Annual Benefit Gala
Remarks by M. Jeff Hagener
Director, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks
Madison River Foundation
“Guardians of the River” Gala Banquet
June 27, 2008
Sun Ranch
Cameron, Montana
Good evening and a great Montana evening it is.
Thank you Richard Lessner, and the entire Madison River Foundation staff and Board of Directors, for your kind invitation and for your work, dedication and desire to give something back to this amazing valley and the river that means so much to us all. And thanks especially to Roger Lange and the Sun Ranch.
We are here tonight because of that flowing body of water of here, the Madison.
How much do we love this river?
In Montana these days, more baby girls are being named "Madison" than ever before. It's easy to measure the respect we have for this river when a culture like ours begins to name its children after a place we love.
Last year, "Madison" was tied with "Emma," as the most popular name for Montana-born girls.
One suspects Emma's parents don't fly fish... but many people do and so very many continue to seek out this valley and this glorious river.
The Madison River is still, by far, our most popular river destination.
And it's been that way for a very long time.
About 60 years ago, just south of this beautiful ranch, archaeologists found a quarry mined by Shoshone Indians for the lava stone they needed to make their pots.
Indian tipi rings can still be found nearby, and, down by Ruby Creek, there is an ancient battleground.
It's a reminder that we aren't the first people who seek to lay claim to this valley and its river.
People have loved this place for centuries and, as you look around at the folks here tonight, it's clear we love it still and want to see it last forever.
Because the Madison River does indeed host more anglers than any other river in Montana, some suggest it's time to balance the angling experience with river's ability to support those who seek to extract more than fish from it.
That, too, is an old story.
About 50 years ago, our Madison River grandparents noted coming conflicts among river users. At the time, nearly all anglers waded these waters in pursuit of trout, but river-fishing boats were beginning to hatch in earnest on the river.
Change confronted tradition.
Perhaps some here tonight can recall the first "row vs. wade" regulations that were enacted in response.
Consider, in 1958 anglers spent just 63,000 days on the Madison. Nearly all were wade anglers with bamboo rods.
That was about 500 anglers on the river on any given day during the traditional fishing season.
Fifty years later, the river hosts nearly 200,000 angler days. Most are in rafts and river boats and many tote a couple advanced-composite rods.
That's about 1,500 anglers on the river from Hebgen Lake to Three Forks on any given day during the traditional fishing season, a season with much bigger shoulders than those of the past.
Who could have predicted that?
In many ways, Montana's wild-trout management success paved the way for the Montana trout-fishing boom.
In the parlance of some fisheries biologists, it was a simple formula: Big fish and lots of 'em.
In all cultures, abundance tends to equal a good life.
Back in the 1970s, FWP fisheries biologist Dick Vincent, did the work on the Madison River, backed it up with rigorous science, and provided the data that changed the course of trout-management history.
In basic terms, Dick Vincent's research suggested that if Montana stopped stocking fish, naturally producing wild trout would replenish the river year after year with more and bigger fish.
His work led to sweeping changes that are still in place today on nearly all of Montana's trout streams and has spread to other states.
Montana's aim to turn all of its once-stocked rivers into wild-trout rivers was the regulatory equivalent of a revolution.
It changed just about everything and, for anglers, it transformed the 1970s and 1980s to the Days of Wonder on the Madison River.
The Madison, in fact, became the clear standard against which all trout fishing was measured.
If you were a fly-fisherman back then, you wanted catch-and-release fishing, walk-to-the-river access, and friendly folks with a common passion.
To experience that, you came here. Period.
And in those days, nothing could tarnish the Madison's reputation as one of the world's premier angling destinations. In the words of Dick Vincent in 1991:
"You know," he said to a reporter for FWP's Montana Outdoorsmagazine, "I don't see any thing that should change the fishery. The changes I see are aesthetic, things like crowds, subdivisions and housing developĂ‚Âments, but basic water quality... should remain the same for long into the future..."
That all changed when whirling disease was discovered in Madison River trout in the winter of 1994.
The presence of the disease was determined to be the reason why about 100,000 wild rainbow trout disappeared from Madison River in the early 1990s.
Word of the disease spread fast and the aftershocks rocked this valley like the Hebgen Lake earthquake of 1959.
Anglers worldwide worried about the river, the valley, and about Ennis, the little town that wild trout built.
Through the work of scientists, biologists, and the resilience of the river's wild trout, however, the Madison River fishery bounced back.
Today's creel surveys and population estimates suggest that the Madison fishery has rebounded-yearling trout now number between 2,500 to 3,000 per mile, as good or better than the Days of Wonder 20 to 30 years ago!
But that's not to say the Days of Wonder are upon us once more.
Yes, the Madison is once again the most heavily fished river in Montana.
Yes, the rainbow population has rebounded.
