The Winter 2022 issue of Trout Line is out now. Read it below on your browser or download a PDF for your screen reader HERE.
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The Winter 2022 issue of Trout Line is out now. Read it below on your browser or download a PDF for your screen reader HERE.
Check out the Summer 2021 issue of Trout Line, the official newsletter of the Montana Council of Trout Unlimited! Download a PDF version HERE.
This August 2-8, we’re celebrating the first ever Watercraft Inspector Appreciation Week with our partners at Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks and Protect Our Waters Montana. Thanks to our inspectors, aquatic invasive species (AIS) spread is being reduced in our waterways, and we owe them our gratitude and our courtesy when we pull through the station. We know it’s tough to be patient at the boat check when you’re excited to get out on the water, so here are a few tips to make your inspection a breeze.
Thanks to the magic of self-serve carwashes, this step is easier than ever! Find the closest wash bays near your home (most take credit cards now) and make cleaning out your boat part of your chores at the end of a day on the water. The best time to wash everything is right before you put your boat into dry dock. Pull the plugs on your vessel and allow all water to drain out of your bilge, live wells, bait wells, and motor. Store your boat with the motor in the down position. All inspectors check your motor and if it’s already empty, you just saved yourself a few minutes waiting for it to drain.
If you’ve got some mud and weeds on there, clean them off and also mind your anchor rope to make sure it’s also clean and dry. It’s easy for small bits to get stuck in pulleys, cleats, and fasteners. Anytime you pull your anchor up off the bottom of the lake or river, make sure to get it clean before you put it back in the boat. Makes cleaning up later even easier. This also goes for removing weeds from your lure. Keep the weeds in the water, not in your boat.
If you know you’re about to hit the check station, run through your memory banks before you pull in. Inspectors will always ask where you were, how long it’s been, and where you plan to go next. If you’ve recently been in a waterbody with AIS concerns, know that you’re going to get some extra scrutiny. It helps if all your gear is clean and dry!
If you’re a “frequent flyer” ask your inspector for a Boat Passport for each vessel. Keep them in the glove box of the car you use to tow. Then you’ll always have them for the inspectors when you pull through.
No body likes a grumpy person. When you remain polite and courteous to your watercraft inspectors, they will get through your inspection faster, guaranteed. The only thing you get out of making a fuss is a longer inspection. Be prepared, answer the questions you’re asked, follow instructions, and they’ll get you on your way as quick as they can.
I was lucky enough to get the chance to fish the Kootenai River this summer with one of the people that knows the river and its fish better than just about anyone. Between reminders to “set” and “skitch” our dry flies, Tim Linehan shared with us nearly a lifetime of knowledge about a wide range of topics from hatches to patterns, as well as stories about friends and fish. While Tim’s homewaters are wonderfully remote and wild, they also face challenges. So our talk also turned to the very real and persistent threats facing the Kootenai and Lake Koocanusa from foreign mining companies in Canada. Of course, we had a banner fishing day, but it also doubled down my personal commitment to stand up for these coldwater fisheries.
For more than a decade, Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has led an effort with partners in government, science, and communities to develop a site-specific standard for selenium pollution that flowing into Koocanusa and the Kootenai from coal mining in British Columbia. At the levels already present in this lake and river system (with more on the way from four new coal mines in the permitting process), selenium poses significant threats to aquatic life as it moves through the food web. As fish tissue concentrations of selenium rise, they can experience liver damage or failure, growth deformities, and stunted growth and fitness. Ultimately, mature female fish with toxic levels of selenium in their system experience drastically reduced production of viable eggs to the point of entire spawning seasons of fish being unsuccessful. As selenium moves through the aquatic and terrestrial food web, many other species are susceptible to a similar fate – population crash.
MTU has reviewed, participated in, and encouraged this process from the beginning with an emphasis on the goal of having DEQ set a site-specific standard for selenium in the lake and river that is based on sound science in the interest of protecting one of northwest Montana’s most valuable and intact wild and native trout fisheries. The current standards being proposed by DEQ do just that. MTU fully supports this proposed rule amendment and the site-specific selenium standard it proposes.
Unfortunately, there are a small group of special interests that are attempting to derail this important rule at the last minute. The DEQ needs to hear from Montana anglers now that our coldwater fisheries should not be the dumping ground of polluted mine waste. Despite what the opponents say, the public process to get here has been fair, open, transparent, and collaborative. This is our chance to stand up for our water and fish – please join me and add your name to our petition by clicking the picture link above.
Clayton Elliott, Conservation Director
Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on the Proposed 2020 Fishing Regulation Changes. As we have reviewed the document, it is evident that a great deal of work and deliberative consideration went in to the development of these proposed changes. We appreciate the ability to have had the opportunity to be involved in the process, and we wanted to be sure to continue our participation in the process by offering formal written feedback on these proposed changes. Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, and the Fisheries Division in particular, have gone above and beyond to involve the public through both the scoping and public comment process. We appreciate that effort and commitment to a robust public process.
Founded in 1964, Montana Trout Unlimited is the only statewide grassroots organization dedicated solely to conserving, protecting, and restoring Montana’s coldwater fisheries. Montana Trout Unlimited is comprised of 13 chapters across the state and represents approximately 4,500 Trout Unlimited members. A number of our chapters and local members helped inform the comments on the proposed changes that are found below.
Montana Trout Unlimited has great interest in the effects of proposed changes to Montana’s fishing regulations, especially given the increasing challenges facing our native fish resources by threats like climate change, competition and predation from introduced species, and increasing angling pressure. We continue to promote fisheries management that preserves and improves populations of wild fish, with a significant priority on native fish species, such as cutthroat trout, bull trout, and grayling. While our fishing regulations are but one tool that is available through which we can accomplish these goals, we do believe that they do play a significant role in native fish conservation.
Montana Trout Unlimited offers our support the following proposals in the Proposed 2020 Fishing Regulation Changes:
Montana Trout Unlimited supports modifications to the following proposals to the Proposed 2020 Fishing Regulation Changes:
Montana Trout Unlimited opposes the following proposal to the Proposed 2020 Fishing Regulation Changes:
Beyond the existing proposed changes that we have commented on above, a number of our chapters and member leaders have expressed the need to continue to offer our support for more aggressive efforts to protect native fish through the fishing regulations. First, in regard to terminal tackle we continue to support more aggressive and widespread restrictions on the use of live bait in our coldwater fisheries. Nearly all-scientific studies have found that fishing with bait drastically increases injury to fish. Additionally, we continue to support more widespread use of barbless hook regulations in our most prized native fish water bodies. While the use of barbless hooks cannot definitively be proven to drastically reduce mortality, it is well known that it is easier to release a fish from a barbless hook, which reduces handling time and air exposure. Lastly, as noted in our comments concerning Hoot Owl restrictions on the Lower Madison, Montana Trout Unlimited would support more aggressive permanent and mandatory temperature triggers that initiate Hoot Owl restrictions on our coldwater streams and rivers. In the summer of 2019 there were at least eight streams that reached and sustained water temperatures over 73 degrees for three days – only one, the lower Big Hole had Hoot Owl restrictions enacted.[1] For the reasons previously stated, we support more predictable triggers for Hoot Owl regulations that also better protect our fishery resources.
Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions, or if you need additional information regarding the comments that we have submitted (via email at [email protected] or by phone at 406-543-0054). Again, we thank you for the opportunity to comment, and we appreciate the open public process used by the Department to make these changes.
Respectfully,
David Brooks
Executive Director
Montana Trout Unlimited
Clayton Elliott
Conservation and Government Relations Director
Montana Trout Unlimited