This footage was taken November 26th looking downstream of the 3rd Street bridge in North Vancouver.
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Spawning Totals 2018 (so far)In October and into early November a total of 10 Chum salmon were spotted on Mosquito. 8 were female and only 2 were male. There is a chance some males were hiding as I did not get right into the water. As for Coho, 3 were sighted in the lower reached, 2 in the upper reaches, and 2 (dead) in Thain Creek. A total of 7. Two Adult Coho - Superior CamoflaugeIn this video you will see two adult Coho, the first one is very brief. I actually did not know there was anything under the water. I had simply been taking underwater footage of every pool that was deeper than 2' feet to review the footage at home later. To my surprise there were two Coho in this one pool. It is great to see, but I literally filmed every pool for 1.5KM and these were the only adults on the whole river that day. Chum Salmon and Surprise CohoWhen approaching to film these two Chum salmon I spooked them, and they in turn spooked a Coho Salmon. It just so happens that where I set my camera was a very nice hiding spot and the Coho decided to take shelter there. If you look carefully to where the Coho ends up, you can see the tail of another Coho which had wedge itself deeper inside the rock. It is not very often I get the opportunity to film a single Coho, nevermind two!! Some More ChumHere you can see two Chum salmon who likely have already spawned out. You can tell these fish are both female due to their white tails, which have been beaten up from digging a salmon nest, or "Redd." Also, most species of male salmon have faces which undergo a drastic change when in the spawning phase. Their snout/jaws curl up and become quite scary looking. Which is not the case for these two females. Violent Flows on Mosquito + Fell Channel IssuesSaturday November 3rd saw a huge rainfall event for the second night in a row. Leading to huge violent flows on all our North Shore streams.
I went down to check out Mosquito Creek at 9AM and noticed the outfall of the Griffin Channel had nearly entirely washed out. There wasn't much I could do so I continued on to the Fell Channel. I immediately noticed the Fell Channel had run dry (again). I rushed to move fry from the drying channel bed into pools of water. However, I was far too late for most of the fish. After moving a few fry by hand I realized I had to mobilize a new action plan, as my previous actions were too slow for what needed to be done. I went up to the intake and noticed how high the water was. I called around and rushed to get a key from Doug in hopes that it would open the intake box. When I got back I realized that Doug's key was for DNV locks and I was in CNV territory. Additionally, I had noticed the intake weir (in the main-stem) which was made of 3 large cement lock blocks, a steel fish weir and a steel box with a steel mesh screen (primary intake for the Fell Channel) had all washed away about 50 - 100M downstream. This had left the secondary intake totally exposed, which was just a standalone pipe to the fell channel. This had obviously clogged up and I had to way to clean it out unless I could open the steel box with the CNV lock on it. I called around and had a quick conversation with Ron, who was available to meet and assist with a fry salvage. I went home quickly to get a little aquarium net and two fish traps, Ron showed up with a pail to hold the fry as I netted them. After about an hour of netting fish we decided to move the fish into the Griffin Channel. We had a bucket of about 30 Fry and 2 Crayfish. After releasing the fish Ron had to leave to attend other plans. I continued on and did 3 more trips that afternoon each with about 40 Fry. I also set two Fry traps in the channel. One at the top pool and one in a pool that was mid-channel, with the idea to move re-set the traps into the large alcove/pond of the channel Monday morning. Monday morning came and I took the fry out of the traps and moved them into a pail. Then I set both traps at the large alcove/pool on the channel. I moved the fry into the Griffin Channel as I did the others from the day before and proceed to go to work. Later Monday morning CNV was onsite to complete an assessment. Then DFO showed up shortly after to assess the situation as well. DFO was able to restore water flow to the channel and CNV and DFO decided to retrieve my traps and release all the fry that had been caught back into the channel. When our DFO habitat restoration specialist and our DFO community advisor return from vacation we can better prepare an action plan on how we will fixed the intake to the Fell Channel and the outfall of the Griffin Channel. I am estimating a loss of around 500 fish, I was able to salvage at least 200 fry. Of which around 2/3rds were Coho fry and the rest were Cutthroat. I did not identify any fish from Sunday in great detail. So there is a chance some were Rainbow/Steelhead, but I was not able to positively identify any. |
AuthorKeegan Casidy Archives
January 2020
CategoriesMosquito Creek,
North Vancouver, British Columbia |