I usually make a habit of walking the banks of rivers, even when they’re closed for the season. There is a lot you can glean from water when you’re not fishing. There is a lot you can learn when you can’t be fishing. While a fall-spawning fish might not be in that same location come springtime, you gain a general knowledge of what kind of fish are in the area. As vegetation dies or flows go low, stream bottom or bank features are revealed. Plus, the presence of water is cathartic.
Last week I needed an hour of that kind of catharsis.
It had been at least eight weeks since I walked this particular stream. It is a small, spring-influenced creek that I delude myself into thinking is my little secret. Flowing behind homes right outside of a moderately-sized New England city, it holds a surprisingly healthy brook trout population. In all the year’s I’ve fished it, the most dramatic change has been a new landowner posting my favorite place to park. Everything else has remained the same.
This winter things changed. A lot.
I first noticed a few large trees had fallen. Both were originally right on the streambank, and both fell across the creek. This meant that the trunk was now across the flow and the exposed rootball created a pocket on one side of the river. In one instance, the current hit the tree and reoriented banks from its usual flow. Upstream, the incident simply intensified the flow and deepened the channel. The creek was very different in the two stretches immediately downstream of the fallen trees
Something else was off, though. Local precipitation has been lower than usual, but not to the extent that a spring would be impacted. Still, the water felt low. Moving upstream I rounded a bend. What I saw was disorienting. What I expected, because what used to be there, was a wide flow from the left emptying out into a deep pool. Now? A shallow riffle coming straight at me, a few fierce plunges immediately to my left, and loads of debris piled up just past all of it.
Apparently my stream was now a beaver pond.
Initially I assumed that some landowners had been playing around in their Covid time off. The branches that formed the dam were so precisely cut. Then, looking around the streambank I saw that everything smaller than my wrist had been chewed to a point around two feet off the ground. Beavers. And busy ones at that.
There is a lot that can be said about beavers, trout, and their relationship within the ecosystems where they coexist. For anglers, the long story made short is this: when its good its good, when its not its not. On my stream, I am assuming the best because of the springs downstream of the new dam. This season will be different, but I have confidence in these trout and this creek.
Irrespective of the cause, you might find your river has changed over the past few months. Here are a few things to remember as you get out for the first time:
- We might not be used to change, but fish are. They’re not emotionally attached to pools or runs. They go where they can go to find safety and food.
- Rivers balance themselves. Unless there is some dramatic human intervention, any given stretch of stream is going to compensate for natural change.
- Patterns take time to establish themselves. The months after a dramatic shift in the river might be up and down. Good fishing months may be followed by lean, fishless ones.
- Observe, observe, observe. Watch, go slowly, and don’t assume. Patience and reading the water are the key, especially on the rivers we feel we know the most.