FWP, Avista team up with Idaho students to study fish

Every year Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) teams up with Avista and the University of Idaho to gillnet and capture numerous fish from the Noxon and Cabinet reservoirs for analysis. This partnership program has been happening for over 20 years and aims to add information to the toolbelts of fisheries biologists. They use this data to monitor fish health, mercury contamination, fish numbers and other stats.

According to fisheries biologist Jason Blakney with FWP in Sanders County, this long-term monitoring project uses nets that are positioned in many of the same places every year. They place 30 in the Noxon Reservoir and 15 in the Cabinet Reservoir. This will give them a count of nearly 1,000 fish or more. These numbers help update and increase the accuracy of things like consumption advisories, which are both done every five years. Those advisories help inform the public of the possible health impacts of eating fish in certain waterways. According to Trevor Selch, a fish pollution biologist out of Helena who helps with the two-day endeavor each year, the fish in the area "can be high in mercury," so these tests help inform the public of dangers.

This data also helps FWP monitor fish health prior to the eight bass tournaments held in Noxon Reservoir each year. However, Blakney explained that they rarely catch largemouth bass in the nets. He attributes that to their good eyesight. He says they know the fish are in there, but the information helps in other ways like observing the prey species of the bass, and bass competition. They can look at the smallmouth bass that they catch and see things like animal size, weight changes and fish health, giving FWP an overall view of the fish community.

Blakney added that FWP has found that there are few trout in the reservoirs, which he explains is because of the temperature. Since the waters are warmer in the reservoirs, most of the trout generally stay up in the creeks. "There's just not many of them," said Blakney. However, he explained that "this is a really diverse body of water." According to Blakney, the area is home to 23 different species of fish and is one of the most diverse in Montana.

Blakney assures gillnetting is the most effective way to examine large numbers of fish in reservoirs, and explains that "inevitably somebody will be mad, but across the county this is the way we monitor fish in large bodies of water." For two or three days a year the gillnets are placed and checked to get a sample of the fish population.

Helping in the collection was Dr. Denis Scarnecchia, accompanied by eight of his students from the University of Idaho fisheries class. They are all juniors and seniors working toward a Bachelor of Science and Fisheries Resources.

"I'd rather do this all day than sit behind a desk," said senior Oliver Lange. He likes to fly fish. He said he got a job with Idaho Fish and Game and found that he loved working with fisheries. He was previously a video production major.

Another senior, Lynsey Harris, said she grew up in an agriculture family and wanted to keep in that lane of careers. She explained that there are "lots of opportunities with fisheries. I like getting down and dirty with the fish."

Tyrell Holmes stated that he got into the major because his grandfather took him fishing. "I've always loved fishing," he said, and "the biggest part is just being outdoors." For him, the career path possesses a "big family orientation behind it, because we did it as a family. My roots are always in the creeks," Holmes said.