Flathead Lake is overrun with non-native lake trout, who are consuming the native trout populations at a rapid rate.
Sure, you could try to recruit fly fishers to control the lake trout population, but fly fishing methods are often ineffective against lake trout, and besides, many fly fishers can’t bring themselves to kill fish, revering them like religious objects.
In this case, a tournament was held with dollar prizes for those who caught (and kept) the most lake trout.
New West was there with a fairly hilarious take on the subject titled: There’s Something Fishy (Sorry) About This Tournament:
The idea of the trout tournament is to try and control the population of the predacious lake trout, which feeds on the smaller, more fun-loving native bull and cutthroat trout.
If you’ve ever fished Flathead Lake, you know when you’ve caught a lake trout. It’s usually huge, wearing a leather jacket, has a number of crude, prison-style tattoos, and is probably smoking a cigarette.
I hauled one into my canoe last summer, and it had three Daredevil spoons hanging off its lower lip, and one eye was frosted over. It spit out its cigarette, grunted, smacked me in the face with its caudal fin, and flipped back into the water. Tough fish.
You can read the rest of the column here: There’s Something Fishy (Sorry) About This Tournament | Missoula | New West Network
Remember: Save a Trout. Eat a Laker. See you at the fish cleaning table, Tom Chandler.
[tags]flathead lake, new west, lake trout[/tags]
First Id like to commend you on your trout fishing website. Nice work its looking good.
On to the subject of non native lake trout devouring your native trout.
This is becoming a major problem throughout the states and is not limited to non native lake trout. In our neck of the woods more Snake Head fish are being caught and found in our rivers and streams each and every year. Flat head catties are now over running rivers that cannot support them. Its a big problem and its getting worse from California to Maine..
Jer
Go Bass Fishing
Jer(Quote)
Jer: The Fly Fishing in Yellowstone blog is writing more about invasive species than any of us at the moment. It’s a huge problem at every level — from plants to invertebrates to fish.
Tom Chandler(Quote)
A tournament to control the problem fish. That’s a novel idea. Here in California (remember Davis Lake), we’d just poison the lake and kill everything (but the Pike). And when that doesn’t work, we try electro-shock and depth charges.
Tournaments are for wusses…
smellslikefish(Quote)