| Summary: | MONTANA PLANTS SUNFISH, BASS : Are Taken While Small From Backwaters And Put In Lakes. MONTANA PLANTS SUNFISH, BASS Are Taken While Small From Backwaters and Put in Lakes. HELENA, Feb. 5. (AP)—While Montana's reputation as a premier fishing ground may be based on its trout streams, the conservation policy of the state fish and game commission has resulted in recovery of a million and a half sunfish and bass and their distribution over the state during the past eight years. The annual report of the commission shows a distribution of 189,100 sunfish and 151,000 bass during the past year and a total of 406,000 sunfish and 1,133,628 bass in the eight- year period. Bass and sunfish planting, Chairman Marlowe, points out, is purely a conservation project. These fish spawn in the pools formed by the Flathead river in its spring flood. The adult fish return to the lake, but the minnows hatch in landlocked ponds after the water recedes and, before the commission became concerned, died there as the water evaporated. Transfer Minnows. Now the fish experts of the commission trim the grass out of the ponds, ditch them, pump out the water and transfer the minnows to hatcheries, then to streams and lakes over the state. Missoula, Lake, Granite, Jefferson, Lincoln, Teton, Lewis and Clark and Flathead counties participated in the distribution last year.
|
|---|