Few options to help struggling brown trout populations in SW Montana | State & Regional

“We have few tools to respond quickly to low flow conditions,” said Eileen Ryce, Fisheries Bureau chief for the agency. “However, we can adjust fishing regulations to reduce stress during critical time periods.”

So far, however, FWP has implemented regulations on only two of the hardest hit rivers: the Big Hole and Beaverhead. There, restrictions on fishing in the fall to protect brown trout spawning beds were implemented last year. On the seven other rivers, similar action doesn’t seem warranted, FWP decided.

For example, FWP said such fishing season closures to protect spawning trout “would not be expected to have a population scale effect” on the Jefferson, Stillwater, Shields, Madison, Yellowstone, Boulder (a tributary to the Jefferson River) and Ruby rivers.

Fishing restrictions, such as no bait fishing, mandating catch-and-release fishing, or limiting angling to fly fishing only, were also ruled out as unlikely to halt the brown trout decline. A hoot-owl closure, which bans fishing from 2 p.m. to midnight, was implemented in 2020 on the lower Madison River and will be continued to see if it has any beneficial effect.

“Certainly I don’t think fishing regulations are going to solve a water quantity issue, but they didn’t do any harm,” Clayton Elliott, of Montana Trout Unlimited, told the members of the Environmental Quality Council.

A day after the EQC hearing, a coalition of conservation groups, fishing businesses and citizens submitted a petition to Gov. Greg Gianforte asking him to “assemble a multi-agency, interdisciplinary Cold Water Fisheries Task Force to address the challenges facing Montana’s cold water fisheries.” The petition was announced in a Wednesday news release from the Upper Missouri Waterkeeper.

“Montana’s world-class waterways and blue-ribbon fisheries deserve special attention” said Guy Alsentzer, Waterkeeper executive director, in the statement. “They are the lifeblood of our outdoor economy, recreation lifestyles, and the source of drinking water for thousands of Montanans.”

Upper Missouri Waterkeeper was also in the news recently for its lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency, seeking to compel the federal agency to make the Montana Department of Environmental Quality roll back its legislatively implemented numeric water quality standards.

The nonprofit also faulted Gianforte for refusing to let FWP use its senior water rights on the Shields and Smith rivers last July in an attempt to keep water in the streams. The situation was revealed in a Missoula Current story this April.

In a letter written by Gianforte to FWP Director Hank Worsech, the governor said FWP’s water request would “provide questionable, if any, measurable benefit” to the rivers. The Missoula Current obtained the letter through a Freedom of Information Act request.

“From spring fish die-offs, summer heat waves and unprecedented drought conditions, to record low flows and historically low fish counts with declining brown trout populations combined with increased development and fishing pressure, Montana’s world-class cold water fisheries are dwindling away, suffering death by a thousand cuts,” the petitioners wrote to the governor.

Sen. Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, asked Ryce during the EQC meeting if FWP had considered any other ideas to deal with low flows. Ryce said some landowners, including those on the Big Hole River involved in a cooperative agreement, are leaving water in rivers and streams rather than using their allocated water right. She said the agency is also looking to lease water rights and working with dam operators on storage as possible solutions.

“The tools we have directly available to us are limited, and they often do take quite some time to get in place,” she said. “The best tool we have available is really working very closely with the water users to collectively try to leave more water in the streams.”

NorthWestern Energy announced in April that it would be reducing flows into the Madison River from its Hebgen Dam to preserve water during another predicted dry summer and below average spring runoff.

“Saving this water to supplement flows on the Madison River during the heat of the summer will help to reduce stress on fish from elevated water temperatures,” said Andy Welch, NorthWestern Energy manager of Hydro License Compliance, in a statement.

Hebgen businesses complained to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that NorthWestern did not keep its obligated amount of water in the reservoir last summer, hurting their businesses due to docks and boat launches being left dry. FERC oversees dam operations. A NorthWestern official said the reservoir’s lake levels are unlikely to improve this summer.

“This will be another extremely challenging year without enough water to meet the needs of all the Madison River Basin users,” said Jeremy Clotfelter, NorthWestern Energy director of Hydro Operations. “I fully expect that we will not be able to maintain Hebgen Reservoir recreation elevations again this summer.”

A study released last year showed about 87% of the Upper Missouri River Basin’s water is used by agriculture with another 12% evaporating from reservoirs. The Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin rivers are the main upper basin streams that join to form the Missouri River.

For a comprehensive view of the brown trout population decline, FWP launched a collaborative study with the U.S. Geological Survey last year. The research looked at 14 different rivers over the past 30 years, utilizing monitoring data to determine the extent and cause of the fishes’ decline.

“We established several rivers were showing brown trout declines with the primary driver being declining streamflows,” Ryce said. “Other potential causes were investigated, including fish pathogens. Signs of systemic stress were identified in the fish, which could be attributed to low flows, high temperatures, and/or other stress events including angling pressure. But the declines were not attributed to a specific or novel pathogen, such as in the case of whirling disease in the mid to late ‘90s.”

A whirling disease outbreak hammered the Madison River and other streams, mainly affecting rainbow and native cutthroat trout.

Studies are continuing with Montana State University researchers to “develop models using natural and angler-induced mortality which could be used to inform management changes as part of an adaptive management approach,” Ryce added.

The first sign that Montana’s rivers may be facing problems beyond the control of fishing regulations arose in 2016. That’s when proliferative kidney disease was identified as the cause of death for what would later be estimated at tens of thousands of fish along about 180 miles of the Yellowstone River, between Gardiner and Billings. The die-off led to a temporary closure of the river to all recreation and an estimated $500,000 economic loss to the region.

Fish kills on the Yellowstone were reported again in August 2017 and in 2020, but were more limited in size, so no river closure was enacted. Mountain whitefish, which are more sensitive, have died in larger numbers than trout.

Last year, a fish kill in a 10-mile stretch below Ennis Reservoir on the Madison River was investigated. Again, the die-off was predominantly among whitefish, with 800 dead compared to 20 trout. Although some fish had irritated gills, the cause of the die-off was never determined.

Last year, low water prompted FWP to close 14 miles of the Ruby River to fishing in May. Agency fish surveys have shown the stream’s brown trout population dropping from 1,500 per mile to historic lows of 600-700 in the upper tail waters, the Montana Standard reported. The Beaverhead River has seen its brown trout numbers decline from 2,000 to 1,000. On the Big Hole’s most popular section near Melrose, adult brown trout numbers have fallen from 1,800 to 400 in the past six years, the Standard reported.

The lower fish numbers come as more anglers are fishing, raising questions about whether restrictive catch-and-release regulations would help. FWP’s Fisheries chief, Ryce, said the department doesn’t have fatality figures from catch-and-release, but stress on the fish can be exacerbated by warmer waters and how often a fish is caught. For the most part, however, the agency doesn’t attribute the decline in fish numbers to people catching and keeping fish for consumption.

Annually, there are more than 3 million angler days spread across Montana, FWP reported on its website. An angler day is one angler fishing for part of one day. The state’s fishing economy is valued at more than $900 million.

“There’s a lot of concern from anglers and those interested in the health of those rivers,” said Elliott, of Montana Trout Unlimited. “The correlation with low flows is certainly the strongest indicator of what this challenge is.”

Elliott, along with a representative of the Fishing Outfitters Association of Montana, praised FWP for reaching out to anglers, conservation organizations and the public and being transparent about what it is doing and the problems being faced.

“It’s not as simple as just saying we’re going to have this amount of water,” he said. “We have to do it in a complex landscape.

“It’s not an ideal situation but I think people are really coming together and setting some of the old disagreements aside to do what’s right.”