And, yes, the Madison is once again the cathedral that trout-bum pilgrims long to experience.
But, as every member of the Madison River Foundation knows, the "experience," is once again the question.
Like the searcher and his son in that old and wonderful hippie book about "experience," Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance-which was in part set in Montana and talks of the Madison Valley-we are on an endless quest for "quality."
The Madison River's 189,000 angling days includes about 70,000 resident days and 120,000 nonresident days.
Those are mind-boggling numbers.
Many of the anglers are served by the outfitting and guiding industry, and some are concerned that as the crowds grow, the quality diminishes on the river and at Montana's fishing access sites.
And many are concerned that the essentially Montana quality also begins to erode among the friendly folks that make up this special community.
FWP, for one, recognizes that fishing outfitting is an important part of the local economy here. In a way, today's river and fishing guides are yesterday's cowboys.
Bud Lilly and Dan Bailey are every bit as legendary as Buffalo Bill and Wyatt Earp. We need people like them. And they're firmly established in our own Western mythology.
Look back 50 years.
Sixty-three thousand angler days on the Madison and our grandparents were worried about the quality of the fishing experience.
Jump to today. Almost 200,000 angler days and we have the same worries and ask the same questions.
When it comes to natural resources, it is always and forever a question of balance.
The balance in this decade has been in finding the weight to right the scales between commercial use and Joe and Jane Angler and their families.
So, how is that accomplished?
In a word: Carefully.
This year, FWP and the Bureau of Land Management developed a Special Recreation Permit System for the Madison River. The permit is used to allow commercial use, competitive events, and organized group activities on the river and adjacent lands owned or managed by FWP or the BLM.
The fees compensate the public for the opportunity to conduct business on public lands. And they help to pay for the maintenance and improvement of access sites along the Madison River.
In a similar way, preserving access opportunities is important for the future of this river.
Bridge access, for instance, is an issue we're all well versed in down this way.
And I have to shoot straight with you all here tonight.
FWP will continue to advocate for legislation that recognizes the public's right to gain access to rivers at bridges-while at the same time respecting a landowner's need to erect fences for the purpose of containing livestock.
Again, it's a question of balance-mutual respect is critical.
The beauty of this river is that it's in Montana, and not somewhere else.
Here in Montana, the Madison River is owned by no one, but belongs to everyone.
That's the story of this river and the story of Montana.
Will there come a time when the way we use this place demands that Montana move to restrict users to preserve some ever evolving notion of a quality angling experience?
It's possible. But what is the number? The 1,500 angler days experienced today? 1,800? 2,500? 3,000? My guess is there are a multitude of opinions to that question.
The legislature and the FWP Commission have imposed restrictions on places like the Smith, Beaverhead and Big Hole. There are numerous requests for other rivers.
Later this year, FWP will survey anglers and landowners to gauge their satisfaction with conditions on and along the Madison. Your Madison River Foundation is funding the survey and FWP looks forward to sharing the results with you and others.
This small endeavor, this joint effort, between FWP and the Madison River Foundation, is, I think, a glimpse of Montana's future.
For FWP to remain relevant, the agency must develop new partners. With your expertise, insight, points-of-view and support, we can accomplish more for Montana together than either one of could accomplish alone.
Madison River partners.
That, too, is an old Western theme.
If you look to the north, you can see the long, flat tableland and limestone bluffs that is now Madison River Buffalo Jump State Park. It's a place where for at least 3,000 years native people worked together to organize great drives of bison over the cliffs and onto the rocks below.
The bison were abundant in those Days of Wonder and life was good.
And over there, on the high flats, Indians also built eagle-catching pits on top of fossilized fish that date back millions of years. Young men worked together to capture eagles in hopes of harnessing the power of nature in a physical and spiritual way that was essentially aimed at maintaining the quality of life for their people.
And on a higher point, overlooking this wonderful valley, a large man is outlined in smooth, rounded boulders.
It's one of only a few of such aboriginal figures located in this region that stretches from here to northern Canada. It's thought to be an ancient symbol honoring Napi, the Blackfeet Indians' "Old Man," the god of creation.
There is history right here. The grass and soil beneath our feet-and in the water beyond-tell the stories of the people who loved this place.
It is all around us.
It flows through us.
We are all the offspring of this land and we belong to it as much as it belongs to each of us.
The Madison River-with its long riffles and deep pools, salmon flies, otters, beaver, deer, elk, moose, mountain ranges, grazing cattle, and new people-is one of Montana's long-standing sacred places.
We need to pay homage.
And we can do that by continuing to work together to keep this unique, magnificent place intact and welcoming for our own purposes, but we must work together for the pilgrims who deserve to come here some day-years from now-to experience their own Days of Wonder along the banks of this ageless river.
Thank you, Madison River Foundation, for helping to lead the way. Have a great evening, and enjoy the Montana summer.