January 2023 - 28

Electrofishing was a common technique used to sample small fish in the North Platte River. (Photo by Travis Neebling/WGFD)
W
28 | January 2023
hen you think of big water you often think
of big fish. Along Wyoming's North Platte
and Bighorn rivers, images of large trout,
and even walleye or sauger, come to mind.
But what about the little fish, many of
which are native species? Not a lot is known
on a broad scale about which small-bodied
fish live in these two rivers or where they're
located. However, recent work by the
Wyoming Game and Fish Department on
the North Platte River shed some answers,
which will lead to a similar project on the
Bighorn River this spring.
" We're responsible not only for managing
sport fisheries and providing angling
opportunities, but also to manage and
maintain all the native species we have
in our rivers and streams, " said Stephen
Siddons, Game and Fish fisheries biologist
in Laramie who worked on the North Platte
River project.
" It's hard to do any management work
or understand what's happening with those
species without spending time looking for
them, getting an idea of where they live and
how many there are. The information we
gather can give us ideas to expand some of
these native species' distributions by restoring
them to areas where they were lost to before.
The idea is to give them more habitat to live
in and persist longer.
" And, all of those big fish need something
to eat, too. A healthy aquatic environment
and ecosystem provides food for fish to grow
larger, and those small-bodied fish can be
food for them. "
NORTH PLATTE DETAILS
The project started in 2017, and sampling
wrapped up in 2020. It started on the upper
part of the river above Seminoe Reservoir,
which Travis Neebling, Game and Fish
fisheries biologist in Casper, said is the
unregulated portion of the river with no
dams and natural stream flow. From 201820
samples were taken on the lower North
Platte where there are more dams and water
flows vary.
" We basically sampled from just below
the Colorado border all the way down to

January 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of January 2023

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