Colorado Uses Innovative Technique to Save Native Cutthroats

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As you wrap gifts and send out Christmas cards, here’s the latest edition of the Fly Fisherman News Digest:

Colorado Uses Unique Technique in Work to Save Native Cutthroats

A trip into the headwaters country of the Williams Fork River this fall resulted in a unique mission to stock brook trout in an effort to save Colorado's native cutthroat trout.

Say what? Yup, you read that right, stocking a different species of non-native trout to save a native species in peril. All of that is highlighted in a great Colorado Outdoors story by Rachael Gonzales, one that details the lengthy process that has led to a first-of-its-kind effort to protect native cutties in the Centennial State. 

While the story is complex with several different layers–Gonzalez' story is well worth the read on how all of this has come together over the years–but in essence, it dates back to 2010, when Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) biologist Jon Ewert noted an alarming trend in the number of brook trout as compared to cutthroat trout in the high country creeks west of Winter Park near Jones Pass. That realization led to work to fully understand a vexing problem and how to solve it for a highly important, genetically pure, and reproducing population of native cutthroats in Bobtail and Steelman creeks, tributaries of the Colorado River basin.

While Colorado officials aren't certain when the non-native brook trout invaded those creeks, they did note in 2010 that their numbers were alarming and had, in fact, all but wiped out the area's native cutthroat population. So much so that the 2010 survey in Bobtail Creek found 100 percent brook trout at one survey location, 80 percent at another, and less than 40 cutties overall in the creek. That meant that the population was near an irreversible collapse and time was of the essence to solve the problem.

The initial strategy was to physically remove the brook trout from the creeks. Biologists would collect and count the numbers of cutties through electrofishing, removing any brook trout captured in the process. With an annual work window of approximately six weeks in the Colorado high country, this effort went on for the next six years, according to Gonzalez.

And it had some degree of success since the cutthroat count improved from 40 cutties in 2011 to 296 in 2016 in Bobtail Creek, with similar results in Steelman Creek. But although the pendulum was swinging in the right direction, biologists new that this would be an ongoing effort that would never completely eradicate the competing non-native brookies.

Then in 2020 came an active fire year, including a wildfire that got going in mid-August in the drainage for the Williams Fork. The fire would burn for nearly two and a half months, would threaten the nearby towns of Fraser and Winter Park, and kept CPW biologists on edge as they feared for what the fire might do to their years of work, which could all be undone and the native cutthroat population there decimated by the results of the fire.

Depending on which way the fire shifted and burned, there was a plan to go into the drainage with people and assets delivered via helicopter and physically remove as many cutthroat trout as possible from the creeks, then taking them to a location where they would be kept until the fire was contained. Though the fire ultimately burned over 14,500 acres, it never shifted into the CPW work zone for the native cutties and no rescue effort was ever unleashed.

However, because of the fire, biologists were unable to complete their survey work and brook trout removal for the year. But while all of that was happening, a biological breakthrough was happening at the Aquatic Research Hatchery in Fort Collins as biologists made a huge advancement in trojan male brown trout research following similar research occurring in Idaho.

The restoration effort has been ongoing in Bobtail and Steelman Creeks since 2021, but it was in late 2023 in Fort Collins that the CPW aquatics research team began spawning efforts for broodstock of trojan male, or YY brook trout, the second such effort anywhere in the nation.

In essence, by selective breeding, Colorado biologists have been able to produce a male brook trout with two Y chromosomes. Like mammals, fish have two sex chromosomes, an X and a Y. The female will have two X chromosomes (XX) and the male will have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome. But thanks to exposing very young brookies to the female hormone estradiol (in their feed at specific levels for a long time), this treatment makes the male fish become egg producers, although they are still genetically male. 

When these egg-producing males are then bred with normal XY males, that means that 25 percent of the offspring should have two Y chromosomes, becoming YY males. Fast forward, and eventually all of the offspring will be YY males. When these trout are stocked into wild brook trout populations in the Colorado high country, they will reproduce only male offspring and eventually, without a reproducing population of both male and female fish, these brook trout will die out and allow for the native cutthroat trout to take over, expand, and be restored.

A few weeks ago in September, some 480 YY fish were implanted with electronic tags and readied for stocking. 

When Ewers and the team of 20 biologists and volunteers made the trek up and over the pass to count native cutties and remove brook trout–and this time, plant some 480 brookies that would help them ultimately achieve their restoration mission more fully–there was plenty of reason to smile since they found over 1,400 cutthroats and less than 300 brookies between Bobtail and Steelman Creeks.

