The Cutthroat - eastyellowstonetu.org · The Cutthroat Volume 2, Issue 2 The Official Newsletter of the East Yellowstone Chapter of Trout Unlimited Mar/Apr 2012 INSIDE THIS ISSUE

The Cutthroat

Volume 2, Issue 2 The Official Newsletter of the East Yellowstone Chapter of Trout Unlimited Mar/Apr 2012

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Lead Lines

Conservation

Corner

Bob Krumm’s

Wyoming

Outdoors

SCT Update

Sunshine

Diversion Fish

Ladder

LEAD LINES…LEAD LINES…LEAD LINES…LEAD LINES…

FROM THE PRESIDENTFROM THE PRESIDENTFROM THE PRESIDENTFROM THE PRESIDENT

We are off to a good start again

this year and I would like to

thank everyone for their help

and dedication last year. We at

EYTU have a lot of projects on

our plate and I would like to

extend an invitation to all

members and non-members

alike to come and support Trout

Unlimited and volunteer! If you

like trout, trout fishing and like

where trout live, join us and

become a member. Our chapter

goal this year is to expand our

membership in the Big Horn

Basin and recruit new active

members in total and younger

generations in particular. There

is nothing better than enjoying

the outdoors next to one of your

local streams and helping trout,

too! Activities that need your

support include the Shoshone

River cleanup in March, Kids

fishing day and Fly Casting

Class in June. You can learn

about and improve trout

spawning habitat through

substrate surveys or be a part of

fish capture and transplanting

work in the Big Horns by

helping local Game and Fish

biologists. In the fall, help us

rescue trout from irrigation

canals and place them back into

the river to fight another day

(you can actually see the big

fish you are fishing

for). With your help, EYTU can

do this and more. A list of

projects and dates will be

published on our website as

dates are firmed up. Our chapter

would also like to reach out and

encourage participation from

Please see President, Page 3

Looking forward to another great

year for East Yellowstone TU!

Page Page Page Page 2222 The Cutthroat Newsletter Mar/Apr 2The Cutthroat Newsletter Mar/Apr 2The Cutthroat Newsletter Mar/Apr 2The Cutthroat Newsletter Mar/Apr 2012012012012

OfficersOfficersOfficersOfficers Jan. 2012Jan. 2012Jan. 2012Jan. 2012----Dec. 2012Dec. 2012Dec. 2012Dec. 2012

President……………….…Gregg Bierei Vice President...………Birney Holberg Treasurer………….....….Larry Thomas Secretary…..………...….Travis Duncan Membership Chair….......Chris Nielsen Conservation Chair……....Bob Capron Fundraising Chair…......Birney Holberg

The CutthroatThe CutthroatThe CutthroatThe Cutthroat Rich Hostetler, Editor

The Cutthroat The Cutthroat The Cutthroat The Cutthroat is a bimonthly newsletter of the East Yellowstone Trout Unlimited Chapter. Editorial content in this newsletter does not necessarily reflect the views of the officers or members of the East Yellowstone Trout Unlimited Chapter. The deadline for submission of all photos and content is the tenth of the month prior to the next publication. Publication dates are January 1, March 1, May 1, July 1, September 1 and November 1. Please send any and all contributions for the next issue to the Cutthroat editor, Rich Hostetler at: [email protected]

The Cutthroat is available online on the EYTU chapters web site at: www.eastyellowstonetu.org

DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE

PROPOSED PIPELINE TO TAKE

WATER OUT OF THE GREEN

RIVER AND FLAMMING

GORGE RESERVOIR?

Help Save the Green!

OURDAMWATER.ORG

CONSERVATION CORNER...CONSERVATION CORNER...CONSERVATION CORNER...CONSERVATION CORNER... BOB CAPRONBOB CAPRONBOB CAPRONBOB CAPRON

Spring is just around the cor-

ner and projects are coming

up. We have a lot of differ-

ent projects this year with

opportunity for everyone to

get involved. River clean

up, trail work, casting clin-

ics, Kids Fishing Day and

fish rescue, just to name a

few. You can always take a

hike to help locate and iden-

tify noxious weeds and get

some exercise at the same

time. I have been talking to

a lot of people about the old

School House in Sunlight

Basin to see if we could do

something before it falls off

the cliff into Sunlight Creek.

