When rowing around our pond we can still see schools of fish swimming about, below the dam but above the box they are still jumping for fly,s. We think that due to the unusually hot weather they have quit moving out and are awaiting the rains to make their move downstream. We have been getting big counts then they dropped off the last week when air temperatures rose to 30c+ with water temp at 16+c . Today it looks cloudy so we hope that some rain will fall and then the fish will sense the pressure change and make a dash for the ocean. If no more movement downstream then they will stay in the habitat they are in and may move out next spring or over the winter months into the lower reaches.
Next year if they stay they will be 2 year old +, big smolts when they leave. We have thought that in the past some have stayed and spawned in the upper reaches above the dam as one year we had fry in the box even before we had done any salvage for that year.
Only mother nature knows.
Also last week we worked on the Hog weed, we received a e-mail from M Jessen who is working to eradicate it on the French Creek system further up the Island and he suggested that the best method was to dig up the root after taking all precaution to protect against the sap splashing on exposed skin. We dug all the roots we could find thanking our lucky stars that we have only a small patch to work on. ( A few years ago I conducted a USHP survey on French Creek, walking 17 + Kilometres from the estuary up to beyond Coombs almost to Whiskey Creek and observed Hog weed along the whole length of the 17+ kilometres).
Today we walked the lower reaches of Bonnel Creek to check the water levels, after such hot weather we were concerned that levels would be dropping fast and would have to facilitate fry salvage early this year. The levels were good with flow between pools so we went over to the DU pond in the estuary to check the water level their. When we got their the Geese were quite vocal to our intrusion as they wander off while keeping a sharp eye on our trek across the field. Sad to say the egg addlers had been down earlier on according to a article in the local paper praising their efforts in controlling the Goose population, the mind boggles at such action as the natural survival rate is quite low when you consider all the predators that a healthy ecosystem has on any young of the year. We found the remains of two adult Geese who had fallen prey to some of these predators. The cycle of life and death continues despite human intervention.
I was observing a pair of Geese along the foreshore of Lantzville all spring, they began with 7 goslings and every morning they were in the estuary of a small unnamed drainage feeding on the algae while the local Eagles perched in the trees nearby. Over the weeks the goslings were reduced down to one which I have not seen for awhile so here,s hoping it survived. Anyway back to the estuary pond, it was way down with no fish rising only one dead trout about 7 inches long laying on the bottom next to the pipe. We made the decision to remove all the stop logs in the culvert mouth and drain the rest of the water to allow any fish to be flushed out.
No fish were observed as the water flowed out so with luck all had left via the escape pipe as the temperatures rose over the past weeks. After Al and Roy went up to the box to check on the fry so next week i will give a update on the fish leaving the Beaver dam pond as I had to leave early today to get ready for my sons birthday party.
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