so it is also easily done. However, the license specified a two week period of time in July, when a major flood and high water conditions for days after, made the trapping program a failure to start venture.
In the end, by the time that the water levels had receded enough to trap, I had become busy doing something else and could not complete the program. So I decided to try a little fly fishing in the late summer, to see if I could capture a juvenile trout from the spring hatch of fall of 2015 spawning. After numerous experiences of fishing for juvenile trout in the past, which a fly rod, just to see if the previous year's hatch was successful on a given stream, this technic is very useful.
The best place to find juvenile trout in the early spring, just after they hatch is right in and directly downstream of the spawning beds. My attempt at capturing video of newly hatched trout on Millennium Creek is well known, so I did the same on the West Nose Creek, just downstream of the most abundant grouping of brown trout redds, which happened to be on the Country Hills Golf Course. Sure enough, I did capture video of a newly hatched brown trout fry, in April of 2016. However, the quality of the video was less than acceptable for my own standards, and I need some more data with a captured trout to prove my point that there was successful spawning.
My decision to conduct an angling survey would save a tremendous amount of time and effort and at the same time, I could record the varieties of course fish that are present in the stream, like suckers, dace and lake chub. In the early part of my two day angling survey I finally did strike pay dirt, and captured a juvenile brown trout that measured 80mm and was still too young to migrate very far from its capture location, which happened to be just downstream of the golf course, and Harvest Hills bridge over the West Nose Creek.
West Nose creek before and after
The Year of the Planting - 2016
In 2021 - Same Reach of the Stream
In 2021 - Same Reach of the Stream
This is one of the planting sites on West Nose Creek, in the year of the first planting in the Bow Valley Riparian Recovery and Enhancement Program. No riparian willows or treesI
In 2021 - Same Reach of the Stream
In 2021 - Same Reach of the Stream
In 2021 - Same Reach of the Stream
The willows are just starting to grow above the tall summer grass and sedge. The resident beaver population is constantly grazing on our planted crop, but the willows will win in the end!
MY September Tour
The Bow Valley Riparian Recovery and Enhancement Program 2021
Although it has been a busy September for me, I fortunately had an opportunity to walk about 6 kilometres of the West Nose Creek, on September 18th. It felt really good to inspect some of our plantings from the past years. It is now the eighth year of the BVRR&E program, but the planting on West Nose Creek was completed in 2019, after six good years of working in the city of Calgary.
The cover habitats and growth that is now available, is incredible to admire and thoughts of what these new plants will look like in the future, the growth continues. The amount of organics that the woody mass will provide for the soil in the riparian zone is all good, and this will boost the microbial life, which is so important to a trout stream's well-being!
Planting along the water's edge
The Thick Cover Provides Great Trout Habitat
The Thick Cover Provides Great Trout Habitat
The Thick Cover Provides Great Trout Habitat
By planting right along the water's edge, we have transformed the stream's habitat for the brown trout that live in West Nose Creek. The new willow growth is also already constricting the flow, which over time results in deeper runs for trout, fantastic overhead cover and excellent suspended lateral margin habitat for aquatic invertebrates.
Shade Will Keep The Water Colder For Trout
The Thick Cover Provides Great Trout Habitat
The Thick Cover Provides Great Trout Habitat
Riparian cover improves the water quality, and helps keep the water temperature colder, which makes the resident brown trout more comfortable and able to cope with the poor water quality that is presently a problem for the creek! Agricultural activities upstream of the city of Calgary have damaged the stream's overall health, so change is needed!