Now this stream should really be better than it is.

[greatbigdiddy]

Just wondering if anyone has come across this type of stream in your explorations of this fine province. You know you leave your usual streams for a day of exploration not necessarily to an unheard of secret place but just a place you don't normally go to and when you arrive everything just looks so perfect lots of awesome holes runs and riffles all set out in a perfect way you just know it is going to be an amazing day filled with 18 inch trout of whatever variety but as you hike along casting switching flies switching methods maybe with a little success or maybe none at all but the farther you walk the better and better the stream looks but the big payoff just never comes and you sit there and wonder why ... why isn't this place as good as such and such place it should be there is no reason for it not to be. eventually you head home left wondering WHY? then a couple years later you find yourself in the area again and you convince yourself that you will try it again because you know it has to be a big trout mecca its just to perfect not to ... so you go and start hiking and the story repeats it self once again WHY?

For me one of the streams like this is the Burnt timber creek, over the years I have fished this creek a handful of times I have had some minor success but I am always left wondering why this stream is not so much better than it is, it just oozes with what should be prime bulltrout/cutthroat water and it just seems like it should be so much more than it is ... I find this to be true of a lot of streams in the upper reddeer system. so beautiful so perfect looking they should be legendary trout streams, now don't get me wrong I have had some really good fishing in my life in this area but there just seems to be some streams here that should be unreal and at least for me they have not been. when I research and try to find out why they are not as good as some of our best cutthroat waters I read about and consider issues like the growing season down south is longer so that's why the fish are bigger and more abundant but my answer to that is a couple streams up in the north Saskatchewan system that are just as good for big plentiful cutts as those streams down south so why has the northern latitude not hindered them ... next I consider C&R regulations this might explain why these streams never reached top notch status in the 80s and 90s but I believe they have been C&R for a good portion of the 2000s but still no amazing cutthroat streams have developed here and once again I am left asking WHY??

What streams do you guys feel fall in this category for you??

Do any of you have any opinions or answers to my conundrum ??

All related thoughts and opinions appreciated ... thanks ... DIDDY.

[Don Andersen]

Drought profoundly effects both the Little Red and Burnt Timber. The last big fish kill removed about 80% of the fish.
Such is life in the eastern slopes - sometimes flood - sometimes drought.

Don

[goldscud]

Add angling mortality to natural problems on small systems and things get real bad. Not everyone follows the rules

[rycoma]

There is a lot to streams. You have to look at the stream as whole including things you can't see. Things like gradient, what type of bottom the stream flows over, cattle, over wintering areas to name a few. I know for a fact burnt timber and the little red are slower moving rivers. I would personally rather fish other creeks in that area. Most of those streams in the upper red deer system hold browns maybe a change of tactics are in order as those browns are tough to catch also a lot of those creeks are quite slow and deep they can be tricky to fish

[greatbigdiddy]

Originally Posted by rycoma

I know for a fact burnt timber and the little red are slower moving rivers. I would personally rather fish other creeks in that area. Most of those streams in the upper red deer system hold browns maybe a change of tactics are in order as those browns are tough to catch also a lot of those creeks are quite slow and deep they can be tricky to fish

I am talking about the BURNT TIMBER and North burnt timber here guys not the fallentimber and little red those are for sure slower and predominantly brown trout waters ... but the UPPER reddeer tribs like the Burnt timber and panther are predominantly cutty and bull trout waters and they are not slow and deep they are fast high gradient streams very similar to the Livingston and ram rivers .... sorry for the confusion. but rycoma I totally agree with you on those browns in FT and LR being tricky at times for sure.

[tight line]

For me, the Cardinal River should be alot better, the areas i fished had little to no traces of Human Activity, and had pristine Pools..nothing in them, it was still fairly early in the year(July), so maybe the Cutts were down in the Brazeau still...spent a full day on it with no success..havent bothered going back. Its hard to Judge it only spending one day on it, but not even a Bull or RMW..with Polarised glasses i can usually spot something even if im not catching. Exploring new Rivers is fun, but always a gamble..the last few years i seem to have less and less time to gamble..

I know it was heavily over fished in the past, maybe it has just never recovered, but the Blackstone and Ram Systems were as well, and they recovered fine..