There is also some old ma-

chinery there that needs to

be moved away from the

creek. This old cabin has a

lot of history connected to it,

so I’m not sure what the fi-

nal plan will be. If you

know of a project, or have

an idea for the chapter to

work on, please bring it to

one of our meetings and

talk about it. With the

Commissioner’s Tag,

RAC Grants and EAS

Grant, it looks great for

very busy year.

Thanks to Duane Ander-

son for taking on the fund-

raising for the chapter.

We can always use more

money, so let’s all help

with fundraising ideas.

We are very luck to have

Cory Toye, Tommy

Thompson and Dave

Sweet working on projects

in our area. They are do-

ing excellent work and

See Conservation, Page 3

Only an extraordinary

person would purposely

risk being outsmarted

by a creature often less

than twelve inches long,

over and over again.

~ Janna Bialek

Page Page Page Page 3333 The Cutthroat Newsletter Mar/AprThe Cutthroat Newsletter Mar/AprThe Cutthroat Newsletter Mar/AprThe Cutthroat Newsletter Mar/Apr 2012201220122012

CHECK US OUT AT: WWW.EASTYELLOWSTONETU.ORG

President

Continued from Page 1

our local fishing guides in Cody

Country.

Your stream knowledge and

enthusiasm would be a great

asset to EYTU endeavors and

your support will enhance the

resource we all love-TROUT.

Come join us and enjoy new

experiences and meet new

friends, and above all help us

preserve our cold water

fisheries.

Gregg Bierei

President

Conservation


deserve all of the help and support

the chapter can give them. The

fish ladder and Sunshine Diver-

sion Project is progressing well

and should be finished soon. This

will be the largest fish ladder in

Wyoming. If you get the chance,

drive over and take a look before

high water comes.

Other projects for th near future

are the Franks Fork Ditch Fish

Screen, Timber Creek Irrigation

Improvement, North Fork Fish

Screen, North Fork Trash Boom

and Ishawa Creek Fish Screen.

Wealso need to thank the Wyo-

ming Game and Fish, and the

Shoshone National Forest people

for their leadership, help, coopera-

tion and putting up with us in gen-

eral. Without them, we would be

out of business.

It’s getting to be that time of year!

Be Bear Aware!

Page Page Page Page 4444 The Cutthroat Newsletter Mar/AprThe Cutthroat Newsletter Mar/AprThe Cutthroat Newsletter Mar/AprThe Cutthroat Newsletter Mar/Apr

BOARD OF DIRECTORSBOARD OF DIRECTORSBOARD OF DIRECTORSBOARD OF DIRECTORS

Term 2010-2012 Bob Capron Bob Richard Carrisa Camp

Duane Anderson

Term 2011-2013 Gregg Bierei

Jason Burckhardt Birney Holberg George Simonton

Term 2012-2014 Rich Hostetler Merle Nielsen Dave Sweet Mike Wenke

Wyoming outdoors: More money needed to

save Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout

Bob Krumm’s article appeared in the February 23, 2012, Billings Gazette

The East Yellowstone The East Yellowstone The East Yellowstone The East Yellowstone Chapter is proud to be Chapter is proud to be Chapter is proud to be Chapter is proud to be affiliated with: affiliated with: affiliated with: affiliated with:

Did you fish Yellowstone National Park, more specifically the Yellowstone River from the upper falls through the lake and into the Thoroughfare, in the time period between 1960 and 1990? If so, what was your recollection? Did you see lots of cutthroat trout? How many did you catch? Have you fished the same area since 2000? Did you see any cutthroat trout? How many did you catch? Dave Sweet, Trout Unlimited’s 2011 Distinguished Service Award winner, asked the above questions of the people who attended his talk Feb. 16 in Sheridan, Wyo. Sweet has been spearheading the “Save the Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout Campaign” and has been telling his message as fervently as an old-fashioned revival preacher. He has managed to marshal the Trout Unlimited state coun-cils of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana to join in the fight. Along with TU are the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the National Parks Conservation Association. Individual TU chapters, such as the Little Bighorn Chapter, have helped out, too. The Yellowstone cutthroat trout once numbered 3.5 to 4 mil-lion in the waters above the upper falls of the Yellowstone River. Nowadays, the number of cutthroat trout has plunged to less than 10 percent of what it was in the halcyon days of the 1950s and ’60s. A weir was installed on Clear Creek back in the 1940s so that National Park Service biologists could count the number of trout spawning in the stream. In the 1970s the counts averaged 50,000; in the last three years 500! That’s a 99 percent decline. The introduction of lake trout into Yellowstone Lake is the No. 1 cause of the decline, although whirling disease and ex-tended drought have had some impacts, too. The first docu-mented report of a lake trout in Yellowstone Lake was July 30, 1994, but there were undocumented reports from earlier years. Please see Outdoors, Page 5

