Owens, Kenneth N

Blue-Ribbon Tailwaters: The Unplanned Role of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Creating Prime Sites for Recreational Trout Fly Fishing in Western America Ken Owens Professor of History Emeritus California State University, Sacramento ABSTRACT: Current fly-fishing literature identifies more than thirty river and stream sites in western states that are downstream tailwaters of bottom-release high dams built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and that can be classified as prime sites for recreational trout fly fishing. These prime fishing sites, generally known as blue- ribbon tailwaters in the jargon of the fly-fishing community, are an unplanned consequence of dam construction and reservoir management by the Bureau and cooperating entities. Because of their distinctive ecological traits, these tailwater fisheries can support exceptionally large numbers of trout that generally grow far faster, bigger, and fatter than trout in western freestone rivers without high dams. The most notable of these blue-ribbon tailwaters have become famous among fly fishers everywhere; they attract thousands upon thousands of visitors annually who are eager to experience the challenge and rewards of this unique type of fly fishing. As a result, many localities have seen the growth of a wide range of fishing-related businesses, from guide services and fly-fishing shops to food, lodging, and transportation facilities, all designed to meet the needs of both local fly fishers and the significant numbers of affluent fly-fishing tourists who travel long distances to reach these famed fishing venues. The Bureau of Reclamation would do well to recognize these recreational resource sites in planning for specific projects, and to manage blue-ribbon tailwaters in a way that preserves and fosters fly fishing for the valuable, income-producing activities that the sport sustains. USBR Blue Ribbon Tailwaters, page 2 Introduction. Tailwaters, in the lexicon of fly fishing, are those stretches of rivers and creeks directly downstream from dams and their impoundments. Especially important for trout and for fly fishers are the tailwaters below bottom-release high dams built and maintained for irrigation purposes--the tailwaters, that is, downstream from many U.S. Bureau of Reclamation dams in western America. In the right circumstances, the Bureau’s high dams create prime sites downstream for trout growth, sites that are generally known as blue ribbon tailwaters to the fly fishing community. This effect is an unplanned, unforeseen consequence of dam construction and reservoir management by the Bureau and cooperating entities. As a result these blue ribbon tailwaters have given rise in many localities to a wide range of fishing-related businesses, from guide services and fly fishing shops to food, lodging, and transportation facilities designed to meet the needs of relatively affluent fly fishing tourists. Fly fishing has a significant constituency in the western states, organized into local fly fishing interest groups that are often affiliated with the Federation of Fly Fishing and with Trout Unlimited, the leading national organization for trout conservation and promotion of trout fly fishing. In addition, fly fishing tourism can have substantial local economic importance, particularly evident in isolated rural settings. For these reasons, the management of downstream flows to preserve and foster tailwater fly fishing should gain recognition in the decision-making process for specific Bureau of Reclamation projects that sustain these blue-ribbon tailwaters. USBR Blue Ribbon Tailwaters, page 3 History. Prior to construction, no one--not civil engineers, not fisheries biologists, and certainly not fly fishers--had an inkling of what impact bottom-release high dams would have on downstream fisheries, and certainly the planning stages for these USBR projects did not envision the creation of blue ribbon tailwaters. Moreover, Congress authorized and the USBR constructed nearly all of the Bureau’s large-scale dams in the western states before the National Environmental Protection Act (1970) began to require an environmental impact assessment for each new federally-funded undertaking. The tailwaters effect for the fisheries was gradually recognized only as fly fishers gained experience with these radically changed streams, and as aquatic entomologists first gave attention to the unique conditions of insect life in their watery, manmade microenvironments. Table 1, “Inventory of Stream Sites,” identifies thirty-one USBR dams on twenty-four rivers and creeks in western states upstream from blue ribbon tailwaters. Each of these tailwater sites has received featured treatment in the fly fishing literature, demonstrated in the site-specific bibliography in Appendix A. Although the data