Drought shuts Upper Beaverhead

By Perry Backus of The Montana Standard - 10/05/2004

DILLON — For the fourth year in a row, a

30-mile stretch of the upper Beaverhead River is closed to fishing to protect native fish populations hurting due to an extended drought.

Fishing limits will also remain in effect at Clark Canyon Reservoir, where rainbow trout numbers have dropped to their lowest point in 25 years.

The closure to all fishing of the upper Beaverhead River, from Clark Canyon Dam to Selway Bridge in Dillon, started Monday and will continue through Nov. 30. Normal winter closures go into effect Dec. 1.

The lower Beaverhead River from Selway Bridge to the mouth near Twin Bridges remains open to angling.

The closure is meant to protect spawning brown trout, which, even without drought, are normally stressed during this time of year.

Dick Oswald, the state fisheries biologist stationed in Dillon, said the closures have been helpful in keeping trout numbers stable during this spell of drought.

"The rate of decline has not been nearly as steep as what we've seen during other drought events," said Oswald. "The total loss in the population hasn't been nearly as bad as what we've seen before."

The only thing that's different between this latest round of drought and those before is the late season fishing closure, he said.

Spawning trout expend a great deal of energy, and low water makes the situation even more difficult for them. Any disturbance

during that time, including fishing, can be detrimental to their ability to spawn and survive.

Montana's streams and rivers contain populations of wild trout that replenish through natural spawning. It is critical that sufficient numbers of wild fish are conserved to repopulate the fishery when conditions improve, officials say.

For the fourth consecutive year, southwest Montana's water deficit is forcing early reductions in flow releases from Clark Canyon Dam to winter minimums. Flows will range between 25 to 30 cubic feet per second (cfs) and result in 40 to 85 cfs stream flows in the Beaverhead River between the dam and Dillon.

Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks recommends

200 cfs minimum flows to maintain fisheries through the reach.

In addition, FWP reduced the fishing limits at Clark Canyon Reservoir to protect the native burbot

population, and trophy rainbow trout and wild brown trout. The emergency daily and possession limit for trout and burbot is two fish, down from five.

The emergency limits were also effective Monday.

This is the third consecutive year of the Clark Canyon bag reductions.

Oswald said this fall's gill net samples showed that while there were still some "big beautiful rainbows" in the reservoir, the rainbow trout population has dropped to the lowest levels in 25 years.

This year was the third in which the annual

planting effort for trout failed, he said.

Brown trout numbers are also very low.

The bag limit will remain the same until storage

levels at Clark Canyon in the spring and end of summer come back to near normal levels, the number of rainbow trout sampled in the fall rebound and

biologists see juvenile

rainbow trout survival.

While angler numbers at Clark Canyon have dropped down to less than a third of normal, Oswald said that because the size of the pool has also decreased, the numbers of anglers per surface area at the reservoir is as high as or higher than average.

Flows into Clark Canyon Reservoir charted record lows over the past several years. For the past three years, virtually no rainbow trout spawning occurred in the Red Rock River and no fertilized Eagle Lake rainbow trout eggs have been collected there.

Clark Canyon Reservoir serves as an important brood source for the wild Eagle Lake strain of rainbow trout and usually provides about 500,000 fertilized eggs for the FWP hatchery system.

An emergency drought-related angling closure has been in effect since May for Red Rock River from Lima Dam to Clark Canyon Reservoir where biologists have recorded substantial losses in large rainbow and brown trout.

"Under these low water conditions, angling restrictions and modifications in our planting program help mitigate for drought-related losses in our rainbow trout and wild brown trout and burbot populations," said Oswald.