Your Trout Voice and Concerns Matter

The upshot from Walleye’s Unlimited is this: They want more big walleye in the reservoirs and river systems. Catch rates and average size has decreased in the recent past. WU would like FWP to encourage walleye growth. The complaint is that trophy walleye fishing is not close enough for those who reside locally.

Trout anglers argue that sometimes you have to travel to get to trophy waters. Folks travel from all 4 corners of Montana to get to the Mo. Some from the other side of the earth! Trout anglers argue that there are great walleye resources in the state of Montana. Several! Some river and lakes are designed for trout, like the Missouri River complex.

A statement from Will Trimbath Helena TU Chapter below.

Good Afternoon,

As some of you may have heard, Montana’s Statewide Management Program & Guide Draft is out for public comment until this Sunday January 13, 5:00pm.  The Statewide Management Program & Guide is the guiding document for how FWP manages fisheries statewide.  As you may have also heard, Walleyes Unlimited is pressuring FWP to consider walleye a native species east of the Continental Divide, which could potentially alter the current management of walleye downstream of Holter Dam.  This would threaten the Missouri River trout fishery we have all come to love.

PLEASE, visit the FWP link and comment on the plan to back the Department’s science-based management as a non-native species in Montana.  Particularly, not to alter the current management status of walleye in the Missouri below Holter Dam as anything other than “suppression”.  If nothing else, please copy and paste the language below into the “Comments” section at the link below and click “Submit Comments”.

“The Statewide Management Plan & Guide should uphold the current status of walleye as a non-native species in Montana’s waterways.  I support the peer-reviewed science that guide’s the Department’s classification of this illegally-introduced species as non-native to Montana.  Additionally, I support the full suppression of walleye management in the Missouri River below Holter Dam.  People cross continents to fish for wild trout in the Missouri River, and altering the management of walleye from anything other than full suppression places unnecessary risk on this world class fishery that draws millions of dollars to our local economy.  Thank you.”

Right now, the Missouri River needs your help.  PLEASE take 3 minutes and complete this survey.  The effort to have the Missouri managed as a walleye fishery is organized and energized.  The Missouri River’s trout need your comment.

Thank you,

PBTU Board