page_title: Angling in Yellowstone National Park
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Angling in Yellowstone National Park / History
caption_attribution_description: Fishing At the Outlet of Yellowstone Lake (Circa 1916)
context_page_description: Angling in Yellowstone National Park is a major reason many visitors come to the park each year and since it was created in 1872, the park has drawn anglers from around the world to fish its waters. In 2006, over 50,000 park fishing permits were issued to visitors. The park contains hundreds of miles of accessible, high-quality trout rivers containing wild trout populations—over 200 creeks, streams and rivers are fishable. There are 45 fishable lakes and several large lakes are easily accessible to visitors. Additionally, the park's remote sections provide anglers ample opportunity to visit rivers, streams, creeks and lakes that receive little angling pressure. With the exception of one specially designated drainage, all the park's waters are restricted to artificial lures and fly fishing. The Madison, Firehole and a section of the Gibbon rivers are restricted to fly fishing only.
  Anglers visiting the park to fish will encounter westslope cutthroat, Yellowstone cutthroat, rainbow, brown, brook and lake trout, mountain whitefish and Arctic grayling. The park's fishing season runs from the Saturday in May associated with Memorial Day to the first Sunday in November each year.
context_section_description: The original expeditions that explored the regions that ultimately became Yellowstone National Park in 1872 caught fish in many of its waters to supply themselves with fresh provisions.  It wasn't long after the creation of the park, that park officials understood the importance of angling to visitors and the importance of creating a ready resource to supply hotels and camps within the park with fresh fish.  This resulted in the first government stocking of native and non-native species in 1889 and continued with a variety of successful and unsuccessful stocking efforts until 1955 when all stocking programs in the park were discontinued.  Today's park trout are completely wild populations.  Many of the park's waters held no fish prior to government stocking operations which introduced mainly non-native species to the rivers and lakes and redistributed native species.  In fact, with the exception of the upper Yellowstone River drainage, all the lakes and streams above major waterfalls were devoid of game fish prior to government stocking operations.
  Trout have been planted in nearly all streams in the park except those that are tributary to Yellowstone River, and the experiment has been so successful that there are now but few places in this country where better sport can be had by the fisherman...In order that it may never be
  necessary to make any restrictions it is strongly urged that a small fish hatchery be established here. If this can be done the streams can be kept so full of trout that it will be impossible for the tourists to deplete them.
  — Captain John Pitcher, Acting Superintendent, 1901, 
  Probably the most dramatic example of this is the Firehole River above Firehole Falls. When the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition camped on the shores of the upper Firehole in the fall of 1870, the river was barren of trout. The same was true of the Gibbon River and Gibbon Falls. Today, the upper Firehole is one of the premier angling destinations in North America.
  One of the earliest accounts of trout fishing in the park is from Mary Trowbridge Townsend's 1897 article in Outing Magazine A Woman's Trout Fishing in Yellowstone Park in which she talks about catching the Von Behr trout in the Fire Hole [sic] river.
  Long dashes down stream taxed my unsteady footing; the sharp click and whirr of the reel resounded in desperate efforts to hold him somewhat in check; another headlong dash, then a vicious bulldog shake of the head as he sawed back and forth across the rocks. Every wile inherited from generations of wily ancestors was tried until, in a moment of exhaustion, the net was slipped under him. Wading ashore with my prize, I had barely time to notice his size—a good four-pounder, and unusual markings, large yellow spots encircled by black, with great brilliancy of iridescent color—when back he flopped into the water and was gone. However, I took afterward several of the same variety, known in the Park as the Von Baer [sic] trout, and which I have since found to be the Salmo fario, the veritable trout of Izaak Walton
  — Mary Towbridge Townsend, 1897, Outing Magazine, .
  In the early days of government stocking operations, all types of attempts were made to introduce desirable species for the angler.  In the case of Yellowstone, both landlocked Atlantic salmon and largemouth bass were introduced but never established themselves in the park. Yellow perch were inadvertently introduced, established themselves in a few lakes, and were later poisoned out.  By the early 20th century, a number of hatcheries were established in the park by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries.  These hatcheries not only produced stocks for the park, but also took advantage of the great spawning stock of cutthroat trout to supply eggs to hatcheries around the U.S.  Between 1901 and 1953, 818 million trout eggs were exported from the park to hatcheries throughout the U.S.
  The hatcheries and stocking operations had both positive and negative impacts on the quality of angling in Yellowstone National Park in the first half of the 20th century.  Many native populat
caption: Cutthroat trout fishing at the outlet of Yellowstone Lake circa 1916[4]
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