Blue ribbon trout streams and water temperatures

[Skeeter ZX190]

With this extreme heat were having, do the blue ribbon streams reach a temperature that could stress the trout or do they have enough spring fed water to keep them in a comfortable position?  I've never fished any of them in the summer but was curious since some states implement hoot owl restrictions in the heat of the summer.

[fishinwrench]

In the mid-'80s there was a terrible drought, and intense heat for weeks on end.  Crane cr. was nothing but a series of stillwater puddles full of moss and tadpoles.  

Then about 10-15 years later the internet came to all of our homes, and I'm pretty sure that McCloud rainbows emerged with the internet..... because nobody had ever even heard of them until the internet arrived. But according to the story they had existed in Crane for 70+ years, with no additional stocking, in spite of the fact that Crane and all of the aquifers that feed it have completely dried up numerous times during that time span.   🙄 

So, basically, if you believe the McCloud fairy-tale, then you also must believe that trout can easily survive long periods of intense heat and very little habitat.  MDC biologists confirm it......so there ya go.  😉

[Dutch]

I’ve lived around Crane Creek since the 60s.  I seen it low but never as bad as described.  The water always seems icy cold to me.  I don’t know about the headwaters up by Mrs. Leak’s house because I seldom went there.  Our farm on the creek was several miles down stream.  It is a couple of miles below the confluence of Crane and Spring Creeks.

[Skeeter ZX190]

10 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

In the mid-'80s there was a terrible drought, and intense heat for weeks on end.  Crane cr. was nothing but a series of stillwater puddles full of moss and tadpoles.  

Then about 10-15 years later the internet came to all of our homes, and I'm pretty sure that McCloud rainbows emerged with the internet..... because nobody had ever even heard of them until the internet arrived. But according to the story they had existed in Crane for 70+ years, with no additional stocking, in spite of the fact that Crane and all of the aquifers that feed it have completely dried up numerous times during that time span.   🙄 

So, basically, if you believe the McCloud fairy-tale, then you also must believe that trout can easily survive long periods of intense heat and very little habitat.  MDC biologists confirm it......so there ya go.  😉

Rik Hafer's book "From Northern California to the Ozarks of Missouri" does a pretty good job of dispelling the idea that Crane Creek still has the original strain of McCloud trout.  He has stocking records that show trout were stocked in Crane Creek after shipments of California McClouds had stopped.  

 

[Johnsfolly]

20 minutes ago, Skeeter ZX190 said:

Rik Hafer's book "From Northern California to the Ozarks of Missouri" does a pretty good job of dispelling the idea that Crane Creek still has the original strain of McCloud trout.  He has stocking records that show trout were stocked in Crane Creek after shipments of California McClouds had stopped.

All you need to confirm is get some grad student to do a DNA survey of the fish in Crane and compare to fish from CA. Wouldn't be too expensive, but doubt MDC would fund it. Wrench could post a GoFundMe site to raise the cash 😉.

[fishinwrench]

14 minutes ago, Johnsfolly said:

Wrench could post a GoFundMe site to raise the cash 😉.

I'm not doing anything to give biologists another meaningless project. 

I already know that it's a BS story, and I also know why they choose to perpetrate it.   It's a harmless fib, and the intention is admirable.....which is way more respectful than all of the other fibs still going around.

[Dutch]

I don’t know anything about those McCloud trout.  I never even heard the name until I read it on this site.  All I know is when we fished it we used crayfish from the creek, peeled tails on 10# test mono if we wanted mid sized ones,  full sized live ones on 20# test with a 3/0 hook for the good ones that lived in the root wads.  We hadn’t even heard of a fly rod.

[Gavin]

There is a study in progress funded by Gateway TU

https://www.gatewaytu.org/project-redband.html

 

 

[tjm]

Since the first national hatchery was the Baird Hatchery on the McCloud River and they shipped trout all over the world, it seems likely that all hatchery rainbow trout from Here to Australia to Japan to Germany are descendants of McCloud River trout. But I read someplace that trout can change their  "genetic expression"  within a generation or two and that (if I understood it) once in a hatchery for a few generations that the trout could reproduce in the wild and the offspring would still have the genetics of hatchery trout. So while the study is interesting, I'm not sure that it can be conclusive about the origins of the wild Mo. trout.

[Gavin]

You will certainly know if they can match it to a known sample, and match variances to other known samples, and quantify the differences. They are likely mutts, but distant family to what is currently farmed.