"It felt pretty good to see the results from the September 9th and 10th surveys," said Ewert in Gonzalez’s great written piece. "Essentially swapping the number of fish we were capturing and removing from when the project first started was the result of hard work and dedication by many biologists over the last 13 years."

Now, with the trojan brookies being planted in these two Colorado high country creeks, Centennial State biologists have another tool at their disposal to help eliminate unwanted non-native brookies and continue the comeback story for native cutthroat trout. Stay tuned, there’s undoubtedly more to come on this fascinating real world biological scientific success story.

Skwala's 12 Days to Culminate with Donation to Wild Steelhead Coalition

As part of the fly-fishing brand's 12 Day of Skwala promotion that features different discounts on 12 days around the holidays, Skwala Fishing has pledged to donate 25 percent of all apparel sales profits placed through skwalafishing.com on Monday, December 16 to the Wild Steelhead Coalition (WSC). 

“The demands of steelheading has been the inspiration for many of the products we have created at Skwala, including flagship styles like the RS Wader and Jacket,” said Kevin Sloan, Skwala’s CEO/Founder in a press release.  “When we looked around for a group to benefit from our growing holiday business, we thought it was the right thing to help steelhead.  That’s where we centered squarely on The Wild Steelhead Coalition.”

This is the second year in a row Skwala has ended its popular 12 Days of Skwala holiday promotion with a giveback to a fly-fishing conservation organization.  Last year the company raised funds for Save Wild Trout in Montana.  

WSC's stated mission is, "...dedicated to increasing the return of wild steelhead to the waters of the West Coast.” It has long fought to ban harvest of wild steelhead, a battle it won in 2016 when the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife implemented catch-and-release-only regulations. The WSC continues its fight by advocating for the banning of net pen fish farms, dam removal, and other issues affecting wild steelhead.

Follow Skwala on YouTube to check out all of its holiday promotions for yourself. 

Dismal News as Striper Spawning Failures Continues

There's really no way to sugar coat the current plight of striped bass along the Atlantic Coastline of the northeastern U.S. after a sixth straight year of failed spawning. That news comes as the Maryland Department of Natural Resources released it's 2024 Juvenile Abundance Index, showing an index figure of 2.0, far below the 11.0 average index figure.

How is the index figure achieved? According to the MDNR, fishery managers examine 22 sites located in four major striped bass spawning areas in Maryland waters that serve as the species nursery for the East Coast: the Choptank, Nanticoke, and Potomac rivers, and the upper Chesapeake Bay. 

To annually assess the spawning production, biologists visit these locations some three times per summer, collecting fish with two sweeps of a 100-foot beach seine net. The agency says that the index obtained represents the average number of young-of-year striped bass found in each sample. 

It's important to note that the Maryland DNR agency says that these juvenile striped bass "...average less than 3 inches long and are not usually encountered by anglers."

Other similar surveys conducted in different Maryland waters this summer also confirmed the failed spawn bad news.

In all, the Maryland DNR says its biologists captured more than 56,000 fish of 56 different species while conducting this year’s survey. Encouraging results were documented regarding two species on the lower on the region's saltwater food chain as menhaden abundance was nearly equal to last year's figure, the highest tallied since 1990. And spot abundance was also high, the biggest figure measured since 1988.

But while there is food for the stripers, there aren't a lot of young-of-the-year stripers. And that brings obvious concern, and in the case of Maryland DNR Fishing and Boating Services director Lynn Fegley, a doubling down on commitment to reverse this tragic trend.

“These results underscore the complexity of managing a coastal migratory species whose life-cycle is influenced by environmental conditions during a brief spawning period,” said Fegley in the news release. “We will continue to explore ways to conserve and enhance the spawning population during this time when we are adding fewer young fish to the population.”

The watchdog group American Saltwater Guides Association (ASGA) indicates that this latest stock assessment shows that the spawning stock biomass (SSB) of stripers is unlikely to recover easily after six years of enduring poor recruitment. It points to pressure that has mounted against the SSB since 2010, a result of both commercial interests and recreational interests that remain intense enough that the numbers of young stripers entering the population remain dramatically reduced. 

But it also points to current management of the striper fishery resource, which ASGA contends has played a key role in the Atlantic Seaboard reaching the current state of the striped bass. 

"Notably, the spike in recreational removals by instituting a slot that targeted the robust 2015-year class in 2022–up by 38 percent from the previous year–exemplifies the unsustainable fishing practices that have contributed to this decline," notes the ASGA report on the most recent bad news. "Abundance drives effort."

And as bad as the current news is, there could be even more bad news to come according to the ASGA, especially if current management practices continue.

