Gone Fishing: longtime fisheries manager retiring

 As a 10-year-old boy growing up just outside Helena, Jim Vashro took it upon himself to become a junior fisheries biologist, embarking on a dedicated angling schedule coupled with meticulous record keeping. Over the span of the fishing season, he averaged six days of fishing per week and he kept a diary about the size, species and other characteristics of the 974 fish he caught that season.

“So I came to it early,” says Vashro, who is retiring at the end of the month after a 39-year career with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, working 31 of those years as the Region One fisheries manager.

“It’s been a great ride,” he says — but it hasn’t been an easy one.

The fisheries manager position is a hot seat to say the least, requiring decisions that affect a huge array of interests that are often conflicting. One need look no further than the ongoing conflicts over native species recovery and providing for recreational fishing opportunities.

Vashro, 63, says he has survived “five major attempts to get me fired over the years” and he recalls sharing that tidbit with a couple at a social gathering.

The woman asked him, “We’re not just talking about fishing here, are we?” Vashro says with a chuckle.

“Fishing is not life or death. It’s more important than that,” he says, referring to the passions of anglers across the region.

Despite any downsides to his career over the years, Vashro is passionate about fishing and proud of accomplishments that occurred during his tenure.

Vashro pioneered the concept of family fishing ponds in Montana, and more importantly, played a major role in seeing the concept become reality.

The Pine Grove family fishing pond north of Kalispell, he says, “is the envy of the state.” That came about because of the generosity and cooperation of landowner Robin Street, but other pond and fishing access projects have been far more difficult.

It took seven years of work to get the Shady Lane Pond online, it took six years of litigation to get a fishing access site at Lake Five and it took four years of litigation to establish a site on Church Slough, although Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks was on the periphery of that effort.

One of the earliest accomplishments happened in the early 1980s, when Vashro was involved with a fishing creel survey in the South Fork Flathead drainage. The work found out that westslope cutthroat trout were being heavily harvested with a 10-fish daily limit, and more importantly many large fish were being taken. That led to a noticeably diminished fishery, followed by more restrictive regulations — anglers could keep three fish under 12 inches daily.

Those regulations led to a fast rebound in the quality of fishing in the drainage that has endured over time.

A major interest for Vashro during his career has been the problem of illegal fish introductions. He created a statewide database that has documented over 600 illegal introductions on 250 waters.

“Unfortunately, half of those have occurred in Region One,” he says. “We’ve got the water and we’ve got the people.”

Vashro laments how the illegal introduction issue hasn’t gained the prominence he thinks it deserves, mainly because of the costly damage introductions cause.

Whirling disease in trout, and aquatic invasive species have attracted millions of dollars in funding to combat, while hardly any resources have been directed toward responding to illegal introductions.

Lake Mary Ronan, he says, is the “poster child” for a resource damaged by an illegal introduction of perch in 1992. Six years later, perch accounted for 80 percent of the biomass in the lake, displacing the kokanee and trout fisheries. Costs for managing the lake — trying to maintain a kokanee fishery — have risen $50,000 as a result, Vashro says. “That is frustrating.”

It’s not surprising that Vashro has been highly occupied with native fishery recovery issues for the last decade, largely as the result of illegal introductions.

At Noxon Reservoir, for instance, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks  has proposed an effort to suppress the population of illegally introduced walleye, which has been hotly opposed by warm-water anglers. Vashro compares it to introducing a new predator such as wolves. In the case of Noxon, the impacts may be heaviest on a bass fishery that has attracted large fishing tournaments in recent years, as well as impacts to native species such as bull trout.

Vashro was at the helm when the department launched a project aimed at purging non-native hybrid trout from alpine lakes above the South Fork Flathead drainage in 2007.

“That caused a huge amount of controversy,” he says, recalling that he, too, was skeptical about the necessity and effectiveness of the project.

But in the years since, lakes have been treated with Rotenone and restocked with genetically pure westslope cutthroats. The fisheries rebounded rapidly, and the controversy dissipated.

The project is “now over 80 percent complete and it’s been a tremendous success,” Vashro says.

  Perhaps the biggest controversy of his career, and one that will be left to his successor, has been the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes proposal to initiate a gill-netting program on Flathead Lake to suppress the non-native lake trout population for the benefit of bull trout and cutthroat trout.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has declined to participate, citing problems with the public review process used by the tribes, and also raising concerns about unintended consequences the effort may produce.

Vashro recalls that mysis shrimp were introduced in the Flathead Basin in 1968, the year he graduated from high school, with the good intentions of creating more robust fisheries. But by the early 1980s, just as he was coming on board in Region One, the mysis population proliferated and caused a lake trout population boom that turned Flathead Lake’s aquatic ecology upside down.

“People say they want the lake to be the way it was back in the early 1980s. Well, you can’t, because that lake no longer exists,” Vashro said, mainly because the underlying problem of mysis shrimp still exists.

“It was done with good intentions but without adequate analysis,” Vashro says of the mysis introduction. “There hasn’t been a single week that I haven’t heard that Fish, Wildlife and Parks screwed things up by planting mysis.”

He says that’s the reason the state wants thorough review and complete caution in moving forward with more aggressive lake-trout suppression efforts.

“I don’t want to give (critics) a new topic for the next 45 years,” he says.

Vashro says the time has come for him to relax and dedicate more time to hunting, fishing and other pursuits. He currently pursues all kinds of fishing opportunities, for many hours every week.

Last summer, he floated the 41-mile length of the South Fork Flathead River through the Bob Marshall Wilderness. He has fished in Alaska, he has caught sturgeon and salmon on the Columbia River, he has fished for albacore off the Washington coast.

But even with all those pursuits, he says “work has been getting in the way.”

Vashro says a successor should be appointed within about three months, assuming management of the state’s largest regional fisheries program. Region One has 43 full-time employees and a $5 million annual budget.

“I don’t think most people realize how big the program is,” he says. “The main thing that makes it work, is it has an incredibly talented and professional staff.”

 It’s been a thrill and an honor working with them.”

Vashro said he and his wife, Sandi, will continue to be involved in the community, particularly with programs such as “Hooked on Fishing,” which provides elementary students with an introduction to fishing.

And he’ll continue to be involved with issues that get his attention. “I’m going to have my fingers in things, just with a different approach,” he says.