Fish for supper

A few weeks ago, I committed a sacrilege, at least to some people. No, I didn’t go the Vatican and read aloud from the collected works of Martin Luther. And I certainly didn’t sit in the wrong section of the annual Cat-Griz football game.

Rather, I went fishing on the Missouri River blue ribbon trout section between Great Falls and Helena, caught a 17-inch rainbow, took it home and ate it. Oh, the horror; oh, the humanity.

What’s that, you don’t think it’s a big deal? Well, frankly, neither do I. Look, catch and release is important. Those anglers who voluntarily practice catch and release can help reduce impacts to fish populations where fishing pressure is high, like on the Missouri.

The Missouri River that runs through the blue ribbon trout section, roughly Holter Dam to the town of Cascade, hosts about 106,000 angler-days.

Angler-days can be confusing. To put it one way, 106,000 anglers fished the Missouri one day last year, or 53,000 anglers were on the river two days last year, or 26,500 folks fished the river four days last year, or one person fished the river 106,000 times last year. I’d like to meet that person, by the way.

The total number puts the river at the second most popular fishing spot in the state. At No. 1 is the Bighorn River in southeastern Montana, with 126,000 angler days.

The Missouri River, especially at this time of year, is a tough place to catch fish. The fish have seen so many flies and lures they’ve wised up. A fisheries biologist once told me you need a Ph.D. to fish the Missouri.

Plus, by mid-summer aquatic vegetation has started to break loose from the river bottom, leading to lots of flotsam to grab lines and hooks.

But it’s not impossible to catch fish, and at certain times of the year, it can be somewhat easy. However, if everyone angled with the goal of taking home something to eat, the trout population would be in trouble.

That’s even with a fish population that at times has been estimated to be more than 5,000 wild trout per mile. That’s wild fish — not stocked.

One of the great coincidences in the sporting life was the decision by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to stop stocking hatchery trout into streams full of self-sustaining wild trout populations and the rise in catch-and-release fishing among trout fly fishermen.

The decision to stop stocking began in the 1970s, just as catch and release was building momentum. Catch and release as a fisheries management tool goes back to the 1950s, and among individual fisherman even farther back to 1939, when Lee Wulff released the book “Handbook of Fly Fishing,” promoting catch and release. Said Wulff, “Game fish are too valuable to be caught only once.”

Although catch and release is voluntary on the Missouri River’s blue ribbon section, the current regulations do allow an angler to keep three trout daily and in possession, with only one over 18 inches, and only one may be a brown trout.

I don’t expect a flood of anglers to suddenly head to the Missouri and bring home stringers full of fish. Don’t worry, won’t happen. But what’s wrong with keeping a trout once in a while to eat? Says here nothing.

Bruce Auchly is the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Region 4 information officer.