Montana Blackspot or Yellowstone Cutthroat

[Martin Messing]

I have been subcribing to Wyoming Wildlife since about the mid 1960’s. Recently I was looking over the May, 1979 fishing issue a article by John Baughman fisheries resourse manager caught my attention. In it he described where certain varieties of Cuttroat evolved. In streams they evolved in balance with small bait fish as well as insect life. While in a Yellowstone lake, Yellowstone Cuttroat were the only fish present and they depended on aquatic insects and plankton. for food. I know that there were Yellowstone Cutthroat below the falls in the stream, but these are not involved in what I am proposing.

I believe Montana Blackspot are a river fish, Lewis and Clark caught them between 16 and 24 inch’s below the falls on the Missouri river. Are these the trout that grew to a good size in some high lakes ? Or were they Yellowstone Cuthroat ? I would think that Yellowstone Cutthroat would do better in a high lake where there are no other types present because they evolved in that kind of environment. With the present restrictions on exotic species that could never happen now, so I am dreaming.

[Brian Curtis]

Most likely, what we call Montana Blackspot are Yellowstone cutthroat from the hatchery at Yellowstone Lake. They used to ship up to 40 million Yellowstone cutthroat eggs a year out of that hatchery. They went all around the world. In total, they produced 818 million eggs over 50 or 60 years. We stopped stocking MBS at right about the same time they stopped shipping eggs from Yellowstone so I’m pretty sure that’s where our fish were coming from.

Here’s one I caught this summer in a high lake in Montana where they are native to the drainage:

[Author]

Posts