Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) has been studying the fish in the Jefferson River system for the past several years.
FWP has been laser-focused on the fish in the upper Jefferson River system -- the Ruby, Beaverhead and most importantly the Big Hole. That work includes looking at fish health, fish mortality and recreational impact on the fisheries.
“We found was in the fall for example handled 8,000 fish -- trout specifically. And only three of them had issues that were obvious and concerning and then of the 5,000 fish that we handled in tributaries none of those had apparent infections that we could detect,” FWP spokesman Morgan Jacobsen said.
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FWP tagged thousands of fish in the Big Hole Beaverhead, Missouri and Madison rivers for mortality and then left it to anglers to update.
“Over a thousand reports came in from anglers who caught those fish and clipped the tags,” Jacobsen said. “So, that's very helpful as anglers continue to participate in that. We're using angling as a way to measure how environmental factors like water flows and temperatures have an effect on trout mortality.”
The impact of recreation was focused on the users themselves.
"We're using surveys to measure how these rives are used, what percentage of users are fishing versus non-anglers, and we'll be continuing those survey efforts and expanding to include the upper Yellowstone River in 2025 as well,” Jacobsen said.
Work continues in 2025 with more tagging and continued focus on fish health in those rivers. Partnerships with groups as diverse as MSU and Trout Unlimited — and well as continued involvement of Montana anglers — will also continue this year
It's all in the name of saving Montana's truly special fisheries.
