NEWS

Missouri maintains as state's rivers heat up

Karl Puckett
kpuckett@greatfallstribune.com


Anglers fly-fish the Missouri River just below Craig on Thursday morning.

CRAIG – This fly-fishing hub was bustling with boat traffic Thursday as anglers launched boats onto a blue-ribbon stretch of the Missouri River that's Montana's No. 1 fishing destination.

"Think there's any fish in this warm water?" asked Doug Clark of Great Falls, just before he pushed away from shore in a kayak.

Lack of rain and high air temperatures are beginning to heat up streams across the state, which already are suffering from low flows.

That's resulting in fishing restrictions, lost business for outfitters and guides and less oxygen and more stress for fish such as the rainbow and brown trout prized on the Missouri, according to guides and state and federal water, fish and wildlife officials.

But a 30-mile stretch of the Missouri River from Holter Lake to Cascade, where 177,000 angler days were recorded in 2013, the most in the state, is withstanding the heat much better than most rivers and streams and continues to attract anglers such as Clark.

On Thursday, the river was flowing at about 4,200 cubic feet per second. That's less than the average of 6,730 cfs, but near the minimum flows of 4,100 cfs needed to conserve the fish that draw local, out-of-state and international anglers.

"We're just at a low-flow stage for sure," said Chris Strainer, owner of CrossCurrent Fly Shop, which offers guiding services on the Missouri and Smith rivers and boat rentals. "That does concern us. One of the concerns we have with real low flows is fish sustainability."

Low flows in the Smith River, Strainer said, already have led to the cancellation of guided trips on the Smith and boat and raft rentals.

Stream flows and temperatures on the Missouri are OK now, he says, with water temperatures generally in the low 60s. Strainer worries about temperatures rising and stream flows dropping. The river already is beginning to get weedy in some spots, he said.

Flows on the Missouri have been "reasonable," said Grant Grisak, FWP's Great Falls-based Region 4 fisheries manager. The minimum flow threshold of least 4,100 cfs ensures water fills side channels.

Anglers and a pelican fish the Missouri River below Craig on Thursday.

The preferred water temperature for rainbow and brown trout is 55 to 65 degrees, according to FWP. Water temperatures in the Missouri on Thursday was 64, Grisak said.

"The big question is, it's so hot, why doesn't the Missouri get warmer?" Grisak said. "The answer is it's a tailwater fishery."

A tailwater fishery is downstream from a dam, and Canyon Ferry Dam, 27 miles downstream from Townsend, controls flows in the Missouri River. As a result, the river is a little cooler in the summer and a little warmer in the winter.

FWP works closely with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the Canyon Ferry Dam, to maintain flows at acceptable levels for recreation and fish, and that leaves the river in better shape than freestone streams such as the Blackfoot River, which flow seasonally based on available water supply, Grisak said.

"We stay much more constant because our flows are regulated," said Will Darby, who works at Missouri River Trout Shop in Craig.

Low water influences the river in a couple of ways, Darby said. To name one, bug habitat in the bed of the river is reduced. And a healthy bug life in a river translates to healthy fish, he said.

"At the end of the day, it's really nothing we can control," Darby said of stream flows.

Anglers were putting in drift boats, rubber rafts and kayaks at the Craig boat launch Thursday. The stretch offers a slow-moving float past rocky cliffs.

"It's a little slow right now," Chase Harrison of Missoula, a guide who was fishing with Chad Dailey and Emma Bozarth, who was fly-fishing for the first time, said of the fishing.

FWP, citing flows below "critical levels" for fish and sustained warmer water temperatures, issued new angling restrictions on the Clark Fork, Bitterroot and Blackfoot rivers and Flint and Silver Bow creeks in western Montana effective Friday.

"It's not looking good," Harrison said.

One result of the low flows in western Montana might be more anglers fishing the Missouri River, CrossCurrent's Strainer said. Low flows not only place more stress on fish, they can lead to stress for anglers, too, if more of them are on the river, he said. When anglers are more spread out, he says, "It's just more of a comfortable space."

