[VFB] Farewell Yellowstone Cutthroat...

[Tom Davenport]

I just returned from my annual trip to fish the Calibaetis hatch on  
Yellowstone Lake.  The hatch was amazing, the water literally covered  
with bugs... but no one was home to eat the meal.  In three days of  
hard fishing I saw only one fish rise... the one and only fish I  
caught.  My fish finder showed nothing until I rowed out to Gull  
Point to a spot where the water plunges from 18 to 100 feet, and  
suddenly it sounded like Geiger counter as the fish alarm and fish  
symbols showed HUNDREDS of lake trout holding between 20 and 100  
feet.  As far as I know the only thing those lake trout have to eat  
is Cutthroat trout, and they have been feeding well.  Add to that  
Whirling disease in the Yellowstone river and some of the other  
tributaries and you have the cause.

After talking with the rangers I heard some startling facts:  Some of  
the spawning creeks that used to fill with thousands of spawning  
cutthroat had NONE return this year... and the Yellowstone river only  
had 5% of the normal number of spawners.

It is sad to think that in 11 years  Man has undone a fishery that  
has lasted at least 4 million years (156 thousand in its latest  
incarnation, when the West Thumb Caldera was formed it probably  
killed everything in the lake).

The only good news is that the Lake Trout will start dying out when  
their primary food source is gone... and probably begin a boom-bust  
cycle.  The same will be true for all of the wildlife that depend on  
the trout spawn.

Eventually another volcanic event in Yellowstone Lake will purge it  
of the Lake trout, and I suspect the fish will evolve a resistance to  
Whirling disease, but none of this will happen in my lifetime.  In  
fact there is a good chance that men won't even be around to screw  
things up when that happens.

I WILL return next year, and will hope that a school of surviving  
Cutthroat just happen to be feeding where I am fishing.  I will also  
bring a spinning rod and some heavy jigs and see if I can get a  
little revenge on the Lake trout...

Tom Davenport