HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – At the end of February, The Fresno Chapter of Walleyes Unlimited dropped about
150 old Christmas trees into Fresno Reservoir to help improve the spawning habitat for perch and other fish. Chapter President Nate Molstad says that the fish are using the structures, and this is the third year of the project.
“We did about 150 trees this year, so it’s a little more than what we’ve done the past couple years. This is the third consecutive years we’ve done the project…we actually have some trees left that we plan to do when the ice comes off the reservoir…. habitat projects that we’re going to do here, probably in May.”
Molstad says they are looking to expand the project, since there isn’t a lot of fish habitat in the reservoir.
“We’d like to expand the project, we might look to some other Walleye Chapters to try and get some more trees, we might reach out to Great Falls and some other communities, see if we can get more. We’ve kind of probably tapped out with what Havre and the local communities will provide. We’ve been around that 125-150 trees. We’d love to have it grow, and so, yeah we might try to expand our area and try to get some more habitat.”
Molstad says they keep adding tree bundles to different areas of the reservoir and plan to add some to deeper water this year.
