Yellowstone Lake-End of an Era

[yummy1]

I know we are talking about ice fishing, but I had to get this off my chest. I started canoeing into and fishing on Yellowstone Lake in 1982. Back then the license was free and the fish were plentiful. You could catch beautiful cuts in the 15-20" range on almost every cast. You could keep 2 a day under 13", and it would take you all day to catch two that small. We would fry them up on shore, pink flesh, fresh and clean, the best trout I have ever eaten.

I have been in there a dozen times over the past 25 years and have seen the fishing steadily decline. In 1997 we took a group of scouts in there for a week and had a little contest to see who could catch the most fish in a week, the winner caught 14. Even in 1999 and 2000 it was not too bad, you could catch a 1/2 dozen fish in an evening off a rocky point without too much trouble.

The last time I was in there was the summer of 2006, with me and my two boys, another week long scout trip. This time you had to pay $20 for a license, and it was all catch and release. So I shelled out the $60, and in six days of fishing for the three of us, I caught one fish, the only fish caught. The Osprey and Bald eagles are gone, 20 years ago their nests would line the shores. You could see them take fish right out of the water.

If you get on the NPS Yellowstone website you can see all the wonderful things they are supposed to be doing to get the Lake trout out of there, or at least keep them at bay, nothing seems to be working. I wish I was a Bill Gates type person and I would offer a $50 million dollar prize to anyone who could figure out how to restore the Cutthroats to that lake. It has been a sight to see, I love that lake.
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[MMDon]

Good write up Y1. Bucket planters are one of the most dangerous groups to our fisheries that exist today. Yellowstone was destroyed by these types. Now we watch Flaming Gorge going down the tubes due to the burbot. Couer d'Alene destroyed in much the same way with invasive species. Very indeed.
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[Widastick]

Great Post! I to grew up fishing Yellowstone lake. We would sit on Dad's boat and catch so many fish that my arms would get tired. My Dad would just walk around the boat with the net helping me and my 3 siblings get fish off our lines. I remember one year my sister was sick of catching fish and she put a peace of her chee-do on her spinner and just left it about 4 ft under the water. Sure enough she caught a fish. I love that lake, I love the native fish that used to be a huge part of the food chain up there. Earlier this summer I was up there talking to a fish and game officer at the marina, he said that dispite the efforts they have been unsucessfull in making any headway in getting the Mack's out of there. The feds had a deal with a fishing company that makes dog food to come get them out but lost the deal due to the mercury levels in the water. The company said that even though the levels are no were near enough to hurt a human or a animal, they could not risk the bad press. I too am to see this paradise get over run by the mack's. I hope and pray for someone to come up with a way to get the mac's out.
p.s. you would think with all the information we have these days we could come up with a chemical that would kill the lake trout or steralise them and not harm the cuts. I guess we probly could come up with a chemical like that if we were willing to put the money into it.
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[windriver]

I agree completely. When I was in high school I would sneek into the park at 4:00AM because there was nobody at the gates at that time in the morning.[angelic]

Then I would spend the day float tubing yellowstone Lake. I had many 60-80 fish days and all the fish were 16-18" long. I have tried a couple of times in the last few years and have never replicated that kind of success in fact I usually only catch a handful of fish now.

There are other lakes in Yellowstone that are really awesome still. They need to put a bounty on the lakers if people can make a living catching them out during the summer they will find ingenious ways of hitting them hard.

Windriver
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[OvidCreek]

Amen on the post! I LOVE YELLOWSTONE AND WE MUST KILL EVERY MACK IN THAT PRISTINE LAKE! I agree with everything said about fishing, but I want to point out two other consequences that will happen if the macks are not eliminated, those being the effect on grizzlies and otters. I love grizzlies and I spend a great deal of time in the spring observing them; without the cutts spawning in large numbers this will have a dramatic effect on the grizzly and otter populations as well. If you know anything about grizzly dynamics they depend heavily on carcasses in March, April, May, cutts while spawning in June, July, army cuttworm moths in July, August, Sept, and Whitebark Pine Nuts in Sept, Oct.. eliminate one of these food groups from grizzlies and they will just find a way to be in trouble and get into trouble. I just wanted to point out this perspective as well, due to the many consequences this stupid Macks have on the entire ecosystem.

I did want to give some good news since the start of gill netting they have destroyed 350,000 macks and in addition fisherman knock out 9,000 annually. The park service have found spawning areas and will gladly point out these areas to fisherman. Here is a link if you want to read more about it from the YNP website: [url "http://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/upload/300laketrout09.pdf"][/url]http://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/upload/300laketrout09.pdf[/url]

Finally I believe it is OK to charge to fish in YNP, but it should be free to fish in Yellowstone Lake. I love the dog food idea, but if that would not work how about fertilizer. I believe they are doing this at Utah Lake with carp. With all the stimulus money floating around how about a few million pumped into Yellowstone Lake; for increased gill netting operations, or research. How about putting a bounty on the buggers at $5 a pop; they do this in Northern Idaho. This is not just our back yard; this is one of the crown jewels of the planet. I agree save this lake at all costs!

OvidCreek
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[Tapajos]

My favorite lake. I will say that its not an established fact and a matter of some controversy as to whether or not the macks were put in by bucket biologists or not.

2nd i agree completely that if there was a bounty placed on the macks we could knock them out. I also think a fishing tournament should be put together right during the spawn with like a $2500 prize for the most macks and a $2500 prize for the biggest mack. Run it for for each 2 day weekend while the spawn is on. You would see a ton of boats out there. And it wouldnt cost the park or goverment much to put it on(What 100 total cars worth of fees at $50 a pop? They get that in 15 min.).

I keep pretty up to date on the lake and whats going on with it but what I havent seen yet is any studies that suggest the point(if there is one) at which a decline in the mack pop could lead to a sustained pop of the cutthroat. I think more likely that if ANY macks are left in the lake that this same thing is likely to happen again. And thus until theres an answer on how to eliminate them COMPLETELY from the lake they will always be a problem.
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[ironrod]

I've been fishing that lake for the last 15yrs as well...we too have seen our cut #s dwindle....however, I believe we may be seeing some progress. Like others have said...10yrs ago we had 60 fish days...almost a hit on every other cast. Most fish were 16-20 ". Then 3 yrs ago we averaged 20 fish days and all were 18-22"-nothing under 18". Last yr we again had average days of 20 BUT the sizes were divided equally from 12-20"s...good to see some young fish staying away from those Lakers! We also trolled slow and deep (40-60ft) for lakers and our numbers of those have decreased as well...last yr we took home 18 after a 2 1/2 day trip...3yrs ago we had around 30. I do think we're on a positive trend but we really DO need something else in place to make a true come-back! I think they ought to keep it open for another month-lakers are fall (late fall) spawners and they come up in the shallows so more of them could be caught!!
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[riverdog]

It has been shown that the lake trout in Yellowstone Lake came from Lewis Lake/ Shoshone Lake as adult fish. Since the lakes are on opposite sides of the continental divide it's pretty clear it was done by man. I don't remember all the details but otoliths from the fish reveal they spent many years in the other lakes before being transplanted. This went on for a couple years then stopped.
I imagine it's just too big of a lake to poison off all the fish and reintroduce natives.
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[yummy1]

From the last post: Yes exactly! Lake and Brown trout should have never been introduced into the Park 100 years ago.

Just one of many mistakes made in that place regarding wildlife, Read "Playing God in Yellowstone".
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