FISHING PATTERN 



Yellowstone Lake presents a varied pattern of fishing activities 

 although most of the angling is done from boats. Two large boat 

 liveries^ located at Fishing Bridge and West Thrimb, have rental boats 

 for anglerso Eight party-boats with guides are available for fishing 

 the deeper waters of the lake, and approxirately 130 rowboats for use 

 with outboard motors or oars can be rented for angling closer to shore. 

 During the 19^1 season, party-=boats with guides were also available at 

 Lake Dock immediately in front of Lake Hotel, 



Two other groups of boats are used for trout fishing on Yellowstone 

 Lake, toe of these consists of private boats, some as long as 30 feet^ 

 the maximiim length permitted on the lake, that are berthed for the 

 season at Fishing Bridges West Thumb, and Lake docks. The other category 

 of private boats includes the smaller craft brought into the Park on 

 trailers. These boats may be launched at any number of locations along 

 the thirty miles of lake shore accessible from the highway. Most of 

 these boats are kept on the lake for only a few days at a time, but many 

 are brought into the Park from nearby communities several to many times 

 during the season. Also considered in this category are rubber boats 

 which are present in considerable numberso 



Although Yellowstone Lake has over 100 miles of shoreline, only a 

 30~mile section from West Thumb to the northeastern part of the lake is 

 readily accessible from the highway (fig, 1), Most of this section of 

 shoreline is fished to some extent throughout the season; however, some 

 areas are consistently more popular than others* Within this 30 miles 

 of shoreline is the outlet of Yellowstone Lake into the Yellowstone River, 

 Crossing this outlet is the famous Pishing Bridge on which anglers num- 

 bering up to a hundred can be seen at most any time during the season. 

 Because of this continuous concentration of anglers on the bridge, it has 

 been treated as a unit separate from the shoreline in this study. As 

 tagging studies have indicated that the fish in the Yellowstone River 

 above the Yellowstone Falls are of the same population as those in 

 Yellowstone Lake, the river fishery has been included as another unit 

 in the creel census program. 



In order to efficiently sample the fishing activities, the different 

 aspects of the fishery were set up as individual units in accordance 

 with the fishing pattern. 



