When the lake hove into view as I approached from the south, I could just make out one tiny dot way out on the white expanse, which I assumed to be someone’s ice fishing shack. When I pulled into the plowed parking lot at the campground on the lakeshore, I could see my pal Erwin, a couple of hundred yards out from the boat launch. He was busily getting things ready for what we both hoped would be fine day of fishing.Besides Erwin and the dark speck of the distant ice fishing shelter I had spotted from the highway, there was no sign of life on the smooth, ice-covered lake. Ominous gray clouds hung over the valley. Except for a few sputtering raindrops, all was quiet last Thursday.
This fed an uneasiness that had been with me that morning from the time I crossed the divide from the Clearwater River drainage into the Swan Valley. I had been thinking about what a wonderful place it has always seemed to be, so rich in all things natural and wild, so beautiful, and so mysterious. But I was also thinking about the marks we humans have made upon that vital landscape.
I was thinking about this as I drove that familiar highway to my rendezvous with Erwin. And I was thinking about a change that cannot be seen, one that is lurking under that sheet of white ice on Swan Lake.
I have mentioned this before. But it is the kind of thing we don’t think much about until the true consequences come home to us. And like everyone else, I had put away the swirling thoughts of those lake trout that have lately appeared in the waters of Swan Lake. At least I had done so until my pals and I gathered for Goose Camp up at the lake last fall and spent much of the time watching a research boat plying the waters of the lake in front of the cabin.
The fisheries scientists were trying to figure out just what kind of foothold those voracious non-native predator fish have gained in the lake since their discovery a few years back. The long and the short of it is that if this species is somehow allowed to flourish in the Swan drainage, it could imperil one of the last strong populations of native bull trout in the lower 48 states.
It is good to know that state and federal agencies and conservation groups are working hand in hand to devise the best approach to stemming this new non-native invasion, if not stopping it in its tracks. This is one of those extremely important cooperative efforts we don’t hear much about. This time, it involves Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bonneville Power Administration, and Montana Trout Unlimited.
As with so much of what people working in resource management agencies or with conservation groups like Trout Unlimited are involved in on a daily basis, the work of dealing with the threat of an introduced species is the work of undoing the damage we humans have done to our fish and wildlife resources and the landscape that sustains them.
Although it is not certain that one of those scum-of-the-earth “bucket biologists” had a hand in dumping lake trout into Swan Lake, our own fisheries professionals did bring the species into Flathead Lake many, many years ago. If we knew then what we know now, of course, all of this could have been avoided. Sadly however, since then, slowly but surely, that action has led to dramatic, unwelcome, and some might even say, catastrophic changes for the native fisheries of the entire Flathead basin.
So I, for one, am very grateful for the current efforts to address this new and major threat to something we hold precious. Change will continue to happen all around us. But it does not have to be the kind of change these lake trout portend. I look forward to learning about the aggressive strategy that will be employed to deal with this threat.
Maybe it was these churning feelings that hexed us on the ice last week. Something just didn’t feel right from the start, but Erwin and I persisted with our fishing for an hour or so. The dogs kept ranging off toward the shoreline and our vehicles, as though they weren’t particularly interested in our plan. And the rain increased steadily, leaving slushy pools at our feet and soaking our wool jackets.
We caught no fish.
Before too long, we decided to spend the rest of our visit at the closest cafe over a hot bowl of soup.
Greg Tollefson is a freelance Missoula writer whose column appears each week in Outdoors. He can be reached at gtollefson@bresnan.net.
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