Great News for Montana Fishermen: Fishing Restrictions Lifted

In the last few days, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has lifted fishing restrictions on three Montana waterways.

Earlier this week, FWP announced the lifting of the restrictions on the Blackfoot River and part of Upper Rock Creek.  Today, restrictions were lifted for part of the Sun River.

Only part?

According to the announcements, the entire Blackfoot is now open to fishing.

As for Rock Creek, if I'm looking at the right river, it's in western Montana, near St. Regis.  Restrictions were lifted from where the West and Middle Rock Creek meet and goes all the way to Stoney Creek, which again, if I'm looking at the right one, is west of Phillipsburg.  The rest of Rock Creek was not under any restriction.

The Sun River restriction was from where Muddy Creek runs into the Sun River (south of Vaughn) to the Highway 287 bridge (north of Gilman).

What were the restrictions and why were they there?

All three waterways were under what MT FWP calls 'hoot-owl' restrictions, which prohibits fishing in the restricted area between 2pm and midnight.

The restrictions were triggered by water temperatures.  Now that temperatures are cooling down, that's no longer a concern, hence the lifting of the restrictions.