High country fishing

By Vera Haffey of The Montana Standard - 08/09/2006

Mark Sweeney, manager of the state trout hatchery in Washoe Park in Anaconda,

ANACONDA — Around 50 mountain lakes recently were freshly stocked with cutthroat trout to provide back-country anglers with plenty of good fishing opportunities, according to Washoe Hatchery manager Mark Sweeney.

Some 100,000 “fingerlings,” or this year’s hatch, were released into lakes around western Montana, east and west of the Continental Divide, from the Centennial Valley south of Dillon to the Rocky Mountain front near Choteau, Sweeney said.

The department uses helicopters to access the remote waters that include Lake Oreamnos and Waukena, Vera, Tendoy, O’Dell, Minneopa and Johanna lakes, just to name a few.

Sweeney and his workers transported the fish to the airport east of Anaconda, where they were loaded on to a Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks helicopter with a two-pilot crew during a series of trips throughout the summer.

The last of the helicopter transplants took place Tuesday morning; however, more fish are scheduled to be planted before fall.

“We still have a couple of kids’ fishing ponds to stock, and we’ll hit those in September,’’ Sweeney said.

Those fish, ready to catch at 11 to 12 inches, are headed to ponds in Whitehall and Townsend.

Those fish join some 170,000 cutthroat yearlings, about five to six inches in length, that are also transplanted yearly. An additional 180,000 rainbow trout are introduced into the waters.

The two-inch fingerlings should be ready to catch in about three years. The lakes are stocked every year in August, alternately, on a two- to four-year rotation, to ensure that mature fish are available, Sweeney said.

Reporter Vera Haffey may be reached via e-mail at vera.haffey@lee.net.