Montana FWP Needs Licensed Anglers for $1M Fisheries Grant Panel

HELENA — If you’ve got a fishing license and an opinion about what Montana’s streams and rivers should look like twenty years from now, FWP wants to hear from you.

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks is looking to fill a two-year term on its Future Fisheries Citizen Review Panel — specifically, they need a currently licensed Montana angler. Honestly, this is exactly the kind of seat that should be filled by someone who actually wades these rivers, not just reads about them.

The panel is the backbone of FWP’s Future Fisheries Improvement Program, which dishes out roughly $1 million every year in grants for wild fish habitat restoration and improvement projects across the state. The 14-member panel meets twice a year — mid-June and mid-December — to dig through project proposals and recommend which ones deserve funding from the Fish and Wildlife Commission. Two meetings a year. Real money on the line. Work that shows up in the water.

Panel members are appointed by the governor or his representative, and the group is built to represent a broad range of interests: conservation districts, commercial and irrigated agriculture, silviculture, fisheries restoration, Montana anglers, members of the state House and Senate, high school students, mining reclamation, fisheries professionals, and one ex-officio member from the Montana Department of Transportation. In my experience, panels like this do their best work when the angler seat is filled by someone who actually knows the difference between a degraded riparian corridor and a healthy one — someone who’s watched a cutthroat fishery go downhill and wants to do something about it.

The position is volunteer, but travel and per diem are covered. For more information, reach out to Bailey Duxbury at 406-565-6995 or FWPFFIP@mt.gov. You can also visit svc.mt.gov/gov/boards/ and use the dropdown for the Future Fisheries Review Panel. Applications are at svc.mt.gov/gov/boards/apply.aspx. The position stays open until it’s filled, so don’t sit on it.