Fishing - Lake trout

Yellowstone Lake Trout : Here's one fish that knows no limit
- from Park County (Montana) Visitor's guide 2000

There is something fishy going on in Yellowstone Lake, and anglers, fish biologist and park service officials are mystified

Nobody is quite sure how or when it happened, but it is believed that someone in the past few years illegally stocked Yellowstone Lake with lake trout.
No big deal, right? After all, Yellowstone is a huge lake and lake trout inhabit lakes. Seems like a perfect marriage.

Wrong!

Fish experts, park biologists and people who enjoy the sport of fishing say the predator fish has knocked the perfectly balanced ecosystem around the lake out of whack. The fish, they maintain, poses a "grave" threat to native cutthroat trout and it could have far- reaching effects on resident eagles, grizzly bears, and other animals. And most experts are without any clear answers as to the best way to eliminate the fish or lessen its threats to the area.

The National Park Service is offering a $10,000 reward for anyone with information that may help explain why, when or who introduced the fish to the lake's icy waters - an act Yellowstone's former superintendent called "an appalling act of environmental terrorism."

The Park Service's reason for its concern is simple: It's the way lake trout eat, breed and spend their free time.

By nature, the lake trout is a predator with an appetite for smaller fish. Yellowstone Lake was one of the last remaining sanctuaries for genetically pure Yellowstone cutthroat trout, a species native to the pristine streams and waterways of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. But its numbers are diminishing quickly, due mainly to hybridization with rainbow trout and the introduction of brown and brook trout that have overtaken cutthroat habitat, feeding and spawning grounds in rivers like the Yellowstone, Madison and Gardner. Lake trout are expected to do the same, but in this case, they eat cutthroats at the same time they bully them out of their neighborhood.

As for the other critters that live around the lake's 110 miles of shoreline, reduced cutthroat numbers makes the task of finding food a little more difficult.

Each spring, grizzly and black bears flock to the streams that empty into the lake to snag spawning cutthroats. Fewer fish means a longer buffet line and tougher competition among bears. Hawks and bald and golden eagles also like to dine on the easy-to-catch cutthroats, which prefer swimming in shallow waters, unlike the bottom-dwelling lake trout that tend to stay out of reach.

Grizzlies and bald eagles are threatened species, and biologists cringe at the thought or anything threatening their livelihood. Fewer cutthroats could also impact osprey and otters.

So that is why it is open season on the lake trout. Park rangers require anglers to keep the lake trout they catch. There is no limit on them, but rangers do ask that fisherman report their catch so biologists can better track behavior and population size.

Meanwhile, experts began spreading gill nets for lake trout in various strategic locations and efforts are under way to locate and destroy the fish's spawning beds.

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