Outdoors


How the lake trout entered Yellowstone Lake is a matter of conjecture. One possible cause could be the illegal planting of lake trout by some nimrod. A second theory is that the lakers might have been uploaded by helicopter bucket loads while fighting the infamous 1988 fires. The lake trout from such a “plant” could have come from Lewis Lake. Regardless, the lake trout have decimated the Yellowstone cutthroat trout population. A lake trout can consume up to 41 cutthroat trout a year. The latest population estimate of lake trout was upwards of 400,000. Yellowstone Lake is huge, and it is ideal habitat for lake trout, so controlling them seems to be an in-surmountable task. The National Park Service first sought to gill net the lake trout and had some suc-cess, but gill netting also caught cutthroats. In 2011, Yellowstone contracted a commercial fishing company, Hickey Brothers from Wisconsin, to double the efforts in Yellowstone Lake with two commercial boats. (The NPS ran 11 miles of gill nets in 2009 and 2010 using two boats). The Hickey Brothers managed to catch 120,000 lake trout in 2011. In conjunction with the NPS, the total haul was 220,000. If the lake trout population estimate is correct, then this catch amounts to more than half the estimated population. One of the tools that the Hickey Brothers used was a trap net. The trap net utilizes wing structures that are up to 300 meters long that direct the trout into a central enclosed net with a funnel opening. The trout are trapped live so that any cutthroat trout can be released alive. The main advantage of the trap net is that it can be employed in shallower waters where the cutthroats are and where the lake trout venture in search of the cutts. Another development in the battle has been technological. In order to locate where the lake trout are in the lake, biologists have been implanting transmitters into some lake trout. These“Judas” trout are released back into Yellowstone Lake. A grid of receivers has been placed in the lake that can record the individual lake trout as it swims past the receiver. With this information, researchers are hoping to be able to pinpoint where lake trout spawn. Unlike cutthroat, brown, brook, rainbow and golden trout, lake trout don’t spawn in pairs; they spawn in swarms. Their spawning areas are underwater reefs and gravel bars in shallow waters. The spawning areas are quite compact— some are only the size of two regular meeting tables. Knowing where the lake trout spawn will enable the netting efforts to be more efficient. Also, it will enable park personnel to try to destroy the eggs. Please see Outdoors, Page 6


Outdoors

Continued from Page 5 This technological battle has drawn Dave Sweet into the fray. The transmitters are fairly costly — $400. The receivers are $700 apiece. Through Sweet’s efforts and those of the East Yellowstone Trout Unlim-ited chapter, $27,000 has been raised for 73 tags and the NPS raised $25,000 for an additional 68 tags. The transmitters and receivers were placed in the lake in August. There are 141 transmitters and 40 re-ceivers now in Yellowstone Lake. The main problem is that there is a wealth of data that needs to be ana-lyzed. The Park Service has come up with $100,000 for analysis of the data. The study will go on for three more years. More transmitters and receivers are needed so that a comprehensive grid can be placed in the lake. Ac-cording to Sweet, at least 300 tagged fish are needed along with 52 receivers. A different type of trans-mitter that can also indicate depth is needed, but it costs $750. While lake trout suppression will go on for many years, there is already hope that the Yellowstone cut-throat can be saved. One encouraging sign is that the lake trout that have been netted in the past two years seldom have cutthroat trout in their stomachs; scuds have become the primary forage. Another sign is that there are some large cutthroat trout (six to seven pounds) showing up in the trap nets. Also, the spawning redd counts have started to increase in the tributary streams. Finally, if continued netting efforts show a removal rate of 50 percent or more, then the lake trout population can be suppressed. The campaign to save the Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout needs your help. They are about halfway to their goal of $85,000. If you can, please donate to: Save the Yellowstone Cutthroat; c/o East Yellowstone Chapter of Trout Unlimited, P.O. Box 3008, Cody, WY 82414.

