Montanans can join groups to ‘preserve and conserve fisheries’

(The Center Square) – Wild trout management has put Montana on the map as an angling destination, but Montana Trout Unlimited said drought management and fisheries planning are needed to further save the rivers and trout.

“We have nearly 40 years of experience using sound science to manage our fisheries, and we really want that to continue into the future. To be fair, the playing field is changing a little bit and we feel that management needs to adjust in the face of changing climate and a lot of other changes, increased pressure, a variety of threats,” Bill Pfeiffer, Montana Trout Unlimited (TU) outreach coordinator, told The Center Square.

Steps taken during drought conditions to save fish have included limiting hours of fishing to cooler parts of the day with Hoot Owl restrictions. Longer term efforts include work to preserve fisheries.

Individuals can do their part to help fisheries and trout recover, Eric Roberts of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks told The Center Square.

“When it gets hot, maybe you just find something else to do. Maybe you don’t go trout fishing in that river that you normally go to. Or maybe go find a high mountain lake or find a high-elevation stream where the temperatures are moderated, you’re not going to stress fish out as much,” he said.

Rather than catch and release all day, Roberts said to consider keeping the fish you catch if it’s a hot day. Harvest a few fish, bring them home, eat them and call it a good day, he said.

“We know as water temperatures get higher it just increases the probability of a fish dying, even if you catch it early, and it slips away, that water’s pretty warm. The fish have a higher likelihood of not making it,” he said.

Montana TU will soon establish its education initiative called the Montana Wild and Native Trout Coalition, which will launch at mtwildtrout.org, Pfeiffer said

The coalition will bring stakeholders and representatives of groups interested in the state’s watersheds together to get ideas on drought management and what can be done to save the state’s fisheries, Pfeiffer said.

He suggested Montana residents who want to take an active part in saving fisheries join a conservation organization like Trout Unlimited, which automatically makes them a member of one of the 13 local chapters across the state.

“One thing that Montanans can do for sure is join TU or a similar minded conservation organization that’s working to preserve and conserve these fisheries,” Pfeiffer said.

Local chapters hold Youth Conservation clinics to educate the next generation of conservation-minded outdoor folks and hold river cleanup efforts to clean local rivers and streams. Chapters also work to seek local matching funds for large-scale restoration projects like what had just been completed in Missoula with the removal of Rattlesnake Dam.

“I’d say that’s a really empowering thing. It’s helped me quite a bit over the last five years to stay positive and so that’s definitely something that I recommend for people to do, if they’re looking for a way to take action,” Pfeiffer said.

Anglers also can participate in the Missoula Trout Tag Study, a mark-recapture research project, focusing on spawning tributaries in the Clark Fork and Lower Blackfoot rivers near Missoula, Montana TU said. Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks biologists tagged up to 700 trout near the mouths of Rattlesnake, Marshall, Deer, Johnson and Twin Creeks with different colored tags. Each tributary population was given a distinct tag color. Many of these tagged fish will migrate to summer feeding habitat in larger rivers like the Blackfoot and Clark Fork.

Anglers can report and then release tagged fish during the season on the nonprofit organization’s Report a Tag website.

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