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Information in this report is a product of over 20 years of attention provided to one of Montana's great rivers. Compiling information to better understand the water and fishery resource is intended to help citizens in the valley make decisions on the fate of the Jefferson River. Once dubbed the "Forgotten Fork" of the headwaters of the Missouri, the past eight years of citizen involvement to protect and improve habitat have raised the profile of the river, and it is clear that the river can no longer be considered forgotten or dismissed. The commitment of volunteers in watershed groups, water user associations, Trout Unlimited boards, Conservation Districts, and other numerous landowners and citizens has made the Jefferson Valley a better and healthier place. Since 1979, a handful of fishery technicians have helped collect the information presented in this report. Their skill and hard work has been critical for improving our understanding of the river.

A fishery inventory of the Blackfoot River from headwaters to mouth was conducted during 1988 to evaluate angler concerns of a declining fishery in recent years. Sampling of young-of-theyear trout throughout the mainstem, repeating fish population surveys conducted in the headwaters during the early 1970 's, establishing three new population inventory sections, conducting a voluntary creel census, and evaluating species of special concern in the river were completed in 1988. Fish populations in the Blackfoot River vary greatly in terms of species composition and overall fish density. The differing fisheries of the Blackfoot River are a product of habitat characteristics, recruitment sources, and human influences such as environmental degradation and fishery exploitation. Fisherman concerns over a declining fishery are centered in the middle and lower reaches of the river, from roughly Nevada Creek to the mouth of the Blackfoot River. This report addresses possible reasons for angler dissatisfaction, and identifies potential management strategies to remedy fisheries problems in the Blackfoot River. Special consideration was given to effects of the current drought and resulting record low stream flows on fishing opportunities. Fishery management tools including stock enhancement (naturally or artificially), harvest regulation changes, and habitat improvement appear to have potential to improve low fish densities in some reaches of the river. Due to the complexity of the fishery, and the factors that influence it, no single management tool is likely to be successful in correcting problems. In addition, future fish management decisions should consider specific reaches of river which vary in fisheries potential. Given that fishing pressure continues to increase, more restrictive harvest regulations will likely be necessary to maintain catch rates and abundance of spawning aged fish. This is particularly true for the native trout species, cutthroat and bull trout, present in the Blackfoot River. 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank the officers and club members of the Blackfoot Chapter of Trout Unlimited that organized and successfully funded our operations for completing this work. Many donors contributed above and beyond license fees which resulted in the successful fund raising campaign. A special thanks to Dennis Workman for assembling initial work plans, budgets, acceptance of added regional fisheries responsibilities and encouragement to all parties to get this project started. Thanks are extended to the field and office workers, Dave Dickson and Eric Priest. Their dedication in all phases of this project have created an end product this year far beyond what v;e initially expected to obtain. This project was funded by the Blackfoot Chapter of Trout Unlimited and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

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The Montana Fish, Wildhfe & Parks (FWP), U.S. Forest Service (FS), and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are proposing a mountain-range wide strategy for increasing the distribution and abundance of westslope cutthroat trout (WCT) populations in the Elkhom Mountains, hnplementation of the program would include construction and installation of fish baniers; removal of non-native fishes by electrofishing and through the application of a fish toxicant. The program would also include im'entory, data collection, and monitoring. The decision that will be made from the analysis (which is documented in an Environmental Assessment or EA) is programmatic in nature, and it will define the scope and intensity of work and establish a priority listing and time table for implementation of projects. Individual projects on specific streams will be analyzed at a more site-specific level and will follow standard Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) and/or National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) procedures. The management goal for Montana's Statewide Plan for WCT restoration is to ensure the long-tenn selfsustaining persistence of the subspecies within each of the five major river drainages they historically inhabited in Montana (Clark Fork, Kootenai, Flathead, upper Missouri, and Saskatchewan). The statewide plan also seeks to maintain the genetic diversity and life histoiy strategies represented by the remaining WCT populations, and avoid listing of the species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Elkhom Mountain restoration program is consistent with statewide efforts to conser\'e westslope cutthi-oat trout. This program focuses on a geographic area (the Elkliora Mountains) with distinct genetic resources, rather than on individual watersheds. Two action alternatives (Alternatives 2 and 3) are presented in the EA, and both would result in reducing the relative risks of extinction of WCT in the Elkhom Mountains. However, the risk that WCT populafions would go exfinct in the Elkhom Mountains is largely dependant on the amount of project work accomplished during the 10-year program. The more comprehensive alternative (Alternative 3) would result in a more secure genetic resen'e of WCT in the Elkhom Mountains by the end of this 10 year program. Implementation of Altemative 2 would stabilize existing WCT populafions and replicate one exisfing genefic pool into a suitable stream, but would not result in establishing a connected populafion in the Elkhom Mountains. In addifion to securing existing populafions and introducing WCT to five additional streams, Altemative 3 proposes to establish connected WCT populations in the McClellan and upper Crow Creek watersheds. Successful establishment of WCT populafions in interconnected drainages is the best known tool for reducing risk of extinction and this strategy also helps meet statewide objectives for WCT in the upper Missouri basin. i The environmental review demonstrates that the impacts of the ahematives analyzed in this program are not significant. Although there are no project ...