Bison, Elk, Wolves and the Lamar Valley. Cutthroats too.

[pittendrigh]

I just returned from a mini-vacation centered around the Lamar Valley and the Beartooth Plateau. So much has changed.

I first started fishing the Lamar in the early 1960s when my family built a small cabin on the Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone near Crandall Creek. My dad and I often fished the Lamar for days at time without ever seeing another fisherman.

Back in the mid-1960s there were significant riparian differences too. The triangular delta formed by the confluence of Soda Butte Creek and the Upper Lamar was a willow/alder jungle so tall and dense it was easy to lose your bearings. Moose and beaver were common sights in those days. The cottonwood trees across from the Buffalo Ranch were surrounded by willows too. And both moose and beaver were common sights there as well. My dad and I were chased off an evening rise--by an angry and aggressive bull-moose, more times than I can remember.

In those days government hunters killed hundreds--if not thousands--of elk each winter in order to maintain an elk herd of approximately 5000. Due largely to political opposition from organized hunter's groups, that annual "Yellowstone Elk Slaughter" was unceremoniously abandoned. I'm not sure when exactly. But the elk herds mushroomed up to 30,000 or more in the years that followed.

Alder, willow and cottonwood shoots never got more than a few inches off the surface. The cottonwood trees alive now, immediately across from the Buffalo Ranch, are the same trees I saw as teenager in the mid-1960s. Not a single new adult cottonwood has managed to survive in the Lamar since the winter elk shootings were abandoned. Willows at the upper end of the valley disappeared almost entirely. And so did the Moose and Beaver.

The re-introduction of wolves in Yellowstone has had a dramatic and beneficial effect. The officially reported reason for wolf re-introduction seems to have been to "Complete the Yellowstone Ecosystem." Many locals think the real reason was to somehow solve a out-of-control and rapidly mushrooming elk herd.

Elk habits and numbers have been dramatically effected. Overall elk populations are down and the individuals that have survived no longer collect in large groups in the Lamar Valley, as they did for so many years. Smaller groups can be seen scattered all over the valley and up into the surrounding foothills, as soon as the winter snows permit. Willows are rapidly re-appearing now, particularly so at the confluence of the Lamar and Soda Butte. No significant reappearance of Moose and Beaver has yet occurred. And neither have any new young adult cottonwood trees. But the initial signs are indeed encouraging.

Not surprisingly, Bison habits seem to be changing too. I'm going to have to do some research in order to follow-up on this anecdotal introduction. Are overall Bison numbers now increasing? As the elk numbers did for so many years?

I don't know. But something new is going on. Even if Bison numbers are holding steady, their habits are clearly changing. The elk are largely gone from the Lamar now, leaving the grassy savannah-like meadows almost entirely to the Bison. And what Bison there are seem increasingly inclined to gather into ever-larger herds.

With the possible exception of deep late winter snows, wolves don't represent much threat to adult Bison. Not to the extent they do to elk anyway. But wolves to prey heavily on freshly-born Bison calves. Gathering together in ever larger Serengeti-like herds seems an obvious response to a recently-introduced predator.

I'd like to know more. I'm speculating about cause and effect, I admit. But I have no doubts about my observations. I'm 63 years old. I've been visiting the Lamar Valley nearly ever summer since the early 1960s. The changes I've witnessed there have been dramatic and ongoing. And still in progress now.

Will the willows and the cottonwoods ever recover to their former abundance? Will the Moose and Beaver ever reappear in the Lamar Valley? Are the Bison now replacing Elk as an over-population problem? Those questions I cannot answer.

But I can tell you the valley is far different than it once was. And what I saw in the early 1960s seemed--almost obviosly--like a more balanced and more abundant system.

Ah. And the fishing has changed too. The river changed dramatically this year during the runoff. New channels have been formed and there is a new extra-wide gravel bar delta adjacent to the cottonwood stand at the Buffalo Ranch. The wide meadow between those cottonwoods and the mouth of the small canyon just upstream of Slough Creek is so densely populated with Bison it's not easy (or safe) to fish there often. The runs banks and pools from the Buffalo Ranch upstream to the confluence of Soda Butte are so heavily peppered with elaborately outfitted fishermen it's hard to find a place to fish. As a life-long devotee of the Lamar Valley, I now find myself relying more on binoculars, spotting scope and memories, than on my fly rod. The water levels are high and healthy this season. But it's still not easy to find a place to fish.

Despite all that, the most effective late-summer, late afternoon fishing combination is still the same as it ever was: a fat Mormon Cricket with a nymph dropper. Cutthroats are--and will likely always be--hopelessly addicted to Mormon Crickets and Grasshoppers.