So much for the great snowpack. Whatever we had has vanished and now we are back in drought mode. We drove up the West Fork last Sat. and the water is pretty clear all the way up. No mud on June 7!

We had a 96% snowpack the end of March in Madison Basin and now, poof, its gone. The weird thing is the Jeff near Cardwell and the Missouri below Toston were running high and muddy this spring. The Tobacco Roots had tons of snow. And the Gallatin seems to be raging. But the Maddy? Not good. The Big Hole? Shudder! Who ya gonna call?

A rough one’: Montana fisheries managers warn hoot-owl restrictions could be weeks away

• Blair Miller Lee Newspapers
• 15 hrs ago

An angler and guide drift down the Clark Fork River near a great blue heron standing in the water east of Missoula Wednesday at midday. With water temperatures on the rise, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks will only allow fishing on area rivers during “hoot-owl” hours between midnight and 2 p.m. beginning Friday.

• Lee Newspapers

Flows in the Madison River below Hebgen Dam are their lowest since 1931.

• Samuel Wilson/Chronicle/Report for America

State fisheries officials said Wednesday they might have to start putting hoot-owl fishing restrictions in place on parts of several rivers across Montana because current flows and water temperatures are already where they would sit in mid-July, and some rivers are already seeing historically low flows.

With drought continuing to worsen by the week and not expected to improve through what is forecast to be a hotter and drier than normal summer, it could mean anglers will have to break down their rods by 2 p.m. each day for much of the summer on some rivers to protect Montana’s cold-water fish.

Officials said full closures might have to be implemented if current trends continue.

“We’ve reached out and said, ‘Hey, it’s drought season. Be prepared. Hoot owls and closures are coming.’ And we’re doing everything we can through that lens, especially in these really, really extreme drought years,” Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Fish Chief Adam Strainer said during Wednesday’s town hall meeting hosted by the department. “You know, I’m not trying to be too rosy here; it’s going to be a rough one this summer.”

Over the past two weeks, meteorologists and other scientists and forecasters have started to warn that current drought and water supply conditions could make for a rough summer in Montana both in terms of the risks of low water and high wildfire potential.

After another week of warm, dry weather, FWP fisheries staff said water levels are plummeting, even in areas that got a normal snowpack this winter and spring.

Region 2 Fish Manager Patrick Saffel, based in Missoula, said the Upper Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers are both seeing about one-third of their average flows for this time of year, and that the recent warm weather hasn’t bumped up water levels, indicating the snowpack is effectively gone.

“Our warmest times in rivers in an average year is roughly the third week in July to the third week in August,” Saffel said. “So if it’s like mid-July now, then we’re going to be possibly talking about hoot-owl restrictions in the coming weeks.”

FWP does own water rights along both rivers that officials will consider using if flows continue to drop, he said. Hoot-owl restrictions in that region go into effect when water temperatures reach either 71 or 73 degrees, depending on the river for brown and rainbow trout. For cutthroat trout, temperatures must reach 66 degrees three days in a row, and that drops to 60 degrees for river stretches holding bull trout.

Mike Duncan, the Region 3 Fisher Manager based in Bozeman, said conditions are similar in southwest Montana. There are stretches of the Big Hole River that are at their lowest levels in more than 15 years, and some stretches of the river near Wisdom are already creeping up near 70 degrees, he said.

“We’d start to see hoot-owl restrictions come into play much earlier than we’d expect in a normal year,” he said.

In line with the river’s drought management plan, water users, outfitters and others in the region have already started spreading the word about possibly conserving water, he said.

Duncan said the Madison River coming out of Yellowstone National Park is close to its all-time low, marked in 1931, and less than half what it typically is mid-June. He said temperatures in the river between the park and Hebgen Lake have already touched the 70s in recent days and it “wouldn’t surprise me” if hoot-owl restrictions might be considered “in the next couple weeks.”

NorthWestern Energy has already reduced outflows from the reservoir, which is not expected to reach full pool this year.

The Dearborn River was flowing at 63 cubic feet per second as of Wednesday, said Region 4 Fish Manager Jason Mullen, which marks the lowest flow out of 55 years of records at that site for this time of year and beats the prior low marked in 2000, another year of drought.

Throughout the Rocky Mountain Front, the story is largely the same, Mullen said. The Sun River was running about at about 1/14th of its normal flow for the time of year this week, and most of the reservoirs will get nowhere near filling and could see early drawdowns.

“In general, rivers and reservoirs on the front are in really poor condition,” he said.

Even in the Smith River basin, which had been a bright spot in terms of water supply just weeks ago, flows are now down below median levels. And while Canyon Ferry Reservoir outside Helena is still expected to fully fill, outflows are expected to stay at or near the minimum release levels through most of the summer, he said.

Strainer said current outlooks point to another hoot-owl restriction on the North Fork Flathead River being needed this summer because of high water temperatures after the department issued the first ever on that stretch of the river last summer.

The fisheries managers said high temperatures and low flows during drought can have rippling negative effects on fish populations, particularly because juvenile fish struggle to survive, leading to less reproduction. But those effects might not show up for two or three years after fish mature and begin to spawn, they said.

Saffel said there were some trout declines along different stretches of the Clark Fork in the most recent survey, while sampling on the Big Hole, Beaverhead and Ruby showed a mixed bag as those rivers’ trout populations try to bounce back from years of declining numbers.

Strainer and Duncan said it was important to start the outreach now for anglers both who live in Montana and those coming from out of state to fish the state’s storied waterways. But even if restrictions or closures do go in place for parts of the summer, Duncan said people would still be able to go higher into the mountains to fish streams or lakes that hold colder water and not threaten the fish on the mainstem rivers.

Several of the fisheries managers compared this summer’s outlook to that of 2021. That year, drought levels in early June were similar to current levels, but worsened throughout the summer.

By the end of August that year, 68% of Montana was experiencing extreme or exceptional drought, and closures had gone into place on the Jefferson River and parts of the Big Hole, while hoot-owl restrictions were dotted across many of the other rivers in southwest and western Montana.

Strainer said the department continually works with the Department of Environmental Quality and Department of Natural Resources and Conservation to efficiently manage flows and water use, and those conversations will continue as Montana continues to see multi-year droughts, warmer average temperatures and less water.

“You’re right when you say nothing’s changing in the near term here, unless we get back into a wet period,” he responded to a question about whether there might be future efforts to increase water storage. “And I think that will likely be the exception, not the rule.”