An update
Took another walk today looking for redds in the Buck for Wildlife area. Starting <> 600 yards east of the parking lot I wandered upstream checking out the usual spots. Well, it took a while to find the first one. From year to year, the browns will often use the same locations. Such wasn’t the case for the first several hundred yards. Then I found a possible. Occasionally, browns will try a spot and find it not to their liking. These trials redds often do not contain the large rocks at the upstream end indicating a rejected location.
Then I found a real one and within a short distance another. In one stretch of 50 years there was four.
The walk ended with eight redds found which is far better than the two I found two years ago and certainly down from sixteeen found about ten years ago. Whether this indicates normal is unclear.
I never check upstream of the Buck for Wildlife parking lot to the Lazy M any longer as there has never all been more than two redds in this location. Upstream of the Lazy M is a far more important spawning area.
I then checked two short previously used spawning areas.
Just below the culverts on the west property line of Stainbrookes site yielded four redds which is typical. Further upstream, downstream of the culvert on the Leavitt site often has redds but there were none.
So ended today’s redd check.
|