Predatory fish released in 2 lakes
Predatory black crappie fish were recently illegally introduced in two lakes in northwestern Montana and have the potential to spread to many other fisheries, a state fisheries manager says.
Crappie were caught by anglers in August in lower Stillwater Lake south of Olney and in upper Thompson Lake south of Happy’s Inn, said Jim Vashro, Kalispell region fisheries manager for the state’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
“The problem with crappie is they are highly predacious. The common method for fishing for them is with minnows,” he said. “And both of these are open systems, so if they start reproducing they are going to spread over the top of many other fisheries.”
From Lower Stillwater Lake, a crappie population could easily spread into the Flathead River system over time, and from Upper Thompson Lake, they can spread into the Thompson River system, potentially reaching the Clark Fork River, Vashro said.
Crappie were illegally introduced in 1994 in Blanchard Lake, two miles south of Whitefish. Since then, crappie and northern pike populations have grown, while largemouth bass and perch populations have declined.
Since May, there have been six illegal fish introductions, including Fathead minnows in the Stillwater River, yellow perch in the Clark Fork River near Heron, and introductions of multiple species into a private pond near Noxon.
Introduced fish often displace an existing fishery, leading the state to poison the body of water and restore the native fish.
“Over the last 50 years, we’ve had to poison out 80 lakes and ponds in the region, some of them several times, to remove unwanted fish,” Vashro said. “That’s hundreds of thousands of angler dollars spent just trying to recover fisheries, not improve them, which is what we want to do.”
Vashro said catching so-called “bucket biologists” is difficult. He can recall only one citation being issued in recent years for an illegal introduction, and that involved a person who stocked a private pond without authorization.