I had some lunch with a long time fishing guide buddy a few weeks back and almost choked up my carne asada when he proclaimed everything's better now that water temps are cooling off on the Eagle. That is pretty gullible considering there are about 15 other reasons telling an intelligent steward of the water to stay away. Personally, I feel like some grounds keeper on a Monday morning after a huge 4 day tournament; my perfect course has been trampled and abused. Looking at the Eagle in this condition is sickening and it has me feeling low too.
The Eagle is cooling off, but it is lower than it has ever been. I was prepared to list bunches of scientific data on the impacts of low water on wild trout......... you can google it, there is a ton of reading material. The long and the short of it is every step we take in that river right now is screwing shit up.
That could be the river telling us to fish less.
Low flows can change the water's dissolved oxygen and PH levels which affects vegetation and the overall composition of the river bed. This can greatly influence movement, feeding, habitat and reproduction of aquatic insects and in many cases, changing the biodiversity of the river. Low water combined with abnormally high levels of vegetation can hurt the population of certain insects and help the population of others, like predators. Either way expect less in the way of epic hatches next year, even if we do have a great water year there will be less bugs.
Low flows concentrate fish and rob them of safe hiding places which makes it much easier for their natural predators and snaggers to easily thin out the crowd. They also compete for limited food differently when they are all stacked up.
Brown trout are getting ready to spawn and they have less space to do it. Less space equals less success which obviously means less trouts. Low water has definitely effected the diet of fish that are about to reproduce and science shows a well fed Brown trout contains more eggs. Less space during the spawn also makes it very easy for the uneducated to tread on fresh Redds' which again means less trouts.
We are getting to the point here on the Eagle where it probably should be closed. I'm not sure how that actually happens, but I know there are a bunch of local fishermen ready to sit in the bushes with paint ball guns and pick off pricks who don't get it.
There are other places to go.........
Big Zim with a fish from "somewhere else"
I even got lucky "somewhere else"
Carry On............somewhere else.
