NEW REGULATIONS IN YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK
In the 2013 fishing season in Yellowstone National Park, if you fish in the Lamar River drainage; which includes Slough Creek and Soda Butte Creek you must kill all non-native fish, including rainbow and brook trout.
Sounds good to me! I know some will get their panties in a twist, but I wish I could go to YNP this year.
I very simply do not fish waters that require me to kill fish. There are so many other rivers out there that allow me to do Catch & Release. Larry —sagefisher—
I can understand that…
But I can also understand trying to restore other fish, over those which really don’t belong.
And I like the taste of trout, when I can take it legally…especially smoked
I normally camphost in that area. I find that Brookies are more and more taking over Cutthroat habitat. 10 years ago, I very seldom used to catch a Brookie ,in the The Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone, on the other side of the Pass, now its becoming 1/2 and 1/2 Brookies and Cutts. I doubt though that keeping non-natives will make a real impact on the total problem.
Killing rainbows and especially brookies above the barriers in Soda Butte (Ice Box Canyon) and Slough (the canyon above the campground) makes perfect sense. What is a REALLY big problem is the fact that you can keep as many non-native fish as you want in most of the rest of the park. We are selling a lot more licenses to local meat fisherman than usual and they are already putting a thrashing to some predominately nonnative fisheries, especially the Gardner. Pretty much every fly shop in the area is raking the park over the coals about this and we hope we can get an emergency regulation change that would return things to 5 fish (or preferably less) where cutthroats are not the dominant trout.
I think a note that cannot be overlooked, much like in a host of other locations in the recent past…this push to kill off naturally reproducing trout in waters where they have been “declared” non-native, where in fact essentially devoid of fish prior to the original stockings. I find it odd that folks would rather have 12 “declared native” fish per mile in a stream, instead of healthy populations of wild reproducing trout. Well guess what…when they kill off the non-native trout?..they’ll still only have the same 12 native fish. And the surroundings will still look exactly the same…minus the fishermen. The Alpine lakes in Washington had ZERO fish in them. They were stocked more than 100yrs ago. BUT, they were eating a native newt. So what do we have now? Barren lakes with lots of newts. When is the last time anybody has visited those lakes in order to “view or catch and release the newts?” Nothing essentially has changed there now, except there are no longer fishermen. Now they are doing the same in many streams in PA. Declaring the wild reproducing browns that have been in the water for 100yrs non-native…because it’s been declared brook trout waters. SO in the end we will still have an unfishable population of brookies in the very same creek. Makes perfectly good sense to me. I think groups lose there sense at times with their “causes”.
OK, I’m done now. 
Okay now this is a double edge sword as people have been describing. The problem is that if the “non-native” fish population gets to high and the natives are so called threatened who’s to say the government doesn’t come take control over the water flows, destroying the agricultural sector. It brothers me that it comes down to it. In my neck of the woods you can’t keep a Cutthroat period. I’m good with that but worry the government will intrude. My two sense anyways.
Brandon
I think the folks in the National Park Service have a better idea how to further their goals in maintaining the National Parks for all users of the Park than do the commercial fishing guide services in the vicinity who are primarily concerned about their own economic opportunities. Give the NPS credit for making what was probably a difficult decision, one bound to be unpopular with some groups. I hope the NPS stands it ground and goes forward in aggressively enforcing the new regulations.
The “local meat fisherman” ( boy, how demeaning a comment is that ?? ) are helping the YNP folks reach their goals sooner rather than later. Good for them. May they succeed in spite of the snobbishness and elitism of people who try to put them down with such language.
Folks who want to catch only native and wild fish while they are at YNP will have a better chance of doing so. There are plenty of other places in close proximity to Yellowstone where other anglers can fish for whatever species of trout they are interested in catching.
The guides who are worth their salt will make the new regulations work for them, guiding both in and outside of the Park, and will do well, maybe better than they are now. The others will move on or out of the business. That might be another improvement resulting from the change in regulations.
John
I think the folks in the National Park Service have a better grasp of how to further their goals in maintaining the National Parks for all users of the Park than do the commercial fishing guide services in the vicinity who are primarily concerned about their own economic opportunities. Give the NPS credit for making what was probably a difficult decision, one bound to be unpopular with some groups. I hope the NPS stands its ground and goes forward in aggressively enforcing the new regulations.
