Author: Ian W. McVitty

Fall, with its cooler weather and cloudy skies came quickly to the southern tip of Vancouver Island. Bee Creek looks considerably different than during the summer as the foliage lining the banks of the waterway has begun to die off.

As the more frequent rain raises the water level, the trout are filling growing pools and 26 trout ranging in fork lengths of 30 to 195 millimeters were recorded. The largest trout of 195 looks like it was the same one recorded upstream, a month ago, on Royal Roads property.

One of the more interesting finds this month is a Stonefly nymph, seen above, It measured about an inch, indicating that it was midway through its nymph stage, before climbing ashore as an adult, and beginning the cycle again. Stoneflies are particularly prone to unclean water and its presence in the creek is an excellent sign.

Altogether 2023 was a good year on Bee Creek, with numerous of visitors, somewhat consistent trout count and a healthy creek environment.

Autumn has arrived at Bee Creek with cooler temperatures, more rain and changing trout data. Numbers at each site are low, but consistent with 18 trout measured. Site 1, closest to the mouth shows a healthy number of trout ranging from three to five months old. One trout measured close to 200 millimetres fork length and located closer to the creek sources on Royal Roads property. This fork length equates to a trout of almost two years of age, which is the age Searun Cutthroat normally return to the Lagoon and coastal waters.

It was a beautiful trout, with good colour, likely well fed and very active when being measured. It was released carefully into a deep pool at site seven on Royal Roads land.

Bee Creek is home to many types of food for Cutthroat. Although fresh water shrimp continue to be active in the creek, Caddisfly larva have shed thier casings and are now, in thier adult form feeding on vegetation near the water. As a flying insect, they now add dragonflies abd birds to thier list of predators and will likely reach thier end of lifespan by next month.

Summers end brought welcome visitors from England to explore Bee Creek and Royal Roads University. Hilary and Robert along with thier family had a chance to see some of the sites currrently monitored plus a demonstration of the mechanics of a gee trap. A picnic overlooking the Esquimalt Lagoon at the mouth of Bee Creek was a peak moment for our visit.
Daryl and Rod completed the creek monitoring this month and much like July, the count was low leading to speculation that the trout are using the increased vegetation for shelter making it more difficult to lure them into the gee traps.
Despite the drought in BC this summer, leading to record forest fires and several heat waves, the creek remained healthy with cool waters and normal water levels. Trout fork lengths ranged from 50 to 120 millimeters again normal for the creek during the summer.

July was an interesting month, with slightly warmer waters and continued heavy vegetation growth.

As for trout numbers recorded, numbers dropped to ten with four sites showing no trout after a day of trap soaking. Creek temperature rose to nearly 14 degrees and site 7 continued to attract the majority of cutthroat. Trout recorded appeared to be feeding very well, so it seems that most of the population of trout have moved to more sheltered areas.

We were joined by Rachel and Riley who were visiting from out east and we had a great time showing them how the creek is being monitored. Riley is a fly fisherman and we talked about how he ties flies to match the hatch of the season in Alberta. He was particularly interested in the caddisflies which were abundant. Looking closely at the tip of the casing revealed the head and front legs of the fly.

A caddisfly casing is made up of bits of vegetation and wood.

June brought continued healthy cutthroat populations, accompanied with heavy vegetation surrounding the creek.
Much like last year, parts of the creek for which are heavily overgrown provide shelter and make numbers of trout a little unpredictable. Although 25 trout were recorded, some sites, such as 7 in Royal Roads University property held only one trout after a day of soaking traps. The same occurred on site 5, suggesting that on these sites the trout have moved to cooler water and where more protection from plant life were available.

One strategy we have contemplated is to test new sites throughout the creek during the month, looking at pools upstream of current sites.

Variability of trout recorded could also be connected to the abundance or not of food. Freshwater shrimp and caddisflies are plentiful in the gee traps when emptied in collection buckets, especially at site 6, a relatively deep pool, where seven trout were recorded.

Rod (left) and James, joined up to help the season opening of the Bee Creek monitoring season.

Wet, cold spring weather in Victoria delayed plant growth until hot dry sun brought on fast spurts of plant life and within a few weeks Bee Creek became quickly overgrown.

The shade provided by new plant life provided protection for the new juvenile trout and and the same time, supported an abundance of food for the Cutthroat, such as fresh water shrimp, caterpillars, spiders, and plenty of caddisflies.

As for the trout, all but one site on the creek, held a good number of healthy Cutthroat.

In addition to ample food for the trout, predators such as the blue heron were seen at the mouth of the creek and further upstream taking the occasional trout. Overall, the creek looks healthy and nature has provided the trout with ample protection and food this spring.

Season end on Bee Creek experienced heavy rains which soaked the area and filled the creek overnight. Despite faster running water and higher levels than usual, we recorded 30 cutthroat in seven sites, with lengths ranging from a small 50 millimetres to several at a relatively large length of 160 millimetres.

The healthy numbers finish off a monitoring season which reflects a good population of trout despite the heat wave during the summer, very late spring and an unusually early winter with heavy rains and even snow with the rapidly dropping temperatures.

With changeable weather came patterns of length. Given that a trout will grow roughly 25 millimetres in length per month lengths recorded suggest that since it take up to six weeks from spawning to hatching, the trout in Bee Creek could be up to two or three years old. Sea Run Cutthroat typically return to the coastal waters after this period of time so it is interesting to confirm this trait of largest trout recorded being 180 millimetres. (probably three years old).

Fall has finally arrived to Vancouver Island and the cooler temperature brings more colourful trees surrounding Bee Creek.
With the season end coming up next month, we were able to retrieve 31 healthy cutthroat with the two largest being recorded near the mouth and from site 7 on Royal Roads property. The largest measured 150 millimetres, or approximately six months old.

The vegetation surrounding the creek has grown substantially over the summer, especially close to the mouth, making the placement of the traps a little challenging, but also rewarding, since dense weeds are an excellent source of cover for the fish.

Rod joined me this month and recorded the data in his customary efficient way. It looks like we may have to provide a salary raise.

Other noteworthy news is that the trout looked healthy with large bellies indicating that the creek is still providing a good source of food for the trout.

On September 13th we were happy to receive a visit from Ashley Richter and Lindsey McCrank of CRD. We met at the mouth of the Bee Creek and spent a wonderful hour or so telling our story.
Lindsey is the coordinator of the Harbours and Watershed group which leads the Esquimalt Lagoon Stewardship Initiative. All volunteers of the Bee Creek trout monitoring team are ELSI volunteers.

Ashley is CRD’s media expert and came loaded with cameras, microphones, lights and long list of questions.
The Stewardship Storytelling project led by Lindsey, discovers motivations and experiences of volunteers. Material, videos and images will be added to CRD’s website.

We started with a demonstration of how the trout are recovered, measured and photographed, using two traps that had been set the previous day. We recovered several healthy trout from the sites nearest Pendray house, where photos were taken.
Moving to the lawn overlooking the Esquimalt Lagoon we chatted about our experiences being mindful to remember Beth Mitchell who pioneered work on the creek since 2004. It was Beth who trained our team back in 2017 and the results of efforts remain strong today.
Daryl and I chatted about the challenges and rewards of monitoring the creek, its connection to the lagoon and playing a small part in environmental protection.