Over 1.3 million readers this year!

To stem trout deaths, state proposes new fishing regs for North Platte River

Ideas stem from realization that catch-and-release fishing is killing and wounding large numbers of fish.

Anglers try their luck on the North Platte River June 3, 2023 where it flows next to the Marton Ranch property, which was purchased by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in 2022. (Dustin Bleizeffer/WyoFile).

by Christine Peterson, WyoFile

Only one car was parked in the famed North Platte River’s Gray Reef fishing access on a frigid day in early January. No trucks hauling trailers with drift boats lined up at the boat ramp. No guides back rowed through holes and no wade anglers muttered obscenities under their breaths, an unusual sight for a river visited by thousands of anglers a year. 

The lone angler, Tony Zurface, frequently comes from Colorado to Casper as a traveling salesperson and stops to fish the Platte. He was throwing treble-hooked lures with a spinning rod that day. Some days he fly fishes. 

If Game and Fish institutes new proposed regulations on the Platte, anglers like Zurface will have to put away those treble hooks — something he says he’s fine with. He’s seen the pressure put on the Platte during peak season. And plenty of other states already have similar restrictions.  

An angler on the North Platte River. (Christine Peterson)

The proposed rules also include limiting boats on a portion of the Miracle Mile, requiring barbless hooks between Kortes Dam and Highway 220 and creating an additional spawning closure. They’re Game and Fish’s answer to the subtle curse of fishing’s exponential growth on the river: Fish are dying after being caught and released. 

Now Game and Fish wants the public’s help deciding whether or not enough anglers are willing to support those changes for the health and longevity of the fish they flock to catch.

A problem on a popular river

The Gray Reef section of the North Platte River has long drawn anglers from around the region. Not historically home to trout, a series of dams constructed to facilitate irrigation, help with flood protection and generate electricity led to an ideal trout fishery with water flowing at a consistent temperature year-round, free of ice in the winter and cooler than most free-flowing rivers in the summer. 

But as guiding became more popular, and social media led to increased attention, the river and its trout became victims of their own success. 

Angler numbers exploded from around 1,000 boats on the Gray Reef section of the river and none on the Miracle Mile in 2001 to almost 6,500 boats in 2022 between the two sections of water. 

And the slow simmer of increased pressure reached a boiling point last year when Game and Fish released a study showing that about a quarter of the fish in the North Platte River could die of injuries sustained from fishing hooks. 

After that initial shock ebbed, Game and Fish sent a survey to about 84,000 people including everyone in southeast Wyoming who owns an annual or lifetime fishing license and every nonresident who had purchased a Wyoming fish license within the last five years with a valid email address on file. Almost 5,000 people responded. 

An angler displays a rainbow trout on the North Platte River. The red spot on its side is likely from hook damage. (Christine Peterson)

The survey asked a detailed series of questions about how and where people fished and their opinions about possible regulatory changes. It zeroed in on anglers who targeted the most popular sections of the Platte along with two reservoirs fed by the river: Seminoe and Pathfinder.  

Among most responses, Matt Hahn, Game and Fish’s Casper region fisheries supervisor, found signs of willingness to change. 

More than half of the people who fish the Miracle Mile, a stretch of water above Pathfinder Reservoir sometimes up to 15 miles long, supported some kind of restriction on boats. The current use numbers are staggering. In 2009, Game and Fish surveyed the river eight days a month throughout the popular fishing season and didn’t see a single boat. In 2021, a timelapse camera showed more than 2,200 boats in a year. 

So managers are proposing allowing boats on the bulk of the river but restricting them on a less than 2 mile stretch above Seminoe Road bridge to give anglers — and fish — a bit of a break.

The department is also recommending artificial flies only — so no bait or lures — on the Fremont Canyon and Gray Reef stretches, and only barbless hooks from the Miracle Mile down past Gray Reef. Barbs help hooks stay in a fish’s mouth longer to improve odds of landing the creature, but can easily create tears and holes during extraction, as well as lead to more time out of the water.

Hahn worries that doing nothing will result in a high enough fish mortality that Game and Fish will have to resume stocking fish in a river that has high natural reproduction, essentially resigning itself to stocking fish for people to catch and release until they die. 

Time for a change

The proposals, Hahn hopes, will be socially acceptable but still do enough to save the fishery. 

Blake Jackson, co-owner of the Ugly Bug Fly Shop and Crazy Rainbow Fly Fishing, supports the changes, and doesn’t anticipate much pushback. But do they go far enough to protect the fishery?

“Unfortunately, like many things, there isn’t one specific thing to point to. I think pressure is an aspect. I think methods used is an aspect. I think sediment plays an issue because it consolidates pressure in certain locations and leads to more fish being caught in one place,” he said. “There are multiple things that can be done to help, and these changes can lead to improvement.”

The “Miracle Mile” of the North Platte River draws anglers from far and wide and helps support the region’s outdoor recreation tourism industry. (AJ Schroetlin/FlickrCC)

Jackson has been a guide on the Platte for more than 20 years, and has witnessed the surge in pressure, particularly among commercial guides. It’s why he testified recently before the Wyoming Legislature asking lawmakers to support a bill limiting the number of commercial outfitters on rivers. Limiting guides would not only reduce pressure on the struggling fish but would also ease congestion on increasingly crowded rivers like the Platte, Bighorn and Green. 

“We can’t take advantage of our natural resources like this anymore. It would be like having an elk hunting season with no regulations — chances are we would kill way too many elk,” he said. “We’re asking for help with out-of-state guides coming in and not paying into the system. We play by the rules and pay our taxes and support Wyoming families and have employees. We’re asking for a level playing field.”

If a ban on hook barbs passes, the North Platte in the Casper region would be the first river in Wyoming outside of Yellowstone National Park to require barbless hooks, though it’s a common practice in many other states. It’s a step Hahn said is necessary not only to protect the fishery today, but for years to come. 

Weigh in

The Casper open house will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Casper Regional Game and Fish Office, 3030 Energy Lane. The Rawlins open house will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Jeffrey Memorial Community Center, 315 W. Pine St.


This article was originally published by WyoFile and is republished here with permission. WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.


Back

Related