Tribes to take comment on trout netting plan

FLATHEAD LAKE — The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have released an outline of a pilot project aimed at reducing the high numbers of lake trout in Flathead Lake, a move made in anticipation of a public meeting planned for sometime this month.

While the conservation side makes the move seem necessary, commercial angling businesses seem unhappy about the changes.

The plan is open to input and changes and is not a final draft, said CSKT Fish, Wildlife, Recreation and Conservation manager Tom McDonald. It outlines a proposed measure of netting the invasive species to prevent them from driving native bull trout in the lake and surrounding waterways to extinction.

As it is, bull trout are already listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. Coupled with the ever-popular, biannual Mack Days competition, McDonald believes the plan could help significantly reduce the number of predacious lake trout, and create a more balanced ecosystem in the lake, bringing stability the waterway hasn’t experienced in many years.

“This method is nothing new,” McDonald said of the netting program. “But it’s one of the last tools in the tool bag.”

The imbalance of the Flathead Lake ecosystem has been an ongoing problem for more than 20 years. It began with the introduction of mysis shrimp into the waterways, with the hopes of creating a food source for the fish in the lake. At that time, kokanee salmon, cutthroat, lake and bull trout and perch all lived in the harmony that is a well-stocked fishery. What was overlooked was the fact that the shrimp and the kokanee both used the same food source: plankton. This competition caused a collapse in the kokanee population and an increase in lake trout, which feed on juvenile bull trout and cutthroats, as well as the mysis shrimp.

The impact is in the numbers.

McDonald estimates 40,000 lake trout in Flathead in the early 1980s; a 2008 estimate puts that number up to almost 400,000.

“The population boomed because the mysis shrimp was like super-Gerber food for the lake trout,” McDonald said. “The bull trout got hit both ways: they were starving while the lake trout was eating them and their food source.”

Now the Tribes hope its management plan will restore the balance. Held in the fall and the spring of each year, the Tribes already have the successful Mack Days competition; spring 2009 saw 12,651 of the fish caught and entered in the contest, and combined with the fall weeks, Mack Days anglers catch more than 20,000 fish lake trout each year in an attempt to cull the mackinaw population.

Now, the Tribes have determined that Mack Days alone will not shrink the population enough, leading to the implementation of netting.

The hope of the netting plan is to reduce the lake trout population that measure 26 inches or smaller by 25 percent in the next three years. The harvest target for 2010 is 60,000 fish. In addition to netting, the plan would include lengthening the spring Mack Days to 12 weeks, while maintaining the fall event at seven weeks. The year’s plan cost would be $442,000.

The harvest target for 2011 is 80,000 fish, with an estimated cost of $587,000. The last year of the pilot project, 2012, would aim for a harvest of 100,000 fish, with an estimated cost of $682,000.

The high number of fish harvested make Flathead Lake Charters owner Jeff Rach uneasy. In an earlier article in the Hungry Horse News, Rach told reporter Chris Peterson that the netting could put him out of business. Rach said the netting would kill the larger fish, which he claims take 15 to 30 years to grow to their trophy size.

“It’s a ridiculous way to handle this,” Rach said of the netting program.

But McDonald disagrees. After a thorough research process, he believes this is the best course of action. Slot limits, which regulate the size of fish kept by fisherman, especially during Mack Days, have been instrumental and successful in maintaining trophy fish in the lake, McDonald said. He said the tribes are not trying to put charters out of business, but rather hope to work with them to help their business flourish while helping the native bull trout population.

“If we see a decline in recreational fishing or people not coming out to fish, we’ll cease the program,” McDonald said. “It’s a collage of all the people involved.”

Those involved includes a mish-mash of organizations. The tribes control the south half of the lake, the north half is controlled by the state of Montana and the preservation of species within the waterway is overseen by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

Wayne Fredenberg, a biologist with the U.S. FWS, told the Hungry Horse News that the agency supports the tribes plan, and that the netting will be essential in preserving, and hopefully improving, the bull trout population. Fredenberg cited an example in Idaho where netting helped boost the kokanee population in the lake, and he hopes the plan will work similarly in Flathead Lake.

McDonald maintains that this is a proposal and a starting point, and its implementation is not guaranteed exactly the way it is written. He would like angling to continue to be the primary lake trout extraction method, but sees the netting as a necessary, last-ditch effort to help the native bull trout. He is also hopeful that citizens will come to the meeting to express their concerns and ask questions, and understand that this plan takes everyone’s needs into consideration.

“We want to see if we can make a difference here without hurting commercial angling,” McDonald said.