Saturday 18 July

Roy, John, MP J Lunney, Al, Ed and Terry.

On last Tuesday we made another sweep of the remaining pools on Bonnel Creek managing to salvage a couple of hundred fry which we moved up to the Lake. This ended the first phase of fry salvage until water levels drop above the highway then we will continue all the way upstream until we reach the point where pool habitat remains wetted with what subsurface flow remains. Hopefully we will get some heavy rain soon to help replenish the upper watershed.

Today we all met at Lussiers pit and went down to the gas line crossing on Bonnel Creek. Two small pools have become isolated from the main channel along the base of the big gravel deposit below the pipeline.

Both pools contained Wild Coho fry which we had some fun trying to catch. Being shallow the fry were very skittish, in the smaller pool the fry were quite large but as soon as they were disturbed off they went with not a one in sight. Rock hiding, the hardest to catch, I guess that evading predators of all kinds their survival skills were well honed. This pool had clear water but still they were hard to see.

After some effort we were able to remove 14 Wild Coho and one Stickleback, we felt we had them all and if any remained then they would have a better chance with more habitat available. The next pool contained around a hundred Wild Coho fry which were easier to catch but were only half the size. This pool was full of Algae with only a small area free and still clear from seepage entering from the bank. After capture we moved them to adjoining pool habitat which with the help of the Beaver remains wetted all summer with good subsurface flow keeping it fresh.

Watching the fry upon release it was evident that they had their preferred schools as they seemed to blend into one then begin to split into separate groups with a few changing their minds and rejoining another school until they settled down and swam over to the inflow in their separate groups where they settled in to the fresh flow.

Next we went up to Swan Lake to remove the fish pipe from the dam.

We launched the boat and with Ed and Al I rowed out to the submerged log where the pipe was tied and anchored . Well I think we did too good a job of submerging the pipe when we put in in Al pulled and pulled , even with the two of us pulling we could not raise the end of the pipe so we let it go and Al retied the rope to the submerged log. I rowed over to the top of the dam which had about another foot added to the top by the Beaver, all fresh mud and grass.

Al and myself disembarked onto the dam and pulled up the outlet end of the pipe. This was way easier than the intake as it just laid down the backside of the dam into the stream-bed. Once we got it up the flow stopped so we coiled the pipe up on top of the dam.

Next year we will have to install it again to allow the fish egress from the Beaver pond. After rowing back and beaching the boat we went and picked berries for awhile then off for tea and coffee.

While having coffee we had a visit from our MP James Lunney who had lobbied for us last year for funding to help clean up the bay of Styrofoam.

Al wanted to present him with one of our T-shirts so Roy went out to his truck and brought a XL for him. He informed us that he had the fisheries minister out with him last week and wanted to bring her with him to help in fry salvage, due to scheduling this was not possible, a opportunity missed to talk with her about the state of the Salmon and give her some first hand knowledge of what communities were doing to preserve our Wild Salmon.

Next month he says he will have one of the fisheries policy advisers out with him so we invited him to bring her to help with fry salvage. We gave him another T-shirt to pass on to the fisheries minister, maybe some publicity with the powers that be will help bring some attention to the important work all the stream keeper groups in BC are doing. Nothing ventured nothing gained.

The Teddy Bears Picnic.

The day began with the delivery of T-Shirts to Roy while he was at the Lions pancake breakfast at the community hall.

Roy had his truck all decked out with the stream keepers signs on the side for the parade from the Fire Hall to the games field on Powder Point Road. Kaylen was going to meet Roy at the park to help him put the tent and display up. While Roy was putting away a rather large stack or pile of those pancakes I went back down to the railroad crossing to meet the rest of the volunteers to do some fry salvage.

As usual we divided up and went once more from the estuary up and from the highway down . The pools are now very low or non existent, we have taken the bulk of fish from these pools and transported them to the Lake over the past weeks . Today we were able to catch around 150 Wild Coho fry which we released into the big pool at the highway crossing.

This pool extends back upstream the point where surface flow still remains. We expect to be salvaging this reach within a couple of weeks if the present weather pattern sets in for the summer.

The young boys who came with their dad were thrilled to have caught a couple of Trout along with the bulk of the fry that we salvaged today. Cynthia arrived to collect some stream bugs

( invertebrates) to display to the children at the Teddy Bears Picnic teaching them about aquatic life other than just fish. With the help of her son and daughter Cynthia was able to collect a good representation from the pool beneath the highway. Upon completion the older boys wanted to go for a coffee.

