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[clarki]

Over the past three years, I have participated in coho fry salvage operations on the Little Campbell River. I posted about it here two years ago https://www.fishingwithrod.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=44977.msg425641#msg425641

Last year, I had a real eye opening experience on how closely related the river and the groundwater are.

My partner and I visited this pool which is ~5 ft deep at its deepest (It's a very unusual feature in this river and we suspect that it was excavated many years ago. Neighbouring landowners that we have talked to spoke about it being their local swimming hole when they were kids).We wanted to keep an eye on the pool as it was too deep to beach seine at this point,  but it likely held a large number of fry.



We returned to check on it 8 days later, and is was bone dry.



All that water didn't just evaporate. I'm not a hydrologist but it seems apparent that increased agricultural and residential groundwater use during the summer quickly lower the aquifer levels.



This year, the river has already started to disconnect and the organization that I volunteer with participated in salvage ops last Friday and netted ~10K fish.

I joined them today, along with DFO and Salish Sea Indigenous Guardians Association and we seined a number of disconnected pools and rescued perhaps another 10K. Maybe more, maybe less....it's really hard to guesstimate a black cloud of fish in a tank!



We netted a number of juvenile coastal cutthroat that were ~6" in size plus a number of trout fry, some that were ID'd as rainbow/steelhead, but others that we suspect were cutthroat also. Also a number of larger chinook fry which is unusual as chinook in this river head to the ocean in the late spring at just a few months old. DNA samples were taken of these fish.

We also netted a large number of pumpkinseed sunfish which were delivered the heel of our boots.

A very productive, worthwhile morning, but the work is just starting. There are other pools that need salvaging, but also many that we will never get to in time.

[bigsnag]

Nice work clarki

[salmonrook]

Great work
Always happy to see this little productive river get some more help.
Always happy to talk about the Little Campbell
The Chinook you rescued might have been from the hatchery
That section of river has several disjointed water sources including a catchment pond controlled by the city and runoff from nearby Latimer lake, this being replenished by a pump station opposite the Tim Norton's on 192 .
Of course the other flow comes from Langley under neath 200th ST.
Both local governments should take a more serious approach trying to maintain the water flow .

[fisherforever]

 I used to own a 5 acre parcel on 2nd ave and 212th in south Langley 25 years ago with a tributary of the Little Campbell on my property. Coho and cutthroat trout used to come through my property and spawn. Enjoyed showing that to my kids when they were small. Unfortunately someone bought the property in front of mine to put a large greenhouse and they dug out the creek for property drainage that was the end of the coho and cutthroat as there was a 8' foot drop in elevation from my property to where they dug out the creek. It took quite a few years for the land to erode away to allow the cutthroat to return but the coho never did.  It's sad what is happening to smaller lower mainland streams.

[clarki]

Great work
Always happy to see this little productive river get some more help.
Always happy to talk about the Little Campbell
The Chinook you rescued might have been from the hatchery
That section of river has several disjointed water sources including a catchment pond controlled by the city and runoff from nearby Latimer lake, this being replenished by a pump station opposite the Tim Norton's on 192 .
Of course the other flow comes from Langley under neath 200th ST.
Both local governments should take a more serious approach trying to maintain the water flow .

I don't think the chinook fry was from the hatchery. It wasn't clipped and was salvaged 4-5 km above the hatchery.

But you're right about maintaining water flow. In Surrey, the city pumps groundwater into Elgin Creek (via the existing stormwater system) at 30 litres/second to augment low seasonal flows. I wonder if something similar would be feasible on the LC.

Interestingly, the Township of Langley, in their Fernridge Neighbourhood plan (the LC runs right through the Fernridge area), has adopted larger setbacks along the river. This is great news for the river but not so great news for landowners. One landowner we know has had his property devalued significantly because his home sits within the new setback distance.

Conversely, the City of Surrey is decreasing setbacks

[clarki]

Did another salvage operation on Friday. This one a bit smaller in scope but we still netted several thousand coho, umpteen sunfish, some large sculpins, lots of stickleback, and this 17 cm cutthroat trout.


The haul...