Why Montana Went Wild
Montana
Outdoors interviews the scientist whose research
three decades ago helped revolutionize trout management,
This story is featured in Montana Outdoors
May–June
2004
In 1974, Montana did something that stunned anglers across the state and the nation: It stopped stocking trout in streams and rivers that supported wild trout populations.
The move initially outraged many anglers, fishing businesses, and even some Montana Fish and Game Department staff. For decades, hatcheries had been credited with producing more and better fishing. Without stocking, many Montanans asked, what would happen to the state’s famous trout waters and the businesses that relied on legions of anglers arriving from across the country each summer?
The answer, now well known, is that trout fishing improved dramatically. Once stocking was discontinued, wild trout numbers doubled, tripled, and more on many rivers.
On this 30th anniversary of Montana’s discontinuation of stocking trout in rivers capable of sustaining wild trout, Montana Outdoors visited with fisheries biologist Dick Vincent, whose research on the Madison River in the late 1960s and early ’70s led to that decision.
A Montana native who grew up in Norris and Garrison fishing the Madison and Clark Fork rivers, Vincent earned his B.S. and M.S. in biology at Montana State University and began working for the department in 1966. Nationally known in recent years for his studies on whirling disease, particularly on the Madison River, three decades ago Vincent and his crew showed that wild trout thrived in river reaches without stocked fish and suffered in heavily stocked stretches. It was research that was to revolutionize trout management in Montana and throughout the United States.
How did you get started looking at the effects of stocked trout on wild
trout?
Actually, I was first hired by the department to develop new techniques for
monitoring trout populations. Back then we didn’t have accurate ways
to track trout numbers. I helped develop new electroshocking equipment and
techniques so we could sample a lot
of fish and larger fish.
That’s how you got started working
on the Madison River?
Right. Once we developed the techniques, we started trying them out on rivers.
We picked two stretches of the Madison—the Norris stretch, downstream
of Ennis Lake, and the Varney Bridge stretch, about six miles upstream
from Ennis—and started doing population monitoring. In 1968, we were
able to convince the power company operating the two dams upstream to increase
river flows. We began studying the effects of the increased flows on the
Norris and Varney sections, figuring that both stretches would benefit.
But that wasn’t the case. The flows helped the Norris section, resulting
in better recruitment and many more 10-inch-plus fish, but not Varney.
So you started looking for other factors?
We were so puzzled, because at the time we were sure flows were the big issue,
and it didn’t make sense that one stretch of the Madison was responding
to improved flows and another wasn’t. I made a list to see what was
similar and different about the stretches. The big factor that jumped out
was that the Norris area wasn’t stocked at all, but Varney was stocked
with anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 catchable trout per year. We asked
ourselves: Could it be the
stocking? We had no idea, but we wanted to find out.
That’s when the famous study began?
Well, it didn’t happen that easily. This was in 1969, and what we proposed
was to not stock the Varney section for three years while stocking a tributary
named O’Dell Creek, which was never stocked before but had some good
trout numbers. We wanted to leave the Norris stretch alone and use it as
a control.
Some people didn’t think highly of
your proposal, correct?
That’s putting it mildly. I think people thought we had a goal of closing
down all stocking, but that wasn’t the case. We specifically wanted
to learn if stocking catchable-sized rainbow trout was negatively affecting
wild rainbow and brown trout populations. But Ennis businesses, the Fish
and Game Commission, and lots of anglers didn’t like the idea of us
messing around with stocking in any way. They felt that the Varney stretch
would crash during the three-year study. I heard many people say, “If
we don’t have stockers, what will fishermen catch?”
How heavily was Montana into stocking fish at the time?
That was really the peak of our river stocking program. We were stocking
the Big Hole, Yellowstone, Gallatin, Madison—all the best rivers,
which already had great trout fisheries—with an average of 2,000
catchable trout per mile. But the department was still getting complaints
about how poor the fishing was, that it was getting worse each year. So
the solution was to stock even more, and whoever hollered the loudest got
the most fish in their favorite stretch of river. The idea then was that
the stocked fish were an addition to the wild populations, that two plus
two equaled four. But a few of us biologists wondered if maybe two plus
two equaled three or even less.
Were you the only ones suspecting this?