After coffee we all went down to the Teddy Bears Picnic to assist with the booth.

Their was a constant floe of families wandering around with curious children eager to see the bugs. One mother had a beautiful Dragonfly pendant hanging on a chain and was quite surprised when it was pointed out that the biggest ugliest bug in the bucket was in fact close to metamorphosing into a beautiful Dragonfly.

Every one was enjoying the day, a couple of hundred happy kids and parents , a smile on every face, fish moved, a perfect day.

Next week we will do another sweep to try and get any more fry then we wait for the big pools to recede. We will be checking further up stream as their are some pools that become isolated from the flow and end up drying, so we will move the fish to wetted habitat adjacent to where we find them.

We always seem to have some activity by the Beavers within the upstream reaches spending their time building small dams forming pools for the summer. In the past they had built a beautiful dam of boulder and cobble with very little wood mainly rock which created a large pool full of Wild Coho fry all summer until winter flows blew it out.

Saturday June 27th 2009

Today we met at the railroad crossing in Nanoose to continue our fry salvage on Bonnel Creek. We had a good turn out today with new volunteers eager to help. Splitting into two groups we went upstream while the other group went downstream. Most of the pools downstream are drying now and the fry have been removed. Their are still a couple of pools too deep or impacted with woody debris to make salvage difficult until the subsurface flow recedes further down and we are able to get in with gum boots. Upstream their are two big pools with cover and stumps then above are two more large shallow pools.

Above the railroad bridge the water is still on the surface with more than gum-boot depth from bank to bank up past the highway bridge. We managed to salvage around 500 Wild Coho fry from the two shallow pools then went back down to the two deeper pools and patiently collected another 100 or so. The downstream crew were able to get around 300 fry before they came back upstream to the tank in the truck. After we all went up to Swan Lake to release them.

Release into Swan Lake ( note the Trout)

Transfer into buckets for the walk to the lake.

Catching the fish.

I have been busy lately so have not done the updates on a regular basis.

Over the past couple of weeks we have begun our fry salvage due to the very hot weather and Bonnel Creek drying out early this year. So far we have moved 3200 Wild Coho fry with Sticklebacks and Trouts. Our fish fence is only getting one or two the past couple of weeks so this Saturday we are going to pull it, so far we have had around 450 smolts and a few trout through until the weather got too hot for the fish to move and the Beaver has been maintaining the dam at a higher level. With this rain (Yes Rain) they may begin to move again so once we remove the fence they can go downstream and hopefully make the Ocean before it gets too hot and dry again. We will be ongoing with the fry salvage until all the pools have dried up though hopefully with the rain we will get some more flow on the surface to give some relief for the fish. We are looking at a couple of opportunities to do some habitat work this summer on Bonnel, hopefully with help from Ducks Unlimited and fisheries. DU are concerned about a log jam which is increasing in size and they feel it may jump the bank and scour out their pond in the estuary. So while the machine is their we hope to get some scour structures built to help maintain some deeper pool habitat. At this site we used to have a large deep pool which now is full of gravel with the subsequent loss of fish habitat.

Tuesday 6 June 2009

Today was a slow day at the fish box with only 8 Wild Coho and one Trout in the box. ( see picture)Due to hot weather and the Beaver building the top of the dam higher the fish seem to have stopped moving. Even though we see fish jumping above the fence they are not too eager to move downstream. We need some rain to get them moving or else they will probably decide to stay. The food in the pond is so abundant they may decide to stay and spawn in the upper reaches next fall. Also in the box were 28 Lethocerus beetles and one dead Trout of around 120 mm, sucked dry by the Beetles. We next went to the pond and I took Thomas his dad Brian and Errol for a row in the boat to check the dam top for work by the Beaver. Lots of fresh mud along the top and the big raft of grass and sticks we had left in the pond were all gone used by the Beaver to plug holes and raise the level of the top. After we went as far up the pond as we could row before the channel was too narrow to navigate up. Possibly saw a snake swimming across the pond as we were quite a long way off all we could see were a pair of eyes moving along the surface. With all the work on the dam we are getting more surface area flooded which will bode well for all the Wild Coho we will salvage over the next few months. More water will mean more food and a cooler pond over what may be a very hot summer coming up.

Saturday June 6th 2009

Well back again, lost the use of my computer for awhile, I now have a new Mac so here goes again. Over the past couple of weeks we have been monitoring our fish box with good results, big healthy smolts, well over the 125 mm size. 

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.