A plea for rivers | Features

In the summer of 2020, a man was carried on a stretcher through a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. At the end of the night, the 23-year-old was pronounced dead from a fentanyl overdose.

He was a childhood friend of Gage Griffen, a student at the University of Montana. Griffen was shaken and felt compelled to reevaluate his life. “I was on my way to work – I think it was a phone call or a text,” Griffen said. “I remember my boss saying, 'You're too young to have friends who die.'” Griffen, now 26, had just graduated from the University of Arizona.

“We did a lot of the same shit,” Griffen said of his friend as he walked along a gravel path to the Clark Fork River just outside Missoula. “It was a confrontation of, 'Maybe I could die if I do something stupid.' It made me think that this is real.”

The death of his friend and a drug-induced seizure suffered by his UA roommate two years earlier caused Griffen to rethink his life choices and values. Shadowed by questions and guilt, he moved to Montana and found answers in the state's rivers.

“I think it was partly the timing,” he said. “Getting to a point where you're trying to change your trajectory and get back to the things you might be happier about – that was all a pretty direct result.”

He remembered the joy he had had fishing as a child.

“This was one of the things I wanted to be more involved in when I came here,” Griffen said. “The club and the friendships I've made here are all kind of a result of that. I was really lucky to have this opportunity and [to] have this access up here.”

When he was 10, his father took him fly fishing for the first time in a rickety float plane over Alaska. Griffen remembered landing on an island and feeling the sudden pressure on his line every time his fly disappeared underwater.

Griffen is one of many who have found something special in Montana's rivers. They have provided generations with world-class fishing and a significant portion of seasonal employment for Montanans. But with increasing weather extremes and reduced snowpack, fish populations need extra support — meaning less access for recreational fishers and more targeted and cautious fishing. People like Griffen worry about the future of a hobby that is so meaningful to them.

Strong currents

Griffen held on to his desire for change and was accepted into the University of Montana School of Law in 2022. He saw Missoula as a place that could foster exactly what he needed in his life.

“Compared to what I do here every day, compared to what I do every day, [at] 18 to 21, it's like night and day. Everything's going well,” he said. “In my law school, there's a really strong correlation between the time I spend outside and my performance in the classroom.”

During his time at UA, Griffen thought mostly about partying and socializing.

“From 18 to 21, I was convinced I was the most depressed person on earth,” he said. “I wasn't a very enthusiastic student. I was a bit of a rebellious teenager.”

Griffen waded along the Clark Fork River, smiling and shrugging his shoulders. The cliffs and mountains of western Montana were lit by a deep orange late-summer sun. But that day there was only one fish – a tiny trout, no bigger than his open hand.

When he's not on the river, Griffen is a third-year law student at UM and holds a degree in political science from UA. He is also president of the law school's fly fishing club.

Last year, Griffen spent almost every free day outside.

“It got pretty ridiculous. We were on the road all the time,” he said. “And as a result, my grades improved dramatically.”

It was then that Griffen met Henry Charpentier, then president of the fly fishing club. Charpentier put the group in touch with Trout Unlimited, a fisheries conservation organization. The club became part of the Five Rivers program, which aims to teach university students the ethics of river conservation and responsible fishing.

Charpentier graduates in 2022. Griffen said the club floundered last year without a leader, so he took over as president. This year, he hopes to maintain those connections, continue responsible fishing education and is considering opening the club to the broader student body, not just law students.

Record highs, record lows

Griffen has noticed a significant decline in fishing productivity over the past two years living in Missoula as western Montana's rivers have struggled. Rising summer temperatures, decreasing snowpack and other climate- and human-related river damage have put a strain on fisheries and fish populations.

A spring 2023 study by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks found fish populations at their lowest ever. Brook trout, one of the most resilient trout species in Montana, suffered massive losses for reasons not yet fully understood.

In 2023, the department updated its list of fishing regulations for rivers across the state. Among other things, it restricted the catch and release of certain fish and placed stricter limits on the size of fish anglers can keep.

This summer, the state implemented “hoot-owl” restrictions that prohibit fishing in certain rivers between 2 p.m. and midnight. The regulations limit fishing to the cooler hours of the day to reduce stress-related illness and mortality in fish populations. “hoot-owl” is implemented when water temperatures reach 73 degrees Fahrenheit for at least three consecutive days.

These restrictions continue to apply to the Clark Fork, Bitterroot and Madison rivers, as well as three other rivers in Montana.

“We weren't able to fish in the Greenough-Ovando area because there was so little snow,” Griffen said. “It draws even more attention to the fact that you have to use good practices and be conscientious, kind and caring towards the nature and wildlife around you.”

Owl hooting regulations are common during the summer, but this year is the first time such restrictions have been implemented in the Flathead River Basin.

Data from the National Weather Service showed that there were 20 days last July with above-average temperatures, with differences of up to 15 degrees and a record high of 102 degrees Fahrenheit on July 24.

A recent drought report also showed that large parts of western Montana are suffering from an “extreme” to “exceptional” drought.

According to Montana Trout Unlimited, the mortality rate for trout is higher when water temperatures reach above 65 degrees Fahrenheit, and at 70 degrees Fahrenheit they may even die without being caught.

The price of the deal

John Potter works at Kingfisher Fly Shop in Missoula. He says increasingly strict regulations are putting a strain on business, but for good reason.

“It's a vicious cycle,” Potter said. “Business may be slower, but the populations we depend on are preserved and protected.”

Potter said his biggest concern is the threat posed to the trout population by invasive fish. Northern pike, perch and bass are showing up in rivers previously untouched by the species.

“When it's really hot in the summer, these populations explode,” Potter said, and pike and bass are more tolerant of higher water temperatures. “If the bass population reproduces reliably, that could be bad for business.”

These species occupy similar niches as certain trout, displacing native populations from the rest of the food supply and putting them under pressure.

“The impacts of climate are particularly severe for aquatic ecosystems,” said Chad Bishop, director of wildlife biology at UM. “We're starting to see some good reasons to be concerned about what's happening to our rivers themselves and the fish populations that support them.”

In response to these concerns, UM's wildlife biology program recently announced the creation of a $5 million endowed chair in fisheries science. This chair will allow for expanded capacity for fisheries-related research, which Bishop said is an increasingly valuable asset.

Endowed professorships are a special position, Bishop said. They tend to attract high-caliber applicants. These valued experts bring expertise and valuable connections to organizations that support research.

“Looking forward, there is a pressing need to do more,” Bishop said. “This is a big deal.”

While Griffen said he understands and appreciates the reasons behind fishing regulations and conservation efforts, there is no doubt that he relies on hobbies like fishing.

“Now it's become a big part of my identity. If for some reason access was immediately and drastically restricted, it would be devastating,” he said. “I would look for solutions. It's one of the most extraordinary places in the world.”