Brett French | Billings Gazette
State fisheries managers are overseeing a project on the lower Madison River this fall to rebuild a disappearing island.
While building a bigger island may seem like a strange way to boost trout numbers, the plan is to provide more spawning and nursery habitat in a stretch of the famed stream where the channel has widened over the past 50 years.
In part due to this change in habitat, brown and rainbow trout populations below Bear Trap Canyon have been declining.
“Our management goal is about 2,500 fish per mile, and we’re down to about 1,000,” said Mike Duncan, Region 3 fisheries manager for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. “From the time period of about 2000 to 2015 we were bouncing around that management goal, and then after about 2015 we’ve consistently been at between 1,500 and 1,000 per mile.”
This isn’t the only proposal Madison fisheries partners are looking at to help trout populations in the river. A proposal to reconnect side channels between Lyons Bridge and Varney Bridge fishing access sites south of Ennis is being considered in 2026 and 2027. Six old side channels were identified for possible restoration to improve spawning and rearing habitat on this upper section.
Read more here.
