A Montana Fly Fishing blog with river flows, reports, weather, stock photography, fly tying and so forth…

Grayling Killers

I got a call today from Bruce Rich, Region 3 Fisheries Manager, in response to an email that I sent to Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks concerning the Monster Brown trout that was caught up there a couple weeks ago.

The email I wrote was in short, an inquiry as to why Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks had such liberal creel limits on Brown trout above Dickey Bridge on the Bighole.

Basically, my conversation with Bruce boils down to this. Over the past few years Brown trout have been making their way further and further upriver into native Grayling habitat. The upper Bighole is the only remaining native fluvial (stream) population of the species in the state and has been under siege in recent years primarily from low water issues. Rich agreed also to my suggestion that low flows and higher temperatures might be contributing to the Brown trouts movement upriver as well.

The current regulations were put in place to protect the intrusion of Browns into the Grayling habitat on the upper river. Since 1987, FWP and a coalition representing various groups have been involved in restoration efforts of the Bigholes fluvial Grayling population.

So Bob Kingston, the angler who caught the now locally famous Monster Brown and was being roasted for keeping it could on the other hand be considered as just doing his part for Grayling protection. There is no doubt this fish had a hearty appetite that was probably fueled in large by other fish and very little aquatic invertebrate “dainties”.

Rich also noted that fish this size are well past their prime reproductive years and that any representative genes that the fish might add to the collective gene pool had been done long before it was caught.

Not that I have anything against Grayling but I think after mugging it up on camera I would still have to return his awesomeness to the river.

Is Mongolia a good place to be a fish? Apparently not if their is a gold mine nearby. While the locals have an affinity for four legged land dwelling protein sources on which to sup, their religious beliefs which are largely Buddhist, hold the the fish and his water in high esteem. Not the place to be monkeying around with the water spirits and I’m all in for that. Slaughter a goat but save the fish- Amen.

Zeb Hogan, one of the hosts on National Geographic Channels “Hooked” series is out chasing a new cast of large endangered fish. One of the summer series “Monster fish of Mongolia” features the extra large, super sized Hucho Taimen. Taimen are known to reach lengths as long as 6 ft. and will dine at that size on well, just about anything it wants. It’s feeding habits sound more like a Pike than a trout.

While short on serious fish porn and splashy hookups the show is a good overview on the Taimen and if you watch close you will see the ol’ Moldy Chum logo plastered on the side of one of outfitters Sweetwater Anglers renovated Russian military overland “Rambo” rig.

The show airs Monday, July 13, at 10PM ET/PT.

I would also like to offer Zeb some casting lessons, maybe on  return trip to Mongolia next fall. How ’bout it Zeb? And I thought I was bad.

Bob Kingston and Gary Keeler of Butte found one of the Bighole Rivers legendary monsters this past week. Kingston tied into the fish with a 5 weight and an 8lb. tippet. 30 minutes later they were looking at a 35 inch, 20 lb. bruiser.

There is a lot of buzz about whether or not the angler should have killed the fish. He is of course having it mounted. Personally, just knowing that fish are out there with these kind of dimensions is part of what keeps me fishing, it’s part of the “mystique”; the unknown out their lurking at the end the line and taking a fish out like this diminishes that whole “mystique”. That is, unless I’m just hungry and even then a fish that big is WAY beyond even my appetite. A few small Brookies would suffice.

I am not however, judging this anglers decision one way or the other. For myself, this one of the great moments where cameras really shine. A good picture can capture everything I will ever need to remember about the fish, the moment , the colors, the setting and stage.  I have seen to many fish come out of the cooler that are not even a faint resemblance of the flash and living color of a fish momentarily removed  from the water. Every moment a fish remains out of water is like watching a masterpiece of color fade to black and white; mercury to rust.

Finally, releasing the fish and watching it swim away, knowing that we had our dance, knowing that it lives on to battle another day, or to simply lie in his hold and grow old and fat wisely ignoring my fakes keeps that “mystique” alive.

In the end, photographs fade, memories are forgotten, wall mounts fall apart. All it will ever be is a few moments in time, man and fish in a contest that is timeless and remembers no one. Its part of the magic of fishing, it is all in the present.

Addendum- After waxing a bit philosophical,  I found a closely related incident, a 30lb. Hoh River Steelhead that was killed by the angler. Below is man and beast, and the blog post and response from the folks at Fly Boys Fishing.

While the rivers and streams of the world are crawling with Brown Trout and giant Hoh River Steelhead are rare I think some of Dylan Tomine’s concepts fly for giant Browns in Montana.

“My point is that if even a small fraction of the time and energy that’s being spent against this one angler and his dead fish could be directed toward actions that have a significant impact on the underlying problems wild steelhead face, it would do a world of good.”

“I also believe this angler’s unfortunate decision to kill the fish in the first place demonstrates how much work we have left to do in our collective efforts to educate our peers.”

Stream and species conservation, regulatory cooperation from the fisheries management community and angler education. So, I think maybe a note to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks might be a good starting point and at the very least relating this story to others and doing our part to educate and inform and hopefully someday being repaid by having the chance at catching a monster Brown or Steelhead of our own and then watching them swim away.

Joe Maurier, Director
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks

I was asked to remove Mr. Maurier’s name here as a contact on the subject. So to keep the water flowing in the right direction please refer your comments to:

Bruce Rich, Region 3 Fisheries Manager

I got a call from Bruce, read about it here.

Addendum Part 2: I keep running into stuff that fits this post and it’s only fitting that every story should eventually have a happy ending. So here it is, another 30lb. Steelhead that was released to fight, feed and live another day.

I think I’ve had about enough of dredging for Largemouth with a bottom setup on the fly rod. I sometimes have a hard time feeling the bite on spinning outfit with a Texas rig much less a sinking line with what sometimes seems like a cannon ball tied to the end of it. I’m thinking top water is probably a better game to play with Largemouth.

The weeds are coming on hard now. The warm weather in May seems like it has them a little ahead of schedule. While it can be frustrating to try to get boats and bugs through it’s great cover for the fish.

Once I got over the fly rod thing and started spin fishing with plastic on a Texas rig I could begin to regain some self esteem after being thumped once again by my son the aspiring Bassmaster thug.

Largemouth Bass

If you look close in front of the dorsal fin you can see where an Osprey got ahold of this guy. We watched one working the shoreline early in the morning and he was pure hell from the air. He took two small Bass within ten minutes which immediately set me to calculating how many fish this bird eats during an average day, a season and how many are actually stocked. The short of it was that Fish, Wildlife and Parks needs to stock more fish.

Largemouth Bass

Even though this lake, Blanchard Lake near Whitefish, is catch and release for Bass only, it seems to me that it could support a lot more of them. Total stocking in 2oo8 was 14,700 two inch fry from the Miles City Hatchery.  I am guessing that between the Osprey, Blue Heron,  Pike or more broadly, predators in general; they are eating the greater portion of the Largemouth being stocked.

If you figure a lone Opsprey eats 4 fish a day (probably conservative), over his 6 month stay, thats about 750 fish. 750 fish that are big enough for him (or me) to catch. A Blue Heron or a Pike on the other hand are not really limited by size constraints so they can pretty much eat anything they can get a hold of.

I have been on numerous lakes in the midwest and the northwest that have much denser populations of Bass and sometimes but not always, smaller water bodies that were not even catch and release.

My point? Now that we are going to subsidize Walleye fishing in eastern Montana at a hatchery (Fort Peck) that is only running at half capacity I don’t think it would be to much to ask to say, double the amount of Large and Smallmouth Bass stocking in the western part of the state?

Finally, from FishingJones: