State Record Bass Snagged
Brandon Wright displays his record large mouth bass after pulling it from the water at Lake Elmo in Billings Heights Saturday. (courtesy photo)
Beginning on May 1, 2021, fishing limits will be temporarily lifted at Lake Elmo in Billings Heights. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) will lift the limits on number and fish-length on the lake starting May 1 ahead of plans to completely drain the lake in October. Anglers will be able to catch and keep as many fish as they want this summer at Lake Elmo.
FWP has plans to drain Lake Elmo beginning in October 2021 and leave it dry next winter in order to eradicate invasive Asian clams found in 2019. Biologists believe the destructive clams are limited to Lake Elmo. Searches upstream and downstream from the 60-acre irrigation reservoir found no invasive clams. Biologists plan to freeze, starve and dry the invasive clams by draining the lake and leaving it dry for the winter. While the lakebed is dry, FWP fisheries and parks officials also are planning construction to improve fish habitat, angler access and visitor convenience.
“Unfortunately, we cannot move the fish to another waterbody as that might further spread the clams,” FWP fisheries biologist Shannon Blackburn said. “Any fish remaining in the lake when it is drained will have to perish in place along with the invasive clams. We would rather have anglers catch and keep the fish.” While there will be no limits on the number or length of fish caught and kept, anglers still must have a valid fishing license and adhere to other rules and laws set by fishing and park regulations.
Lake Elmo will refill in April 2022 after a winter of being dry and FWP will restock several species of fish. Biologists expect that fish from the Yellowstone River also will repopulate the water naturally by following the Billings Bench Canal that feeds the lake. According to FWP, species now in the lake include cutthroat trout, rainbow trout, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, channel catfish, at least one sub-40-inch tiger muskie, yellow perch, pumpkinseed sunfish, carp and several species of sucker.
On Saturday, April 24, a largemouth bass pulled from Lake Elmo has set a new state record. Weighing in at 9.575 pounds, it tops the previous record by almost a pound. The previous record was 8.8 pounds and was set in 2009. Brandon Wright, a Billings resident of four years, stated that he typically enjoys flyfishing, but decided to fish at Lake Elmo. He arrived at the lake a little after 10:00 AM and tipped at #10 Eagle Claw hook with a piece of night crawler. Then, according to Wright, he sat back and started watching Tik Tok videos on his cell phone. He caught the record-setting fish within 15 minutes. It was the first largemouth bass Wright has ever caught, and he plans to have it mounted by a taxidermist. He contacted FWP officials to confirm the species and weighed it on a certified scale at the Albertsons store in the Billings Heights. The last remaining step to declaring the bass a state record is a signature from the FWP fisheries division chief in Helena. Billings FWP officials stated that the paperwork was put in the mail to Helena on Monday.
State fishery recordkeepers have been busy. Recent records included a chinook salmon in August, a smallmouth bass in October, a yellow bullhead in December, and a brown trout in February.
FWP states that anglers who believe they have caught a Montana record fish should keep the fish fresh on ice but not frozen, document the length and girth with photos, contact FWP at the first opportunity for positive species identification, have the fish weighed on a certified scale and keep the certificate from the scale or an affidavit from the scale owner.
