The six months of 2023 trout monitoring season in Bee Creek experienced dry and warm conditions. The warm spring brought a quick growth of vegetation during the summer months providing plenty of shelter for cutthroat. Our season began with a record mumber of trout of 30 from the seven sites, but fell sharply during the summer.The area drought did not affect water temperature and we tabled consistent cool temperatures througout the season.
This year we continued to welcome guests to Bee Creek and their visits always enrich the ELSI volunteer experience.
Our monitoring view has expanded to include insects that live in and on the creek. This year we continue to see Caddisfly casings in the gee traps along with mature Caddisflies. We were also more aware of the Stonefly and evidence of this insect nymth in the traps are an encouraging sign of clean water and a healthy environment.
We have begun to measure results from 2018 to the current season. Since the number of sites has changed from five to seven and these sites can change slightly in location, plus occasionally monitoring can be halted temporarily on the creek, we have established a way to normalise results with Average count per trap and Average monthly count per year. Results show that 2023 was quite similar to 2021.
Our conclusion for the year on Bee Creek is that the creek and the trout are quite sensitive to environmental change which includes temperature or rain.
2023 Trout Monitoring summary spreadsheet
Bee Creek Cutthroat 