Thain/Upper Mission Creek TrappingOn May 9th, 2017 Sandie, myself and a friend headed out to retrieve traps we had set the evening previous. The goal of this trapping was to see if we could trap some Coho juveniles in this reach of Thain Creek. The concern was no adult Coho were making it up a very steep section of creek to the west of Westview Drive. The second concern was if fish were making it up this steep section of creek, were they able to get up the Queens fish ladder prior to me cleaning it out. We only placed two traps, one below the fish ladder at Queens and one above it. There were plenty of Cutthroat spotted during the placement of the traps. Some of which were very large, a few that looked to be 8" or larger. Since there were so many Cutthroat spotted, we didn't want to entice too many into the traps incase Coho fry of the year were captured. In which case, the Cutthroat may eat the Coho. The traps were placed in very shallow sections of the creek for this reason. Both traps yielded 3 Cutthroat for a total of 6 fish. So few fish with large chunks of roe had them looking very chubby! They looked as if they were ready to explode, well at least they won't have to eat anytime soon now! Unfortunately there were no Coho fry of the year or 1 year olds. Which leads us to believe that the spawning Coho in the previous two years were not able to pass a very steep section of Thain Creek. I remediated the steep section of Thain creek by hand, creating large step pools with boulders to allow for salmon passage for the coming year - only time will tell if it works! Fish MeasurementsThe Cutthroat in Trap 1 - Below the fish ladder were:
14.2CM, 12.6CM & 10.1CM Trap 2 - Above the fish ladder were: 12.8CM, 12.0CM & 11.2CM
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AuthorKeegan Casidy Archives
January 2020
CategoriesMosquito Creek,
North Vancouver, British Columbia |