The earliest dissemination of golden trout from the National 

 Fish Hatchery in Bozeman was largely confined to the Gallatin 

 National Forest. Much of this early stocking involved CCC and 

 Forest crews; records were scarce. Many lakes were unnamed, 

 others changed. Some unnamed lakes took on a name after the 

 fish, e.g.. Golden Trout and Golden lakes. It was the mid-1950's 

 when fisheries employees in Montana resumed stocking golden 

 trout. Populations in Sylvan and Surprise lakes supplied the 

 eggs. A feeble attempt to establish a brood station at Hamilton 

 was short-lived. The majority of the eggs were reared at Big 

 Timber and stocked directly into the Beartooth area lakes, or 

 were transferred to a hatchery on the west side of the Divide for 

 subsequent dispersement. 



The first recorded attempt at securing golden trout eggs was 

 in 1953 at Blue Danube Lake in the Hilgards. A crew of Opheim, 

 Mitchell, Spindler and Schurr stripped eggs, and subsequently 

 2,000-3,000 fish were raised at Big Timber and Hamilton hatch- 

 eries. The goldens were requested by a forest ranger for Koot- 

 enai Lake near Stevensville (Opheim 1953, pers. comm.). 



In 1955, 1956 and 1959, eggs were collected at Sylvan Lake 

 by combinations of the following: Nelson, Keller, Waples, Gaab, 

 Taylor, Matthews, Eberle and Domrose. Some eggs collected by 

 Higgins in 1964 from Blue Danube failed to develop. A small 

 collection of eggs were taken in Sylvan Lake by Marcuson in 1972. 

 These eggs were taken incidental to censusing the fishery. The 

 small number of survivors (82) were stocked in the pond behind ^ 

 the Fish and Game headquarters in Bozeman. In 1980, approxi- 

 mately 2,000 eggs were again taken at Sylvan Lake by Peterson and 

 Marcuson. Cave Lake in the Crazy Mountains was the recipient of 

 1,300 fish from this take. A collection of 488 adult goldens was 

 obtained from Sylvan Lake in 1981 by Marcuson and crew. Peterson 

 and Sholtz stripped 79,811 eggs from about 50% of the fish. 

 These eggs were treated with erythromycin and delivered to 

 Yellowstone River Trout Hatchery. They were later shipped to 

 Washoe Springs Trout Hatchery in Anaconda. Approximately 30,000 

 fish were stocked in Beartooth mountain lakes in 1982 from this 

 egg take. 



Golden trout populations, once fairly prevalent in approxi- 

 mately 50 lakes in Montana now reside in 14 habitats. The demise 

 of golden trout populations were of four causes: 1) inability to 

 sustain; 2) winterkill in marginal habitats; 3) hybridization 

 with other spring spawners and 4) inability to compete with brook 

 trout. 



Rainbow and cutthroat trout plants directly into golden 

 trout waters or in lakes upstream soon hybridized and the genetic 

 integrity of the pure golden trout was lost. Because of the 

 golden trout's elusiveness to observation, hook and line and 

 sometimes netting, fish managers or unauthorized transplanters ^ 

 assumed barrenness. One objective of this paper is to prevent ^' 

 further hybridization by describing the status and whereabouts of 

 the existing golden trout populations. 



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