Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks is seeking public comment on a proposal to temporarily waive fishing limits on 12 lakes as part of its ongoing native cutthroat trout restoration program.

The fishing limit wavier would run July 15, 2011 through October 1, 2011 on 10 lakes in the South Fork Flathead drainage (George, Woodward, Pyramid, Pilgrim, and the Upper and Lower Three Eagles lakes and four lakes in the Necklace chain of lakes). Anglers would be encouraged to keep all the hybrid trout they can catch.

An additional waiver would be in effect July 15, 2011 through September 1, 2011 on Cherry and Granite lakes in the Cherry Creek drainage, a tributary to the Big Hole River. Anglers would be encouraged to catch and keep hybrid trout and brook trout.

Similar fishing, limit waivers allowed anglers to participate successfully in several native fish restoration projects in recent years. The limit waiver encourages anglers to remove as many nonnative trout as possible to hasten native cutthroat trout restoration objectives. Six of the South Fork of the Flathead lakes would be “swamped” with an abundant stocking of pure westslope cutthroat fingerlings too small to be caught by anglers to eventually dilute the nonnative genes in the remaining population. In late August and September, the Cherry Creek lakes and the Necklace chain of lakes would be treated with rotenone, a fish toxicant commonly used by fishery managers to remove unwanted fish from streams and lakes and then restocked with native cutthroat trout.

The westslope cutthroat trout is Montana’s state fish. FWP’s restoration effort is aimed at averting a federal endangered species listing by increasing the range of cutthroat trout in the state.