Anglers see improvements in the Flathead River

Fishing in the stems of the Flathead River is improving, area anglers are saying. And there’s another fish frequenting anglers nets — non-native lake trout.

“I’m getting bigger fish than I was 12 to 15 years ago,” Kalispell fisherman Richard Fee said. “But it could be I know the river better.”

Fee was readying his raft last week to float the mainstem of the Flathead downstream from Columbia Falls.

He said a good-sized cutthroat trout now runs between 15 and 16 inches long. The river and its forks below the wilderness boundaries are catch-and-release only for cutthroat.

Fee fishes with both fly rods and spinning gear. When he switches to spinning gear, he’s been catching lake trout, particularly in the stretch of the South Fork below the dam.

The fish aren’t very big for lake trout, he said — from 18 to 24 inches long — but they’re numerous in certain holes.

Jason Kelly, a longtime Columbia Falls resident, also said fishing seems to be improving. On a single morning last week, he’d already caught three cutthroat and six whitefish on the South Fork. But he’s also catching lake trout below the dam. At first he wasn’t even sure what the fish was.

“I had to look it up in my guidebook when I got home,” he said.

Lake trout feed on cutthroats and other fish. Introduced into Flathead Lake in the early 1900s, they’re largely blamed for the demise of native bull trout in area lakes and streams, where they out compete bull trout for food and habitat.

Will Brock has been fishing the area for more than 30 years. The Whitefish angler said fishing has been slowly getting better.

On this day, he was planning a float down the North Fork of the Flathead. He said 50 to 60 fish days are not uncommon, but the North Fork has a reputation for smaller fish. Even so, he said it seems like for every 10 fish that are small, there’s bigger fish sprinkled in the mix.

Brock noted, however, that the crowds are thicker than they used to be, and he avoids fishing on weekends, when floaters and fishermen on hot days this summer were nearly bumper-to -bumper in some stretches of the river.

This year’s fishing season got off to a slow start. Spring runoff coupled with heavy June rains muddied the waters until early July. But fishing has been much better since the water levels came down.