The Present state of the Bow River access points

As of late July 2007 the best access on the Bow River is Fish Creek Park (22X). The Fish Creek access was repaired and improved ( as I understand things ) under the direction of the Provincial Parks people. Jim Stomp, the man in charge, and his people have done a magnificent job and rate an A+ for their efforts. 

The slide show below has photos of the paved parking lot, the paved staging area, the paved road to the river, the concrete boat ramp and the bank stabilization done after the 2005 flood. 

Once at the river you launch your boat at a double wide ramp into at back water 3 to 4 feet deep. This access is first class in every respect and at all water levels.

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 The Parks people even provided signage about the river and the fish as an educational tool. Good job Jim!

The sign on the left shows the Bow River and wildlife along with information on each. 

The sign on the right shows the fish species found in the Bow complete with a description. 

 

Fish and Wildlife, responsible for all the other access points on the river, can learn from the job done by the Parks people. All of the "F&W" access points need to be re-thought. Problems include:

Silt not fully removed from 2005 or 2006 at both Carseland and Jensen's.
There is not one paved access and the gravel in these parking areas as well as the ramps is sparse. 
Poor muddy access to the water at Jensen's and Carseland.
The placement of large boulders in the water that are a hazard to enter or row out of the Jensen's access.
Miscounted the number of concrete slabs to build ramps at Carseland.
At McKinnon Flats, as the flows drop, there is insufficient water depth to launch boats or to trailer them. We are now waiting for the mud bar to dry out so we can drive up stream about 50 yards to use a gravel bar provided by Mother Nature. Here there is a ample depth to launch or trailer boats.
Highway 24 access: Silt not removed, no gravel anywhere and the "so-called ramp which is nothing more than the river bank" is too steep an incline. Once the water drops there will be the issue of not enough depth to launch a boat - same as McKinnon's. 

Fish and Wildlife have done a sub standard repair job and rate a D minus.

Having stated the above we can only hope that Fish and Wildlife steps up and does a proper repair job. You might have noticed no mention was made of Policeman's Flats. The reason is nothing has been done. I've heard rumors that F&W plans on doing something by 2008 or they will lose the funds allocated for repair or replacement of Policeman's. All in all an unsatisfactory reason for creating a "new Policeman's".

The 3rd week of July I emailed Fish and Wildlife regarding the river access points. I assume Trevor Rhodes (head biologist) was on vacation as I received an automated message saying he would be out of the office from July 23 to August 17. This is very poor timing on his part as we were experiencing a heat wave and the river temperatures were around 70 F. As I understand things - this is dangerously close to having a fish kill on the Bow River. While Trevor was away Travis Ripley was in the office and did receive my email. To date, September 14/07, I've not received a response from either of them.

Despite the access problem the Bow River is alive and well. In the absence of an acceptable infra-structure the guiding community goes about the daily business of putting clients into trout. We are making the best of a bad situation and look forward to the day that the Alberta Government invests the dollars needed to provide the infra-structure we can all be proud of. If the Gov't lacks the vision just look at what the Parks people have done or look south to Montana at their fishing infra-structure.

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