Fishing Forum

[black][size 3]Posted this on the fly-fishing board, but thought I would try here too:[/size][/black]
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[black][size 3]I have some questions about something fairly amazing that I saw and experienced and hope somebody can enlighten me. First, the set up.

I decided to fish a river that I haven't fished for a few years. Gas prices have kept me fishing closer to home, but I headed to a river a couple hours away. I was hoping to see some midges or blue wings and get some dry action. I worked a quarter mile stretch of river and didn't see a single fish. The river is shallow and clear enough that you usually see a few fish as you splash upstream. I was getting concerned and was going to find another stretch, but worked up to a large log that had fallen across the river. Thinking there was a deeper section with some sippers working, I went over. There had been deeper water, caused by beavers, but the dam had been breached and there was no longer a pond. However, as I looked close at the water, I started to see fish. Big fish. Hundreds of fish. Browns stacked up like logs on top of each other. I couldn't believe the numbers and size of the fish I was seeing. I have never seen anything like it in a stream this size. At one point, I sat and counted as many fish as I could and I counted well over 200 fish in about a 35 yard stretch. The fish were all between about 16 and 23 inches long (I got to measure a few).

So there are two main questions: First, why were all the big fish stacked up there? Did they head down stream to spawn, did they head down to find warmer or cooler water? Were they attracted to the pond that was once there? (Once they hit that dam they couldn't go any more downstream.) Second, will they disperse and go back stream, and if so, when?

It was very cool to see, and even though most of the fish were not feeding, but were just hugging the bottom, I found plenty of takers to provide me with me best fishing day in many years.
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[cool][#0000ff]I have seen similar behavior in browns (and bows) on several waters during the winter. The fish apparently seek out the deepest water, even though it may not be really "deep", and bunch up to wait for higher flows in the spring. Other factors might be a warming spring coming in or greater oxygen levels below ripples, etc.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Unfortunately, these gatherings are sometimes found by predators and fish harvesters who decimate the vulnerable fish. I hope your interesting find remains secret from the hordes of unsportsmanlike "anglers" who might wander up that stream.[/#0000ff]
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Well said TubeDude. To many unsportman like anglers, who plunder and forget about tomorrow.
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I've seen that a lot. My theory is they are congregate in the beaver damns through winter, incase the river begins to freeze in some of the shallower holes.

However that's just my theory, and I'm no fish biologist. Come to think of it, it's always late winter that I have seen that, even as late as early April. Which Utah seems to still think is winter! A couple years back on Fish Creek, I found a couple hundred browns holed up in a beaver pond the first week of April, and 4 inches of snow fell in the time I was fishing.
I though April was spring???
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For what it's worth, I had a DWR biologist tell me last fall that no beaver dam can stop a trout from getting through.
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