Trout reform

KANOPOLIS LAKE — Kansans have long traveled to the Rockies for summer trout fishing. Next year they may be able to find trout much closer to home.

A lot of work has been put into the seep stream below the Kanopolis Lake dam. The main goal has been finding ways to keep the water cool enough for trout to survive.

"We think if we can keep the temperature below 70 degrees we can get brown trout to survive," said Tommie Berger, Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks fisheries biologist. "It comes out (of a contained seep in the dam) at about 56 degrees but it can warm up pretty quick."

The stream has been a popular and productive put-and-take trout fishery for more than 20 years.

For most of that time a series of beaver dams provided near-perfect pools for trout and trout fishermen.

Heavy flow-through washed the dams out in 2007.

The next year Wildlife and Parks installed a series of rock riffles to help create pools and a realistic look to the trout fishery.

Last year a few trout survived the summer where the water seeped from below the dam, giving support for the possible year-round fishery.

Wildlife and Parks found much-needed help to make the needed improvements.

"The really neat thing is that this has been such a cooperative effort," Berger said as he checked the stream Thursday morning. "We've had four groups work together really well for this project."

The Corps of Engineers owns the ground and provided a hydrologist to work with water issues.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service drew up the plans and provided plant suggestions.

The local watershed district gathered funding through one of their programs and Wildlife and Parks contributed heavy equipment and operators.

Creating shade became a priority so trees and bushes have been planted along the eastern shoreline.

Locally, the Wichita-based Flatland Fly Fishers Club donated $1,500 worth of trees to the cause.

Some of the most important shade was created beneath the stream's surface.

At strategic places in the stream are 41 concrete structures, each eight feet long and 30 inches deep.

Called lunker bunkers, they're U-shaped with the opening facing midstream.

That provides a lot of shade and cooler water for trout, similar to the undercut banks where they congregate in mountain streams.

"We still had some trout left in the stream when we put them in," Berger said. "They were using them right away."

Most of the lunker bunkers are totally submerged and their tops already covered with natural moss.

Other recent improvements include grading steep stream banks and installing mesh silt traps.

Oak trees have been planted to help hold the soil on most slopes.

It' s still a work in progress facing several challenges.

Corps of Engineers regulations forbid the planting of many trees along the stream's western shoreline, fearing they could weaken the soils below the dam.

That means the afternoon sun will hit much of the stream.

The extreme heat of the last two weeks hasn't helped, either.

Thursday, Berger stopped at several places and took the stream's temperature.

It was 65 degrees near the in-flow and as high as 73 degrees more than a mile downstream.

Hopefully streamside trees and bushes will grow enough to better cool the water before trout are stocked this fall and winter.

The assorted shrubbery will be in great supply.

"Some people are already worried about all the trees," Berger said. "But it's a trout stream and you're supposed to have to work a little bit to get to the fish. You sure have to in Colorado."

This story was originally published July 25, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Trout reform."