BRETT FRENCH | bfrench@billingsgazette.com
There will be less water to float a boat for anglers and recreationists looking forward to summer outings on Bighorn, Boysen and Buffalo Bill reservoirs in Montana and Wyoming. On the positive side, less water means more beach.
A dry, warm winter that’s smothered much of the West also meant less runoff and lower mountain snowpack for the Bighorn Basin, which includes the Shoshone, Wind and Bighorn rivers in Wyoming.
Dam operators were optimistic up until January, Liz Cresto, who works for the Bureau of Reclamation’s Wyoming office, told a gathering at the Billings Hotel and Convention Center on April 16. But warm days and nights in mid-March prompted a “dramatic decline” in the snowpack.
Dry soils soak up runoff
Unfortunately, very little of that meltwater reached streams due to sponge-dry soils, said J. Brooks Stephens, of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Montana office.
“We’re now kind of dancing around that minimum of record, and our peak snowpack right now is over a month earlier,” Cresto said. “I will say our peak is higher than some of our minimum years, so at least that’s good.”
The Wind River portion of the Bighorn Basin is at a record low snowpack — 55% of average — with peak runoff a month earlier. The Shoshone River Basin, which feeds Buffalo Bill Reservoir, is 65% of average. The entire Bighorn Basin, which combines all of the rivers, is less than 60% of normal for this time of year, which Cresto referred to as “pretty bleak.”
“We’ve had other years of earlier runoff,” she said. “I think this year is more extreme than all the other years.”
Horseshoe Bend usable by Memorial Day
With less water to fill reservoirs, Brooks is forecasting an April through July inflow of 528,000-acre-feet of water for Bighorn Reservoir, that’s less than half of the 30-year average.
The lake’s elevation as of April 20 was 3,614.2 feet, which allows boats to be launched at Barry’s Landing and Ok-A-Beh in the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, but another 2.8 feet of water is needed to launch at Horseshoe Bay, the closest boat ramp to the community of Lovell, Wyoming.
Brooks said the reservoir is predicted to climb enough to allow the Horseshoe Bay boat ramp to open by Memorial Day weekend.
Two of Boysen Reservoir’s boat ramps are currently above the water line, Fremont Bay and Lakeside, but both of Buffalo Bill’s ramps are usable. Buffalo Bill is 71% full and Boysen is about 72% full, yet Cody-area residents on the South Fork Shoshone River have complained of blowing dust from the lower lake level.
Presto forecast the April to July inflows below minimum at Buffalo Bill, about 50,000-acre-feet shy of filling.
Bighorn Reservoir fishery update
For anglers on the Montana side of Bighorn Reservoir, Fish, Wildlife & Parks biologist Demi Blythe said netting surveys have shown stable populations of walleye and native sauger with a growing number of smallmouth bass in the border-straddling lake.
Sauger tend to congregate at the southern end of FWP’s survey area near Barry’s Landing while walleye and trout like the northern end near Ok-A-Beh Marina.
Last year, FWP set 50 additional nets to learn more about the fishery between the two main survey areas. Net depths were also varied to understand how fish occupy the different water levels.
The wider survey area turned up shovelnose sturgeon near Porcupine Creek, the southern-most tributary in Montana, as well as a lot of river carpsucker and channel catfish.
Last June, FWP stocked more than 105,000 sterile walleye fingerlings in the lake, called triploids. The fish provide anglers with opportunity while ensuring they won’t interbreed with native sauger. So far, it appears the planted triploids do as well as the naturally reproducing walleye, Blythe said.
Bighorn NRA
The National Park Service is working with the group Bighorn River Blueway to build two new boat launches on the Wyoming end of the Bighorn River and the Bureau of Land Management is building a new ramp at the southern end of Bighorn Reservoir in the Yellowtail Wildlife Habitat Management Area.
“They won’t be done this year but they’re usable,” said Christy Fleming of the Park Service.
This is the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area’s 60th anniversary and the 50th birthday of the Bighorn Canyon Visitor Center near Lovell, Wyoming. As part of the preparation to mark the event, a pond next to the center was cleaned and Wyoming Game and Fish will stock it for youngsters to fish. Wyoming’s free fishing day is June 6.
“So you don’t need to have a fishing license to come and hang out with us,” Fleming invited.
FWP Courtesy Photo: Demi Blythe, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks fisheries biologist, holds a shovelnose sturgeon netted near Porcupine Creek last spring.