Future Fisheries applications are considered every year in June and December. The following are all of the applications that were received for the upcoming funding cycle.

001-2020 Big Hole 40 Bar streambank restoration (Future Fisheries)

Future Fisheries Grant Application to improve the streambank on the Big Hole at the 40 Bar Ranch.
 

002-2021 East Fork Bitterroot River riparian revegetation (Future Fisheries)

Future Fisheries Improvement Program grant application for the East Fork Bitterroot River riparian revegetation, Winter 2021 grant cycle.
 

003-2021 Elk Springs Creek restoration phase 2 (Future Fisheries)

Elk Springs Creek (Beaverhead County) is located in the Centennial Valley and is a tributary to Upper Red Rock Lake. It contains brook trout, white suckers, sculpin, burbot, and Arctic grayling. Historically, it supported one of Montana’s most prolific Arctic grayling spawning populations and the location is within the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. In the 1950’s, an on-channel pond (MacDonald Pond) was constructed on Elk Springs Creek to increase waterfowl habitat. Elk Springs Creek was subsequently degraded due to sedimentation and the shift from stream to pond habitat. MacDonald Pond was removed in 2009 and in 2016, fifteen hundred feet of the formal stream channel was restored. This project would reconstruct the final 1,750 feet of formerly inundated channel. The channel is currently over widened, shallow, unable to transport the large volumes of lake bed and alluvial deposits that remain, and encourages the growth of macrophytes. The degraded condition holds few resident fish and impedes Arctic grayling from moving upstream. The goal is to complete restoration of Elk Springs Creek by improving stream function and the Arctic grayling population, as part of the Arctic grayling recovery plan in Montana. The previous phase resulted in dramatic increases in salmonid abundances, decreased water temperature, increased and stabilized dissolved oxygen, and improved fish migrations.
 

004-2021 Lake Elmo fish habitat supplement (Future Fisheries)

Future Fisheries application for grant funding to improve fish habitat at Lake Elmo.
 

004-2021 Lake Elmo fish habitat supplement Environmental Assessment (Future Fisheries)

Future Fisheries application Environmental Assessment and comments, for grant funding to improve fish habitat at Lake Elmo.
 

005-2021 Little Gold Creek culvert replacement supplement (Future Fisheries)

Little Gold Creek (Granite County) is a tributary to Boulder Creek (and Flint Creek) northeast of Phillipsburg. It supports populations of westslope cutthroat trout and bull trout. In the project area, an undersized culvert is blocking fish passage at a forest road. The Boulder Creek drainage is the only location within the Flint Creek drainage with viable populations of both bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout. By opening fish passage on Little Gold Creek, two miles of stream could be reconnected to Boulder Creek and then, Flint Creek. The applicant proposes to replace the undersized culvert with an Aquatic Organism Passage (AOP) culvert that installs a natural stream channel within the culvert and can pass a 100-year flow event of 123 cubic feet per second. The goal is to reconnect Little Gold Creek, improve habitat quantity and connectivity, and maintain additional coldwater refugia. This project was funded in the Summer 2020 cycle for $29,475 but a reduction in match funding led to additional funds needed for project completion. This is a supplemental request.
 

006-2021 Poorman Creek culvert replacement (Future Fisheries)

Future Fisheries grant application to replace a culvert on Poorman Creek
 

007-2021 South Fork Lower Willow Creek fish passage (Future Fisheries)

Future Fisheries grant application for a project to improve fish passage on South Fork Lower Willow Creek.
 

008-2021 South Spread Creek decommissioning (Future Fisheries)

Future Fisheries grant application to decommission roads at South Spread Creek
 

Winter 2021 Funding Recommendations

Funding Recommendations for the Winter 2021 funding cycle of the Future Fisheries Improvement Program
 

Winter 2021 Project Ranking Results

Winter 2021 Project Ranking Results for the Future Fisheries Improvement Program.