Bass in the Yellowstone: We Shouldn't Be This Surprised
By Bob Mallard
The recent report of nonnative and highly invasive smallmouth bass in the Gardner River in Yellowstone National Park sickened me. It was like learning that nonnative lake trout had been found in Yellowstone Lake, or nonnative bass in Maine’s fabled Rapid River. I know firsthand what this means as my home river, the Kennebec in Maine, experienced a nonnative bass introduction a few decades ago that forever changed it, and not in a good way.
While I was stunned, unfortunately, I was not surprised. Not only are nonnative fish a huge and growing threat to our wild native fish, they are the biggest immediate threat. While pollution, habitat degradation, stocking, and commercial and angler exploitation are compromising many native fisheries, and climate change casts a long shadow over everything, nonnative fish introductions are a constant and ongoing problem that seems to be getting worse not better…
I am however surprised that people are as surprised as they apparently are in regard to nonnative smallmouth bass finding their way into the upper Yellowstone system. We were warned they were coming as recently as 2016 when juvenile bass were found in a fish survey as far upstream as Big Timber. This was spotlighted in an article called, Bass creep: Could smallmouth threaten the Yellowstone River's iconic trout? in 2019.
“It raises the question of why smallmouth aren’t already more common in the upper part of the Yellowstone. A few individual explorers have been caught over the years, but researchers have only found juvenile bass east of Big Timber. They’ve only seen juvenile bass near Big Timber once — in 2016.”
To be clear, smallmouth have been in the Yellowstone River system for over 100 years. According to historic records, they were first stocked in Horseshoe Lake near Bigfork, Montana, in 1914. While bass have never been directly stocked in the Yellowstone River, they were stocked in the Tongue and Bighorn rivers, both tributaries to the former. But the bass stayed put - at least until recently…
Bass can be found in many waters in Montana. Businesses, clubs, forums, and publications are actively promoting bass fishing. A quick internet search will show “Top 5,” “Best of,” and other information pertaining to bass fishing in Montana. The state promotes smallmouth bass fishing as well, complete with distribution maps which would surprise some as to the proliferation of this nonnative species.
“If you’re looking for a break from trout, or just chase Smallmouth Bass because you love it, Missoula fly fishing has you covered!”
“The smallmouth bass has been called ‘pound for pound the best fighting game fish alive.’ ”
Biologists and other experts thought they had a couple of decades or more to find a solution to the upstream creep of bass in the Yellowstone River. But, like the browns in the Colorado River in Arizona that lived 25 miles downstream for decades before showing up in Lees Ferry, the bass in the Yellowstone didn’t follow the script and apparently started moving faster and further than planned…
Something triggered at least one smallmouth, and probably more, in the Yellowstone River to move way upstream. While one theory is that crowding causes fish to disburse, another is that warming water is driving the spread of warmwater fish into what was previously considered coldwater habitat. And it’s possible that warming water is resulting in higher recruitment which results in crowding.
The problem on the upper Yellowstone River may be more serious than just nonnative bass, not that this isn’t a serious problem - it is… The presence of smallmouth bass after decades of them staying downstream where trout anglers and tourists did not encounter them, could mean that things are changing faster than we thought they would.
The problem with regard to nonnative smallmouth bass in the upper Yellowstone River system is the result of our insistence on meddling with the natural balance of things when it comes to gamefish. We continue to move fish around as if there were no consequences in doing so, and then act surprised or even outraged when things don’t work out as planned…
We need to stop playing god. Just because we anglers like to fish for them, doesn’t mean that a given species should be moved around to make it easier for us. Trout don’t need to be unlimited, and bass don’t belong in trout water. If we don’t change what we are doing, we will leave the next generation with a glut of marginal homogenized fisheries that change as our climate changes. Is that really what we want?