[lds]

Originally Posted by greatbigdiddy

Just wondering if anyone has come across this type of stream in your explorations of this fine province. You know you leave your usual streams for a day of exploration not necessarily to an unheard of secret place but just a place you don't normally go to and when you arrive everything just looks so perfect lots of awesome holes runs and riffles all set out in a perfect way you just know it is going to be an amazing day filled with 18 inch trout of whatever variety but as you hike along casting switching flies switching methods maybe with a little success or maybe none at all but the farther you walk the better and better the stream looks but the big payoff just never comes and you sit there and wonder why ... why isn't this place as good as such and such place it should be there is no reason for it not to be. eventually you head home left wondering WHY? then a couple years later you find yourself in the area again and you convince yourself that you will try it again because you know it has to be a big trout mecca its just to perfect not to ... so you go and start hiking and the story repeats it self once again WHY?

For me one of the streams like this is the Burnt timber creek, over the years I have fished this creek a handful of times I have had some minor success but I am always left wondering why this stream is not so much better than it is, it just oozes with what should be prime bulltrout/cutthroat water and it just seems like it should be so much more than it is ... I find this to be true of a lot of streams in the upper reddeer system. so beautiful so perfect looking they should be legendary trout streams, now don't get me wrong I have had some really good fishing in my life in this area but there just seems to be some streams here that should be unreal and at least for me they have not been. when I research and try to find out why they are not as good as some of our best cutthroat waters I read about and consider issues like the growing season down south is longer so that's why the fish are bigger and more abundant but my answer to that is a couple streams up in the north Saskatchewan system that are just as good for big plentiful cutts as those streams down south so why has the northern latitude not hindered them ... next I consider C&R regulations this might explain why these streams never reached top notch status in the 80s and 90s but I believe they have been C&R for a good portion of the 2000s but still no amazing cutthroat streams have developed here and once again I am left asking WHY??

What streams do you guys feel fall in this category for you??

Do any of you have any opinions or answers to my conundrum ??

All related thoughts and opinions appreciated ... thanks ... DIDDY.

Every time I fish burnt timber it's amazing so don't know what's goin on with your experience

[greatbigdiddy]

Originally Posted by lds

Every time I fish burnt timber it's amazing so don't know what's goin on with your experience

I'm not saying it is not good, it is beautiful and it looks amazing but when it comes to the cutthroat... I was just saying that there is no reason that it shouldn't be as good and productive in both size and numbers as some of the more popular cutt streams to the south and to the north ... and in my experience it is not as productive as these other streams ... when you say it's amazing what do you mean by amazing are you catching tons of 18 inch cutts ??

all I'm saying is because it has less pressure and has been C&R for quite some time I think it should be as productive as the Livingston and the North Ram ... but I didn't know why it wasn't .... many theories have been presented on this thread and I am sure it is a combo of all of them

do you find both numbers and sizes to be comparable to the Livingston and north ram when you are fishing the Burnt timber ?? I'm talking about the cutts

[lds]

Sorry. I understand now. I have no experience on the ram or Livingston but as far a straight cuts goes. Not as good as other cut streams I have fished. I do however get a lot of fish and good size on the bt but it is a variety of browns, bulls, cutts and whites. Sorry for the confusion

[bitterrootfly]

Just fished burnt timber above the confluence with the north burnt timber, fished for four hours pouring over every likely pool, and run and only landed one 18-19 inch bull trout out of a back Eddie. Water was quite high with run off but to be honest I expected a lot more especially considering how hard we fished. I see the potential for the fishery, and I have no doubt that it is amazing to fish sometimes, but I feel like it is inconsistent.

[Okotokian]

I've got a nice little spot on the Sheep River. Never seen another soul there (they must know what I don't). It's a long run with all kinds of different water. Looks like it should have fish. Riffles, pools, some log jams... I've probably been there 4 times, never caught one fish. I've caught fish on other parts of the Sheep, just not there.

