Book Excerpt : Fish and Fishing

Fishing the Madison River

You may wonder, why is it okay to catch and eat fish in Yellowstone Park when we are forbidden to kill or capture all other animals, pick wildflowers, or even take away non-living rocks? People began to question park policy toward fishing a few decades ago, and fishing practices began to change. The park now charges a fee for fishing licenses, which had always been free. As of the 2001 fishing season, all native sport fishing is catch and release only.

The number of anglers has dropped, but these anglers probably land more fish. Some people enjoy watching the fish feed, fight, and spawn at Fishing Bridge or leap up LeHardys Rapids after spawning in the river. More important to the ecosystem, the bears and fish-eating birds, who were beginning to be deprived of a major element of their diet, now profit by the upsurge in the number of fish available.

There are about 20 species of fish in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The types of sport fish most common to Yellowstone's waters are native cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki) and four introduced species: rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), brown trout (Salmo trutta, brought in 1890 from Scotland and Germany), brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis), and lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush). Two less common native fish are mountain whitefish (Prosopium williamsoni) and Montana grayling (Thymallus arcticus montanus).

Fisheries in Trouble

Yellowstone's fisheries currently face four problems: predation by lake trout, tapeworms, whirling disease, and the New Zealand mud snail invasion.

Lake Trout

Although some larger lakes of southern Yellowstone were intentionally stocked with lake trout long ago, these large predator trout were never known to live in Yellowstone Lake until the mid 1990s. In Yellowstone Lake they have the capability to wipe out the lake's population of cutthroat trout, a consequence that is having a huge impact on grizzly bears, eagles, and pelicans.

The problem is being addressed. Crews had killed more than 270,000 lake trout by gillnetting and electrofishing by the end of 2007, but it's unlikely that all lake trout can ever be removed from the lake. Meanwhile, anglers must keep all lake trout they catch and bring them to a ranger for verification.

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CREDITS: The photo of Madison River is by Bruno Giletti; the trout images are an NPS Photo.

 This is an excerpt from Yellowstone Treasures, 3rd edition, pages 350–51. This section was extensively revised for the new edition.

To read the rest about the disease problems facing Yellowstone's fish, as well as the invasion of the mud snail, get the book!

Copyright 2009. All Rights Reserved.