Live Staking and Fascines

Mother Nature Calls the Shots

It looks like the end of the deep freeze and we must now swing into action for the 2014 season, especially on the Mill Creek spawning channel project.

As you may recall, we had a start last year on aerating the big blue spring and creating a brook trout spawning channel in its outflow.

We had excellent advice from Geomorphologist Paul Villard about narrowing the flows with both strung Christmas trees, live staking and brush bundle fascines.

Our stream rehab manual illustrates just how fascines, with live staking can make a big difference in quickly creating ideal conditions.

Click to view from the Stream Rehabilitation Manual...
Pages 98 to 100 - Live Staking
Pages 101 to 105 - Fascines

The trick, as you may read in the pages, is that both fascines and live stakes are best done with dormant plant growth.  This means we need to gather our willow and dogwood shoots before they start to foliate. We need about 30 to 40 fascines and an equal number of live willow stakes for securing them to the stream bank.

Guess what? This means we need to gather a team of “brush cutters” with loppers to prepare and stack up these items (they are best used after 10 days of cutting).

Fortunately, Mother Nature has made it easy. She has given us a huge supply of he materials right beside the creek, so everything is on hand…except the manpower.

That’s where YOU come in.

Looking for Volunteers

We don’t need a big team: perhaps six people for about three hours should complete this phase of our opening project.  The placement of the fascines has been provided via a video of Paul last fall, so it should be a simple job. We have the 2” x 2” stakes to create the cradles you see on page 102. This eliminates the need to disturb the existing stream banks.

Let us know if you can be available, either on the weekend of Mar 15, or 22nd OR if you prefer to work on a weekday during this same time frame. We are ready to organize for either scenario.  You can contact me via email at billxmas@shaw.ca.

**UPDATE:  Weekend of March 15 is a NO GO due to the weather.

This important project will enable us to apply for brook trout stocking at this site.

Bill Xmas…. just thawing out.
billxmas@shaw.ca