The end of our Cutthroat monitoring season with Amy, Jordyn, Rod, Daryl and myself was great fun. We have now established five productive sites where we can expect to document a consistent trout count.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the new sites is hidden inside the riparian zone and provides a pool just under where the creek flows over well placed logs. Here Jordyn lands the gee trap directly into the pool where four trout were found.

The second is a very small pool just above where the creek falls over logs and is deep enough to hide trout. The trap needed to be hidden under the bank overhang. Daryl found a healthy 95 mm trout there.

After placing traps, we decided to try another new site just below the bridge. The small quite shallow pool produced four Cutthroat

 

On retrieving the traps on October 27th, the range of fork lengths provided food for thought. The smallest Cutthroat retrieved measured 45 millimeters, suggesting that the trout for this year, have spawned well up in Bee Creek.

This Cutthroat, with a fork length of about 170 mms was very healthy, well fed, with great colour. It was retrieved from site 5, approaching the creek source in Royal Roads property. Freshwater shrimp are active here which may explain a consistent trout count.

The smallest trout measured about 50 millimeters and was retrieved just below the bridge where we tried a new site. Fortunately we found three Cutthroat here. This one appears to be a year one juvenile cutthroat.