The “local meat fisherman” are helping the YNP folks reach their goals sooner rather than later. Good for them. Good citizens all, and for some of them maybe the opportunity to fill the freezer and bolster an otherwise sparse diet for themselves and their children is worth the $35 YNP fishing licencse fee.
Folks who want to catch only native and wild fish while they are at YNP will have a better chance of doing so. There are plenty of other places in close proximity to Yellowstone where other anglers can fish for whatever species of trout they are interested in catching.
The guides who are worth their salt will make the new regulations work for them, guiding both in and outside of the Park, and will do well, maybe better than they are now. The others will move on or out of the business. That might be another improvement resulting from the change in regulations.
John
There are already Native and wild fish in the YNP. So those “Folks who want to catch only native and wild fish while they are at YNP” already have the opportunity in which to do just that.
You left out the “will have a better chance of doing so” part of my comment, Ralph. Maybe I should have added, or clarified, anywhere they choose to fish in YNP.
John
John:
Every prominent angler in the area I have spoken to or otherwise heard from is opposed to this (Craig Mathews, Bud Lilly, Bob Jacklin, John Bailey, and Richard Parks among them) and the park’s chief of resources admitted to me that they hadn’t thoroughly thought through the effects of the regulations on rivers like the Gardner and Gallatin, which have long had thoroughly mixed populations of fish and no clear way of keeping non-natives out (the whole lower Gardner is only about 10 miles long and there are no fish barriers below this) rather than rivers like Slough Creek, with a preponderance of cutthroats that face threats that have developed recently and areas where fish barriers can be constructed.
… for those interested in how YNP describes its mission, creates policy, and implements strategy.
http://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/fishing.htm
http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/fisheries_issues.htm
http://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/fishdates.htm
Also, if you follow the links in the third item to the regulations, you can find a map of the strictly native fish areas of the park and the area where nonnative fish will be tolerated.
This shouldn’t be about a handful of local prominent anglers, no matter how familiar their names are to all of us and how much we respect them as anglers, fly tiers, guides, supporters of fly angling, etc.
This is about a National Park that is for all citizens regardless of location, including those who would prefer not to see fly anglers in the views of the scenery and wildlife. And that is, I am confident, a much larger group than the entirety of anglers who will ever visit YNP.
Why can’t there be a place where there are only native fish in the stream and river systems and the lakes ?? There is so much public water available in close proximity to YNP that those who desire to fish for introduced species have a broad selection of nearby waters to pursue that desire. And if they want the experience of fishing within the boundaries of the Park, they can respect the limitations placed on the Park waters.
Not trying to be argumentative, Wally, but there is a point of view about National Parks that goes way beyond what small, local, special interest groups, and the larger, really powerful special interests groups for that matter, would like to have for themselves.
John
Don’t all of these people run shops/guides, and have a vested interest in the “more fish is better” philosophy?
And I like the “place for natives” philosophy…considering that’s what the NPS was set up for…preservation
“The National Park Service will preserve and protect the natural resources, processes, systems, and values of units of the national park system in an unimpaired condition to perpetuate their inherent integrity and to provide present and future generations with the opportunity to enjoy them.” National Park Service Management Policies 2006
And to quote my #2 son who is a Aquatic Wildlife Biologist …
“I’d be more worried about tourists knowing the difference between a cutthroat and rainbow.”
We will be there in September again to test the waters.
Why is it that only those “opposed” to this regulation are labelled a “special interest group”?
So far in this discussion, the only folks identified as “opposed” to this regulation constitute a small, local group with a special interest - a financial interest. I don’t consider the phrase a “label” but a description.
When and if it is established that a large portion of all users of the park, not just some percentage of fly anglers, are “opposed” to the regulation, it certainly would be appropriate to describe that group in some other terms.
In the meantime, if you want to label ( or describe ) me as a vocal minority special interest, that’s fine with me. My interest is in supporting the National Park Service and Yellowstone National Park in pursuit of their mission, goals, and objectives. If they decide to change the regulations again, that’s fine with me and I’ll support them in that regard, also, even though my personal preference would be to retain and aggressively enforce the regulations presently in place for the reasons they gave for making the changes.
John
Maybe I’m not as prone as others to simply throw my dog in the hunt based on a “Scientific Based Management”, since I’ve seen too many debacles with that banner being waved. Far too often those “other groups” (including the biologists) are as much or more prone to be driven by special interests than any outdoorsman group involved.