Any fly fisherman worth their salt would be hooked by the second and third paragraphs –
“Watch this,” Kruse says. He snatches a few grasshoppers off stems of wild brome and tosses them one by one into the stream. As they land on the water, small trout dash to the surface and engulf the insects before returning to hiding spots in the current.
“They may be little now, but they’re the future,” Kruse says of the abundant fish. These aren’t just any trout. They are westslope cutthroat, a species that has disappeared from much of its home range in Montana east of the Continental Divide. The taxonomic name for westslope cutthroat, Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi, hints at a rich history. It honors Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who documented the black-spotted beauties in 1805 at the present site of Great Falls. The species is also Montana’s state fish.
Recently ran across this story – A Big Win for the Westslope – in Montana Outdoors (the magazine of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks).
The story, authored by Todd Wilkinson, details what just might be the largest, most ambitious public-private native trout conservation / restoration projects in the nation.
Montana FWP and Turner’s Fly D Ranch (a little 113,000 acre parcel southwest of Bozeman) and several other key players have been involved in the ‘restoration’ project on Cherry Creek, a tributary to the beloved Madison for several years now.
Yep, you’ve heard of this one – the project has not been without its share of controversy, particularly when it came to wiping out the ‘non-native’ fish that had inhabit the stream for decades. The linked story outlines the core of the saga, including a quick summary of the three eventually unsuccessful suits to stop the application of the piscides and grand ‘extended kill zone’ debacle of 2010.
While we’ve poked at Turner’s wacky side on more that one occasion (and what fly fisher doesn’t have a tenant or two that’s out of step with mainstream society), we’re impressed he’s been willing to dedicate resources (land, water, staff and cash) for the sake of wild trout. And he’s done so on what many would consider to be a rather grand scale, at least when compared to other native trout projects around the country.
The vision of some of those fish drifting down into the Madison some day just might come to fruition.
And the extraordinary control Turner exerts over his land (no fishers save for those in Ted’s good graces) has allowed the project to proceed as a giant, real-time science lab experiment of sorts, something not seen too often in this day and age.
Here’s to the Westslope Cutts of the Flying D.
