May 2021 - 43

Due to overfishing more fish hatcheries were built around the state in the late 1800s in Wyoming, including this one in Story as it ships trout from the Branch State Hatchery according to the 1895-1896
Biennial Report of the Wyoming Fish Commissioner. (WGFD photo)

Fish culture continued to be the basis of fish management throughout the first half of the 20th century.
Instead of importing fish, Wyoming started spawning
them at hatcheries. To help retain high numbers of
fish for anglers the fish commission varied bag limits
and closures to protect fish, especially when they
were spawning.

Closures today
Wyoming still stocks fish, has closures and sets bag
limits. But today biologists know a lot more about
the life history of different species and how they
interact with each other. There's a higher emphasis on
habitat conservation, which allows fish to reproduce
naturally, a much lower dependence on closures to
protect spawning fish. Stocking is reserved largely for
lakes, reservoirs and rivers below dams.
" We've gotten rid of most closures thanks to
improved habitat conditions and water quality, healthy
fish populations, reasonable harvest regulations and
because over the last 40 years anglers voluntarily
catch and release, so those closures have become less
necessary, " Zafft said.
Of the few closures that still exist in Wyoming,
some protect waters that rely on naturally reproducing fish but have lots of fishing pressure, such as the
North Fork Shoshone River upstream of Buffalo
Bill Reservoir near Cody. Another closure, Meadow
Lake near Pinedale, protects the state's brood stock

for Arctic grayling. The closure at Soda Lake near
Pinedale isn't to safeguard the fish but to protect the
big game in the vicinity.
The use of closures as a fish management tool is
no longer common, Zafft said. Game and Fish has
instituted new closures only six times in the last 52
years. Zafft said closures like the one just below Grey
Reef Dam on the North Platte River and below Fontenelle Dam on the Green River are only for a few
hundred yards where the density of spawning fish is
exceptionally high.
When most closures were implemented habitat was
in much worse shape than it is today. As water conditions improved after Congress passed the Clean Water
Act in the 1970s, the need for closures disappeared,
however many persisted. The reason was based on
tradition rather than scientific data. For example, the
old " no night fishing " rule remained in place for the
Miracle Mile on the North Platte River until 2008,
even though it could have been lifted years earlier.
" That regulation had been in place on the Miracle
Mile since 1939. Generations of anglers believed it
was needed to protect that really popular fishery, "
Zafft said. " There was a lot of public resistance to
remove the closure. People believed it must be bad
to fish there at night because it had been that way
for most of a century. Special regulations are very
popular with anglers. Once they are in place, it's
hard to go back. "

Wyoming Wildlife | 43

May 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of May 2021