Bob Krumm was born in Michigan. He caught his first fish, a carp, when he was five years old and the fish-

ing bug has not let up since then. He attended Albion College and graduated with a degree in biology. He

obtained a Masters Degree in Zoology with wildlife management emphasis from the University of Wyoming.

His first guide seasons were in northwest Wyoming: Jackson Hole and the Snake River as well as Pinedale

with the Green and New Fork Rivers.

Bob worked for the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality from 1979 to 1985. After he resigned

from DEQ he went back to guiding, this time on the Bighorn River in Montana. Bob has guided on the Big-

horn River ever since, though he did spend the first half of the 1987 guide season in Freeport, Maine as a fly

fishing instructor in the L.L. Bean Fly Fishing School. Bob has taught fly-casting and fly tying at Sheridan

College and has been active in the Federation of Fly Fishers and Trout Unlimited.

Bob has been fortunate to have worked as a fisheries biologist for the Quemquemtreu Ranch, near San Mar-

tin de los Andes in Argentina. He has traveled to New Zealand to fish for trout and to the Abaco Island and

Andros Island in the Bahamas to fish for bonefish. He has fished for northern pike, lake trout, and walleyed

pike in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Still, Bob believes that some of the best fishing in the world is on the Bighorn River in Montana.


Save the Yellowstone Cu�hroat

Goal by April 1, 2012

$85,000

Total Goal

$180,000

Cur"ent Funding

$50,612

Cur"ent number of reg)lar acoustic tags planted – 141

Cur"ent number of receivers deployed - 40

Cur"ent number of depth recording tags - 0

April 1, 2012 Goal of $85,000 = 50 depth recording tags @ $700 ea.

100 reg)lar tags @ $400 each

Additional $10,000 for supplies

Long Ter3 Goal of $180,000 = all of the above plus

40 new receivers @ $1400

60 more reg)lar tags @ $400 each

Additional $15,000 in supplies

"There he stands, draped in more equipment than a telephone lineman, trying to outwit an organism with

a brain no bigger than a breadcrumb, and getting licked in the process."

--Paul O'Neil



Sunlight Diversion Fish Ladder a Reality

Cory Toye, Director

Wyoming Water Project TU

The Greybull River drainage is a priority fish habitat area for Trout Unlimited (TU) and other project partners for its population of genetically pure Yellowstone cutthroat trout (YCT) and other native fish including: Mountain whitefish, Mountain sucker, Longnose dace and Longnose sucker. The drainage boasts one of the last strongholds of the purest YCT in the state. Past efforts to improve fishery health have included projects to address fish passage and riparian health including: Timber Creek Low Water Fork Project (USFS), Timber Creek State Land Easement Project (USFS), Timber Creek Fish Passage and Riparian Restoration Project (TU, USFS, WGFD, Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust (WWNRT)) and the Francs Fork Reconnect Project (TU, USFS, WGFD, Jackson Hole One Fly Foundation and WWNRT). The Greybull Valley Irrigation District (GVID) operates a mainstem diversion structure on the Greybull River to fill Upper Sunshine Reservoir. The water stored in the reservoir serves the 80,000 acre irrigation district. The diversion structure was constructed in the late 1930s and is a complete barrier for all

upstream movement of fish in the drainage. During the winter of 2011/spring 2012, GVID will be replacing the existing diversion structure to provide a more efficient water delivery system. GVID has given permission to TU and other project partners to install a fish ladder on the new structure to provide fish passage. Upon completion, the population of YCT will be reconnected to over 140 miles of mainstem and tributary habitat above the diversion for the first time in nearly 80 years. Reconnecting YCT populations throughout the drainage will lead to a more stable and resilient assemblage of native fish and allow fish to access historical habitat, including mainstem and tributary habitat. Eliminating migration barriers is one of the key steps toward providing additional habitat for sensitive aquatic species, encouraging genetic interchange among populations, and insulating fish populations from fire, drought, and/or climate-based events. Installing the fish ladder to reconnect Greybull mainstem and tributary habitat will provide

protection for the local populations of YCT within the entire watershed.Totalprojectcost:$420,000

THE BRAG BOARD

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Dubois, WyomingDubois, WyomingDubois, WyomingDubois, Wyoming

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Documents

The Cutthroat - eastyellowstonetu.org · The Cutthroat Volume 2, Issue 2 The Official Newsletter of the East Yellowstone Chapter of Trout Unlimited Mar/Apr 2012 INSIDE THIS ISSUE