Some anglers had a hunch that river stocking wasn’t all it was made
out to be. Bud Lilly, Dick McGuire, Tom Morgan, and a few others had been
fishing these great rivers before the big stocking boom, and they told us
the fishing was getting increasingly worse. And I’d seen that myself,
having grown up fishing the Madison in the 1950s, when we’d catch 3-pounders.
Then, in the 1960s, all we could catch were small hatchery fish. But no one
knew why the fishing got worse on those rivers.
How did the study start?
First we had to get permission from the commission to not stock the Varney
section for three years. That was a big deal. Art Whitney, the fisheries
chief, made the case that we weren’t out to end stocking but that
we just wanted to learn something. That took courage. He could have made
his life a lot simpler by not going against the flow. But Art was a scientist,
and he successfully fought for the study. The three-year study actually
began in 1970, but it included information for the years 1967–69.
After just one year, we could see that the four-mile-long Varney section
was improving by no longer being stocked and that most of the improvement
was in the larger fish. By the fall of 1971, wild trout numbers had increased
153 percent from the 1967–69 average, from 1,500 trout to 3,800 trout.
The improvement continued every year. By 1974 the total number of wild
trout larger than 10 inches was 4,700, a 213 percent increase from the
stocking years.
What happened to O’Dell, the creek
you began stocking?
The wild trout population began declining. The 1967–69 average had
been 515 brown trout in that 1.4-mile stretch, and it dropped to 380 in 1971
and then 280 in 1972. And the big fish numbers declined as well, dropping
from 63 in 1967–69 to 14 in 1972.
Were you surprised by the results?
We’d suspected that stocking was having a negative effect, but when
we saw large trout numbers in the Varney section triple and trout numbers
in O’Dell cut in half, well, that just blew us away.
And that caused the agency to rethink its river stocking policy?
River stocking was already under some criticism because the return to the
angler was so low. Within three months of being planted, 95 percent of
stocked river trout are dead, either from being caught and kept by anglers,
about 15 percent, or from other predators, about 80 percent. It’s
not cheap to raise fish to catchable size, and when anglers are only catching
15 percent of the stocked fish, those become pretty expensive trout. In
1972, the department figured that each hatchery-reared catchable trout
caught by an angler in the upper Madison River cost about $2.50. And that
was back in 1972, when a fishing license cost about that much. It just
didn’t make sense.
The study then added weight to arguments against river and stream stocking?
Now there were two strikes against it: One, the department was raising all
those fish with little return to the angler and, two, stocking was harming
wild fish. Ordinarily you wouldn’t change management policy based
on just three years of data, but the numbers from the study were off the
charts. The department had to decide what to do, but there was a huge fear
that ending stocking would cause an economic disaster for the communities
along the rivers. There were a bunch of hearings on changing the policy.
But by the end of 1973, the department and the commission agreed that it
didn’t make sense. The following year, the department stopped stocking
trout in rivers and streams.
What happened then?
Wild trout numbers increased, just as the study said they would. For example,
in the upper Gallatin above Big Sky, trout numbers went from about 450
wild fish per mile to 2,500 once stocking ended. And after the department
stopped stocking O’Dell Creek, the numbers went right back up to
where they had been.
Did other states follow?
To a point, yes. We got calls from all over the country from fisheries departments
and trout anglers. There was a ripple effect across the United States.
Some people thought the new policy would
be the end of the hatchery system. But that didn’t happen.
Not at all. In fact the department is now rearing and planting eight million
trout per year. But instead of stocking rivers and streams, it plants lakes
and reservoirs. And instead of stocking catchable-sized fish, the stocking
has shifted to smaller trout that grow to be catchable size but have wilder
traits. The hatchery program now is critical for lake management and also
for helping propagate species of concern such as westslope cutthroat. It’s
really doing a great job.
Other than producing better wild trout fishing,
what other effects did the study have?
I think the biggest thing was that people began to see wild trout as a valuable,
limited resource, and that the state needs to protect habitat to conserve
that resource. Back in the 1960s, anglers didn’t care about stream
flows and river habitat, because if the fishing was poor, you just tossed
in more fish. But if you want to catch big wild fish, then you need to fight
for water and for habitat, and that is what has happened. I don’t know
of a state where people have fought as hard for their rivers as they have
here in Montana.
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