Catching Smolts in Fish Trap
A sincere thanks to all who assisted with the fish count this year – it was certainly a unique and challenging one, but always helpful to get a sense of what’s happening in our beloved creek.
Smolts
The final tally was 16 smolts and 54 fry, for a total of 70 fish. This number is very low, but is likely an undercount based on unusual water conditions this year. We suspect that some of the fish counted as fry were, in fact, smolts, as this year’s smolts were quite small in comparison to previous years. The attached photo shows two smolts, measuring just 7-9 cm each – barely larger than a typical fry at 4-5 cm.
In addition, the fence overflowed on 12 sampling days out of 50, or about 25% of the time, which likely led to some fish bypassing the trap. This was very unusual with heavy rains, cold weather, and late migration of smolts. We normally see most smolts migrate by the 3rd week of May, but were still seeing the odd smolt in the trap last week, so perhaps there are a few more still making their way down. All of those factors lead us to believe that our number totals are likely a significant undercount, and hopefully next year will prove us right!
Thanks again for all your fine work to support fish counting this year. Despite the low numbers and extra work to keep the fence clear, we hope you had some fun and will be game to pull your boots on again in 2023. As always, if you have questions or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to send our way via the BCWS website.
Smolt Measurements
Happy summer (whenever it gets here)! 😉
Bill, on behalf of the BCWS group.