A bald eagle perches on a cliff overlooking the Missouri River near Craig on Thursday.

On Friday, the Bitterroot River near Missoula was flowing at 991 cubic feet per second. The average is 5,280. Daily low flow records are being set on rivers and streams in western Montana, said Wayne Berkas, data chief for western Montana for the U.S. Geological Survey, which collects stream flow data.

The big question is whether any annual records will be topped, he said. So far, none has.

"The western side of the Divide is in a bigger hurt than the eastern side of the Divide," Berkas said.

In western and northwestern Montana, less snow fell this year, Berkas said. And temperatures warmed early, causing snow to melt faster than usual. Those factors are causing streams and river flows to drop to lower levels two to three weeks sooner than they typically do, Berkas said.

East of the divide, the snowpack was was better in some areas, but high temperatures and a lack of rainfall now are now causing streams and rivers to drop.

FWP's Grisak said Thursday he's planning to recommend that time-of-day angling restrictions be placed on the 60-mile float stretch of the Smith River and the lower section of the Sun River from Augusta to Great Falls. The two rivers are priority trout streams in Region 4.

The so-called "hoot-owl" restrictions, which restrict fishing from 2 p.m. to midnight, must be reviewed by the local representative on the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission and approved by the FWP director.

"I'm always concerned about what closures like this can do to recreation," Grisak said. "Our goal is to provide recreational opportunities, so we take it very seriously when we ask for a closure."

Temperatures in the Smith and Sun have been topping 73 degrees. Warm water has less oxygen, and trout and whitefish have high oxygen demands, Grisak said.

The stress is greater when they are caught.

"They can have a hard time recovering in warm water conditions," Grisak said. "That's the logic behind the closures."

In times of low water, fish are pressed into a smaller space resulting in less food and more stress, Strainer said.

How long the angling restrictions on the Smith and Sun rivers, if approved, remain in place will depend on the weather, Grisak said.

Generally speaking, flows and temperatures in central Montana streams and rivers are better than streams and rivers in western Montana, Grisak said. A lot of that has to do with abundant snowpack in the Little Belt Mountains, which helped out Belt Creek and the Smith River. And big rain events in May also bolstered those rivers as well. Belt Creek rarely is imperiled by warm waters because it stays cool due to mountain tributary streams and the groundwater system that feed it, Grisak said.

Along the most popular stretch of the Missouri between Holter Lake and Cascade, 83 percent of the trout are rainbows and 17 percent are brown, according to FWP.

Anglers fly-fish the Missouri River below Craig on Thursday morning.

"The rains we had in May kind of saved our butts," said Sara Roholt, manager of Headhunter Fly Shop in Craig.

Flow levels and water temperatures seem to be about two weeks ahead of schedule this year, she said.

"It sure would be nice if we had a break in the heat, but I don't think that's going to happen," Roholt said.

Sunglasses were lined up on display in the shop's window, and long-sleeved shirts favored by some anglers were hanging on a rack outside, where a piece of paper listing the forecast for that day — a high of 87 degrees with no rain — also was posted.

Darby says the section of Missouri River that includes Craig attracts anglers from all over the country and even the world. "I met a guy from Argentina the other day," he said.

Dry fly-fishing, the most technical form with anglers using flies that float, often is used to catch fish in the Missouri, Darby said.

"Such an easy river to come to for people who've never been here," said Jeff Baltzer of Alberta, who was on holiday with his family and fishing the river for the first time after reading about it and driving past it.

Clark, the Great Falls resident, said it was a little warmer out than he would like. But his brother, Jeff, was in town from Georgia and Thursday was expected to be the coolest it would be for the week. So they headed out in kayaks to fish.

"It can be very exciting," Clark said of battling a trout from a kayak.

Reach Tribune Staff Writer at 406-791-1471. Twitter: GFTrib_KPuckett.