Fishing Forum

The National Park Service is going through a scoping phase right now on how to evaluate ways to protect and increase native fish species in Yellowstone National Park and decrease the non-natives, e.i., brown, lake, rainbow.

Any comments from anglers who fish in the region or who want to fish there someday should voice their thoughts.
Also, the NPS is doing scoping meetings regarding the issue. It should be noted that these changes will not effect any of the Madison or Firehole Rivers.

The below link is a PDF that the NPS has released. It contains contact info as well as dates and times of the scoping meetings.

http://parkplanning.nps.gov/showFile.cfm...ar10%2Epdf

I will be sending some comments, for sure. I'd love to see Yellowstone waters back at just having native species.
[signature]

When the early tourists and explorers entered Yellowstone there were very few places with viable fish populations because of the canyon nature of the land. Waterfalls impeded upstream spawning. The parks experimented with several different kinds of fish to fill the lakes and streams including bass. The park managers recognized the tourist value of providing fishing opportunities and food for the local lodges.

I guess with that in mind, I would like to point out that there are very few places that had "native" fish. Fish hatcheries were taken out of Yellowstone in 1955 and all fish that grow in Yellowstone since then are "wild."

I think it just depends on the drainage and lake how I feel about it. The lake trout in Yellowstone Lake obviously have to go. However if you remove the lake trout and browns from Lewis Lake and Shoshone Lake on the other side of the divide there would be no "native" fish in the area.

Windriver
[signature]

I understand the dynamics of the Yellowstone area and its regulatory history and still would like to see the majority of waterways how they were, pre non-native introductions. I agree though that the areas that didn't have any fish before should still be allowed to have fish, that are native to the general area.
[signature]