"Stripers spawn in waves and each wave consists of a certain size class of fish," the ASGA noted. "The largest fish spawn in the first wave and each consecutive wave consists of a smaller class. Striped bass spawn in this way to maximize the potential to hit the right conditions. What happens if there are holes in the age structure? We don’t have a lot of very large fish left. Not having a stratified population is minimizing spawning potential. It is like playing 5 card draw with 3 cards. You aren’t going to win many hands. We know this, and managers know this as well, but they try to place the blame on everything but this fact."

Because of the above, the ASGA says that to solve this problem means that protecting large spawning age stripers remains crucial for the long-term viability of this species according to ASGA.

"Understanding the dynamics of striped bass populations requires recognizing the crucial role of the Chesapeake Bay, where a significant portion of adult striped bass are born," the organization says. "Recent DNA studies have confirmed that most of these fish originate from this vital estuary, underscoring the Bay’s importance not just locally, but for the entire Atlantic striped bass population.

"The commercial quotas are staggering in the Chesapeake. The Potomac River has almost the same quota as the entire state of Massachusetts. How can we continue down this path knowing there are 6 consecutive spawning failures? Recreational harvest and effort hit rock bottom in the Maryland portion of the bay. This isn’t because of regulation. It is because there are no fish to catch. Yet, the commercial fishery continues unabated."

The ASGA continues its call for critical action and says that now is the time for action to be demanded and provided in the conservation of striped bass. It urges anglers to attend upcoming meetings, share insights, and advocate for action and change.

"We are humbled by everyone’s support for our latest Call for Critical Action," said the organization. "The Official ASGA Letter was submitted and included in the upcoming meeting Supplemental Materials. Over 1,500 individuals and 200 businesses representing millions of dollars of annual industry showed their commitment to rebuilding this stock. If this management body can’t see the writing on the wall, then they should not be managing this fishery."

Update on Hurricane Helene Impacted Fisheries in Virginia

As you might recall, Hurricane Helene was a Category Four storm when it made an overnight landfall on September 25 and slammed into the Big Bend coastal region of Florida with 140 mph winds about 10 miles southwest of Perry, Florida. On its trek inland to the northeast, Helene unleashed 100-plus mph wind gusts and Biblical rainfall in the high country of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia. All told, there were at least 234 deaths—103 in North Carolina alone—and some $113.5 billion dollars in damage, making Helene one of the most destructive storms in U.S. history.

The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources recently asked regional fisheries manager Jeff Williams on how the Region 3 fisheries in southwestern Virginia were faring in the aftermath of Helene.

Noting that there was road damage, debris that washed into river basins and lakes, and that there could be some effects from all of this in the state's stocked trout season, Williams also made some observations about wild trout fisheries and, of course, Virginia's well known smallmouth fishing.

Here are some of those observations:

• "Probably the most hard-hit areas were in Grayson and Washington counties—those areas had severe flooding in some of the streams, primarily some of our cold-water streams, like Whitetop Laurel. Sadly, there were houses lost in that area, and then also the road that that borders Whitetop Laurel, Route 58 was just decimated for about a two-mile stretch. That mainly affects the ability to access the area and the water."
• "We walked the stream with the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) representatives a couple weeks ago, and we saw that the stream had been significantly altered. It had widened in a lot of places where the road had been washed out and it was rerouted in some places. In some areas, there were large amounts of deposition of large cobble and boulders. There were areas that were probably six to eight feet deep of substrate where the water had deposited the rocks and caused the stream to totally reroute. There was also quite a bit of debris in those streams.”
• "The areas that were particularly impacted were in Washington County, and some areas in Grayson County—areas like Taylor’s Valley and Damascus. Mostly, it was the smaller streams in those areas. There aren’t that many large rivers in that area, so a lot of these were tributaries, and with the way the storm came through, these smaller streams–especially some of our trout streams–really got hit hard in those areas. Check DWR’s website for up-to-date information about facility and access closures.”
• "In terms of the impacts on the fish, the habitat has definitely been altered, but trout, and especially adult trout, can typically withstand some pretty high flows. They’ll go to the edges of the stream to find refuge from the extreme flows or go to the bottom, get behind current breaks and things like that. They can ride it out pretty well. The young fish are most susceptible to being displaced downstream or impacted more heavily by those types of flows. In the fall, the time the storm hit, species like brown trout and brook trout would be spawning. So, the impact to the habitat, especially spawning habitat, could result in some negative impacts there. We would see the effects of that in the next year or two, with negatively impacted year classes. Species like rainbow trout, which typically are more spring spawners, the spawn would be less likely to be impacted because of the timing. We’ll have to see."
• "We still won’t know the full extent of the impact on the trout population and wild trout fisheries until next summer, when we go out to do our normally scheduled annual sampling of those waters. Some anecdotal information that we’ve gotten from some of our wild trout streams is that people are back out there fishing where they can access it, and they’re catching fish."
• "Some good information that we have relates to the New River, which definitely saw record flooding. We had started the annual fish population sampling on the lower New River below Claytor Dam. We had done three days of sampling and the fishery was really looking good. We had to suspend the sampling until after the storm, but it was looking really good, especially in terms of the smallmouth bass population. We saw really good numbers of bass and saw a good size distribution—good numbers of quality fish with some really nice, big smallmouth bass. Along with that, we were seeing what appeared to be a very, strong, smallmouth bass year class that would have been spawned in the spring.""We did get a few reports after the water was up and it started to go back down, that there were some areas that saw a lot of stranding of smallmouth juveniles, as well as some other fish, like sunfish.. But after the water returned to normal and cleared up enough for us to go out and sample about three or four weeks later, even though we were sampling different areas, the catch rates we were seeing in other parts of the river were as good as what we saw before the storm—all sizes of fish. And we were still seeing good numbers of juvenile fish, so it looks like fish in the lower New River fared fairly well from the storm."
• "We’re still getting questions, and some of the fisheries—especially the wild trout fisheries—we won’t know for sure how they’re doing until the coming year. But it seemed like the worst of it was localized to just a few counties, and we have really good wild trout fisheries in those areas. We’ll definitely be interested in seeing how they fared, but I think we’ll be fine for next year."