on this point are yet incomplete, most of these sites are subject to special regulations by state fisheries agencies that restrict the methods of angling and impose catch limits on numbers of fish that can be taken from the stream. In management terms, the Bureau of Reclamation has primary responsibility for operating nineteen of these thirty-one dams; local irrigation boards or similar entities control eleven, while one--the Pactola Dam on Rapid Creek in South Dakota--has a shared management arrangement in place.1 USBR Blue Ribbon Tailwaters, page 4 The construction dates of these thirty-one dams, presented in Table 2, demonstrate a fact known to all students of western water history and the Bureau of Reclamation. By the end of the 1930s, private power companies, municipal utilities, and other organizations had created many high dams for power generation in the western states, and the Army Corps of Engineers had built such huge structures as Bonneville Dam and Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River, and Hoover Dam on the Colorado. Prior to 1945, however, Bureau engineers completed only six high dams that contributed to the creation of blue ribbon tailwaters, none built on a truly massive scale. The 1945 completion of Shasta Dam on the Sacramento River in northern California signaled the Bureau’s entry into a new phase of dam-building that emphasized large, high dams on big rivers, creating extensive tailwater environments.2 By 1968 the Bureau’s leadership had planned and put into operation eighteen more high dams, including such colossal projects as Canyon Ferry Dam on the Missouri River in Montana, Flaming Gorge Dam on the Green River in Utah, Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River in Colorado, and Yellowtail Dam on the Big Horn River also in Montana. Since 1968, by comparison, the Bureau has constructed only an additional five high dams that created tailwater fisheries, none so great in size or importance as the larger projects of the previous two decades. Perhaps coincidentally, the major era of USBR large dam construction in the West was also the period during which fly fishing grew from a minor recreational interest to a widely popular enthusiasm in western states. Led by returned veterans of World War Two, the postwar generation enjoyed the prosperity and leisure to seek recreational opportunities in the open spaces of the West, and they benefitted from greatly improved access to remote fishing locations made possible by better roads. More reliable automobiles, station wagons, and pickup trucks, USBR Blue Ribbon Tailwaters, page 5 sometimes towing tent trailers or campers, found convenient stopping places in thousands of new campgrounds, lakeside resorts, and fishing camps. These facilities filled the needs of a burgeoning western tourist business that included fly fishing tourists; they helped make long- distance travel in the postwar era increasingly safe, comfortable, and reasonable in price. By the 1960s striking technological improvements in fly fishing equipment were also making the sport more appealing and affordable for beginners. These same improvements were challenging the more experienced to develop and refine their skills in ways that added to the attraction of fly fishing. Western fly fishing, once disparaged as a less refined, less skilled version of the highly technical fly fishing practices developed in Britain and the northeastern U.S., now gained in popular perception a rugged, adventurous character that attracted new adherents.3 Because western rivers were larger, according to this revised view, western flies were bigger and bushier, and western fish were stronger, longer, and more eager to take a fly. Filled with fight, they were far more worthy of the fly fisher’s efforts. Skilled outdoor writers such as Ted Trueblood, a native of Nampa, Idaho, and the longtime fishing editor for Field & Stream magazine, fervently put forward an appealing outdoors doctrine that extolled the West as a mythic paradise for fly fishing.4 New-minted entrepreneurs such as Bud Lilly of West Yellowstone, Wyoming, and Dan Bailey of Livingston, Montana, established thriving businesses selling fly fishing gear, guiding clients, and passing along good advice while wrapping all these services in the glowing aura of the western mystique, topped off with a cowboy-style Stetson hat worn astream.5 The catalogs their firms and a few others began sending nationwide during 1950s and 1960s built strong mail- USBR Blue Ribbon Tailwaters, page 6 order operations and gained yet more market penetration for the commercial apostles of western fly fishing. By 1970, the year President Richard Nixon surprised many of his critics by signing the National Environmental Protection Act into law, fly fishing for trout

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