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Adopt-A-Fish update – May 18, 2006 for a good flow of Milk By DAVE FULLER Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks FORT PECK – Approximately 10 miles below Fort Peck Reservoir, a rather dirty tributary enters the crystal clear, cold, mountain headwater-looking Missouri River. A fly fisherman would be appalled at the tributary’s very existence, muddying the pristine Missouri River waters. On the way west, on May 8, 1805, Meriwether Lewis was particularly impressed by the color of this stream "The water of this river," he wrote, "possesses a peculiar whiteness, being about the colour of a cup of tea with the admixture of a tablespoonfull of milk." Clark concurred: "It precisely resembles tea with a considerable mixture of milk." From the color of its water, Lewis concluded, "We called it Milk River." I’m not sure if Lewis and Clark saw quite the difference that we see now as it enters into the cold, clear water, released from the bottom of Fort Peck Reservoir. If you saw a picture from above, the difference is like night and day. The reason for the color of the Milk River is that it drains a broad valley containing weathered, silty glacial till and shale, as well as sand. In addition to turbidity, this water also becomes relatively warm early in the year due to many of the small prairie streams that flow into it. It also has a low gradient and meandering nature, giving it plenty of time to absorb the suns rays. This may not be the preferred type of water for trout or most fish in the western part of the state, however, it is just what our eastern Montana native river fish prefer. Two of the Adopt-A-Fish paddlefish, all three of the blue suckers, and many others are just waiting for a large pulse of this warm turbid water, which would give them one more cue to begin their spawning migration up this river. With out these cues, these fish will not migrate up the Milk and may not spawn this year. We’ve had several different fish contacted by our ground-based receiving station at the mouth, but there just hasn’t been enough water to keep them in there. The Milk provides approximately 115 miles of river, until the fish reach Vandalia Dam for adults to migrate up, spawn and for their larvae to drift and rear back toward the Missouri. There are a number of native fish species that are successful at reproducing in the Milk River, including paddlefish, sauger, freshwater drum, goldeye, and channel catfish just to name a few. With the storage reservoirs full, basin snow pack around 80% of normal, and the unseasonably warm weather, our Missouri/Yellowstone Adopt-A-Fish just might get their good dose of Milk in the weeks to come. Weekly updates on our radio-implanted fish can be found on the Missouri-Yellowstone Adopt-A-Fish home page with updates posted Thursday mornings in April and May. Just click on the Find your Fish button on the home page. School classrooms, youth fishing clubs and home schoolers can sign up for the program and adopt and name two fish. Just go to the Web site and click on the How To Adopt Button or send us an e-mail at Missouri-Yellowstone Adopt-A-Fish. Adopt-A-Fish correspondents Dave Fuller, at Fort Peck, and Matt Jaeger, at Glendive, are fisheries biologists with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. They’ll post weekly updates every Thursday throughout April and May on this site and in the Outdoors section of The Billings Gazette. |
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