[KegRiver]

Originally Posted by greatbigdiddy

Just wondering if anyone has come across this type of stream in your explorations of this fine province. You know you leave your usual streams for a day of exploration not necessarily to an unheard of secret place but just a place you don't normally go to and when you arrive everything just looks so perfect lots of awesome holes runs and riffles all set out in a perfect way you just know it is going to be an amazing day filled with 18 inch trout of whatever variety but as you hike along casting switching flies switching methods maybe with a little success or maybe none at all but the farther you walk the better and better the stream looks but the big payoff just never comes and you sit there and wonder why ... why isn't this place as good as such and such place it should be there is no reason for it not to be. eventually you head home left wondering WHY? then a couple years later you find yourself in the area again and you convince yourself that you will try it again because you know it has to be a big trout mecca its just to perfect not to ... so you go and start hiking and the story repeats it self once again WHY?

Not quiet the same but I do wonder about some steams around here.
The upper reaches of this whole drainage used to harbor vast numbers of Grayling.
At one time they were so numerous that local trappers used primitive rock corrals to capture them for dog food.

Now they are gone. 0 possession limit and I wonder why. Almost no one fished for them. The few who did, like myself, only fished for them occasionally and seldom kept any. Yet they are gone.

What happened?

There never was a commercial fishery for them. Sustenance hunters did not target them. Much of their preferred steams were not accessible by road.

I've asked some SRD people but no one seems to know.

I have to wonder if the answer may lie in the fact that they overwintered in the Peace River. I did notice that their decline started shortly after DMI opened for business.

Is there a connection? I don't know and if anyone else knows, they aren't saying.

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by KegRiver

Not quiet the same but I do wonder about some steams around here.
The upper reaches of this whole drainage used to harbor vast numbers of Grayling.
At one time they were so numerous that local trappers used primitive rock corrals to capture them for dog food.

Now they are gone. 0 possession limit and I wonder why. Almost no one fished for them. The few who did, like myself, only fished for them occasionally and seldom kept any. Yet they are gone.

What happened?

There never was a commercial fishery for them. Sustenance hunters did not target them. Much of their preferred steams were not accessible by road.

I've asked some SRD people but no one seems to know.

I have to wonder if the answer may lie in the fact that they overwintered in the Peace River. I did notice that their decline started shortly after DMI opened for business.

Is there a connection? I don't know and if anyone else knows, they aren't saying.

Sometimes stopping harvest after the damage is done doesn't fix it in a time scale that we can see.

That NW AB study area went from grayling everywhere to no grayling at all just due to impacts from researchers.

[MrDave]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

Sometimes stopping harvest after the damage is done doesn't fix it in a time scale that we can see.

That NW AB study area went from grayling everywhere to no grayling at all just due to impacts from researchers.

And as we all know, damage one species in the food chain, it can disturb other species.

[let it fly]

As I have been reading through these pages I can't help but wonder what the ph level is like and how has it changed over the yrs. Having moved here 10 yrs ago I don't know a lot of the history. The only reason I bring this up is that I was involoved with the salmon conservation group back east and there was another group in the area that was struggling to see salmon return to the river that once held a healthy population. It was discovered that the ph level fluctuated a lot because of outside influences/ industry/ terrain. Once they saw the ph level balance out( with the help of a lime source in the head waters) fish started returning to the system. Maybe this has been brought up before and I missed it, if not it could be something to consider.

[KegRiver]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

Sometimes stopping harvest after the damage is done doesn't fix it in a time scale that we can see.

That NW AB study area went from grayling everywhere to no grayling at all just due to impacts from researchers.

I don't believe harvesting had anything to do with the decline and therefor I don't believe it will do anything for recovery.

To understand the problem one has to know a bit about the streams they were in, Streams like Grayling Creek, Wolf Creek, Goffit Creek. And many more like them.

These are small streams far off the beaten track where almost nobody goes.
They average a few feet across and a few feet deep in the deeper pools.
They meander through unbroken forest where there are no roads or people.

Research has been done in some of the larger streams to the south, but so far as I know, no research has been done or is being done on this population.
At least I can't find any evidence of research on the internet. And when ACA was conducting a Walleye tagging program here a few years back I asked them about researching Grayling and was told that they were not aware of any work being done in the area with regards to Grayling.

[Jadham]

Looks like an interesting book.