April Vokey Welcomed as Ambassador for Mayfly Brands

Mayfly Outdoors, the award-winning manufacturer and parent company of some of the fly-fishing industry's most iconic brands, has announced that noted fly fisher, guide, author, conservationist and podcast giant April Vokey is joining the group as a brand ambassador.

The announcement came recently in a company news release, one that noted Vokey's ongoing industry leadership role thanks to her work with the Anchored Outdoors podcast, her years spent guiding and becoming an internationally recognized fly fishing authority, and her work in conservation and educating others in this grand sport.

"I couldn’t be more excited to join the Mayfly Outdoors family," said Vokey. "I’ve respected Ross, Abel, and Airflo for decades, and having the chance to represent them now is both an honor and a full-circle moment. 

"These brands stand for more than just fly fishing—they embody a deep respect for craftsmanship, adventure, and the wild places that inspire us. I’m looking forward to working with the team, sharing new ideas, and continuing the tradition of creating products that truly connect anglers to the heart of the sport. This partnership feels like the perfect fit, and I can’t wait to see where it takes us."

Vokey will engage in product testing, collaborating on educational content for fly anglers, offering insights concerning product innovation, and continuing her advocacy for conservation work, habitat preservation and community-driven stewardship.

"April truly embodies what our brands stand for—performance, craftsmanship, and respect for wild places we love,” said Mayfly CEO and president Jeff Wagner. “We’re beyond excited to have someone with her passion, expertise, and authenticity representing Ross, Abel, and Airflo. April’s influence and knowledge will be an incredible asset as we continue to innovate and honor the traditions of fly fishing for future generations.”

To learn more about these brands, visit the Mayfly Outdoors website or follow the company's brands on social media @RossReels, @AbelReels, and @AirfloFishing.

Montana Headwaters Legacy Act Advances

The Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee narrowly advanced the Montana Headwaters Legacy Act (MHLA) with a 10-9 vote on November 19. Sponsored by Senator Jon Tester, the act would protect 326.5 miles across 20 Montana streams, including parts of the Gallatin, Yellowstone, and Madison rivers. This is the first time the bill has cleared committee since its introduction in 2020. If passed by the full Senate, it would mark the first additions to the Wild & Scenic Rivers Act since 2018.

The MHLA, first introduced in 2021, would add 17 waterways to the Wild & Scenic roster, prohibiting federal support for new dams or other activities that would hurt the rivers’ outstanding resource values, free-flowing condition, or water quality. Designation does not affect private property rights or existing water rights. The legislation includes protections for: 

• Smith River
• Tenderfoot Creek
• Gallatin River
• Hyalite Creek
• Taylor Creek
• Madison River
• Bear Creek
• Boulder River
• Hellroaring Creek
• Lake Fork Rock Creek
• Rock Creek
• Slough Creek
• Stillwater River
• West Boulder River
• West Fork Stillwater River
• West Fork of Rock Creek
• Yellowstone River
• Cabin Creek
• Middle Fork of Cabin Creek
• Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River

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