Smallmouth in the bucket?

I was interested to read that the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks wants to kill the smallmouth bass in a public pond in River Rock subdivision in Belgrade.

FWP worries that the smallies could be illegally introduced into area rivers and streams. The department plans to replace the bass with rainbow trout.

Neither species is native to Montana, but perhaps because rainbows were planted here first – 1889 as opposed to 1914 -- they get preferential treatment. Or maybe it’s because most anglers think of Montana as a trout fishery, not as bass’n destination.

Smallmouth would no doubt wreak havoc on trout populations. They are aggressive feeders and find young trout very palatable. Smallmouth bass are also reputed to be one of the best fighting fish -- pound for pound – on the planet. In addition, they’re quite tasty.

However, you’ll find little reference to them in any Montana fishing guides. A few years ago I wrote an article for Montana Outdoors, the department’s award-winning magazine, about the Yellowstone. I interviewed a boat dealer in Miles City whose sales were booming because of the bass. He told me it was not unusual for him to catch 40 smallmouth in a couple of hours on the river after work.

I thought the burgeoning bass fishery on the river was news. FWP did not, and every reference to bass fishing was cut from the story.

But the bass continue to thrive. Smallmouth planted in Tongue River Reservoir moved downstream to the Yellowstone and are now found as far upstream as Springdale.

FWP doesn’t want to take any chances that smallmouth from that River Rock pond could be illegally transplanted into the upper Madison, the Gallatin or the Jefferson. “Bucket biology” is blamed for the introduction of lake trout into Yellowstone Lake and the subsequent decline in native cutthroat trout numbers there.

It may already be too late. According to the Chronicle, after largemouth bass were planted in the Three Forks ponds in the 1970s, they began showing up in nearly all of the public ponds in Gallatin County.

Someone’s surely dumped some smallmouth in the same fashion. Who knows where they’ll show up next?

While FWP tolerates the smallmouth fisheries on the Tongue and Fort Peck, and even touts them, brown bass don’t seem to be welcome anywhere else in Montana.

That matters little, however, to the fish.

Coming soon to a trout stream near you: smallmouth bass.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected].