Greater Yellowstone Fisheries

Ask any fly fisherman where they would go on vacation if they could go anyplace on earth, and chances are that Greater Yellowstone would be at the very top of everyone’s list. Home to such legendary rivers as the Yellowstone, Madison, Gallatin, Snake, South Fork Snake, and Henrys Fork, as well as the trout-rich waters of Yellowstone, Jackson, Hebgen, and Henrys lakes, Greater Yellowstone truly is an angler’s Shangri-La.

Despite its reputation as a world-class fishing destination, a significant portion of Greater Yellowstone’s rivers and streams have seen their native fish populations decline or disappear altogether over the last century due to a combination of habitat degradation and interactions with non-native species. For example, Yellowstone Lake’s native cutthroat trout population has declined sharply in recent years due to predation by introduced lake trout, ongoing severe drought, and an outbreak of non-native whirling disease that has wiped out the cutthroat trout population in Pelican Creek, a major spawning tributary on the north side of the lake that hosted annual spawning runs of tens of thousands of cutthroat as recently as the mid-1980s. As Yellowstone’s native fish have dwindled, introduced rainbow, brown, brook, and lake trout have flourished in many waters. First introduced in Greater Yellowstone’s rivers, lakes and streams in the1890s, these non-native fish have displaced native cutthroat trout and Arctic grayling through predation, competition for food, competition for habitat, hybridization, and disease transmission. Protecting native fish in their last remaining strongholds is one of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition's major priorities. These strongholds include Yellowstone Lake and the upper Yellowstone River, the Headwaters of the Snake River drainage in northwest Wyoming, and the South Fork Snake River in eastern Idaho.

Can you identify the following fish commonly found in Greater Yellowstone? Email your answers to Scott Bosse, GYC’s Rivers Conservation Coordinator at: sbosse@greateryellowstone.org. The first 20 people to correctly identify all ten fish will win a free one-year membership to GYC valued at $35!

The fish displayed include: Arctic Grayling, brook trout, brown trout, Colorado River cutthroat trout,
lake trout, mountain whitefish, rainbow trout, Snake River finespotted cutthroat trout,
westslope cutthroat trout, Yellowstone cutthroat trout

[Click on the image of the fish to see it enlarged]

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