By Josh Margolis
HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – The Hill County Commission met with representatives from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and Great West Engineering on Monday to discuss a proposal to place a Fishing Access Site at Smitty’s Pond.
The pond is located between the Milk River and the railroad tracks on the west side of Havre, and FWP Region 6 Fisheries Manager Steve Dalbey says they have several programs available to help with funding.
“We’ve got a number of programs to establish access in here. A fishing access site is probably the one that we will look at. There’s also the Community Pond program that would be available here, there’s also some private land access agreements that are on the table as well. So we’ve got some tools to work with as far as making this a legitimate access point. However … before we would invest in habitat and any kind of enhancement in Smitty’s Pond, access would have to be established and agreements would have to be in place.”
Dalbey said dredging the pond would be expensive and likely not feasible for this project in the short-term, but there are other things they can do to make it a quality fishing site.
FWP Fisheries Biologist Cody Nagel said that fish that are in the pond could northern pike, croppy and perch, and said the site would likely be geared towards children.
“One of the main reasons Smitty’s Pond is a good place is it’s close enough that kids can ride their bikes to it,” added Commissioner Mark Peterson. “They can ride over top of the viaduct so they don’t have to fight the railroad tracks down the road and fish for a couple hours and ride bikes back. It’s an ideal location, it’s close to town. So if somebody wants to take the kids fishing for an hour or two, it’s handy.”
FWP Fishing Access Coordinator Dustin Ramoie suggested a management agreement with Hill County to help things move along.
“The property there is owned by Hill County. To streamline things, we like to use some kind of a management agreement or an MOU with the County. They will maintain the land interest and we will have an agreement with them to manage the site, manage the infrastructure that we install, and operate it as an FAS. We do 20-25 year agreements in situations like this. That way, when we spend money on the infrastructure, we make sure that we get good longevity and life out of the infrastructure. It works really well, it’s a great partnership, that the County would hold the land interest and we would be the partner that specializes in site management, people management, and management of the infrastructure.”
Ramoie said that the access site should be handicap accessible, adding that once the County ensures they have legal and physical access to the site, they will visit the site and get a concept plan together.
Matt Morris of Morris Land Surveys said the access road on the east side of the pond is likely BNSF property without an easement for Hill County. Morris said he would check to verify this, and if accurate, the County says they will work to get an easement.
Portions of the land around the pond are privately owned. Local landowner Virgil Simonson says he has allowed people to fish on his property and is thrilled about this project, but it may take some work to get other landowners that may be worried about ‘riffraff’ on board.
“I think if you work with people, people are pretty decent. A lot of these issues – yeah, there’s going to be a small amount of that – where people leave their trash. But just put signs up just like they do in parks and everything else. Pack it in, pack it out. A lot of people respect that and we know a lot of people that respect our end of it. We don’t have a lot of problems with these issues that some of these people think they are gonna have by granting access … I would love to be able to see people come out here, bring their families out, and enjoy something this close to town … A lot more people would love to come over to fish this if these people over here would stop running them off.”
Ramoie said that FWP have a high level of interest in making this proposal a reality.
“We have a pretty high level of commitment to working with you guys to get something done there. There’s a good level of excitement behind this project. We’ve gotta secure legal and physical access, then we can start the ball rolling with some ideas. Then we look at, as we start getting feasibility on the ground, we start looking at funding options.
Dalbey said this will likely be a phased project, beginning with simply establishing the FAS, then working in the future to invest and enhance it. Once FWP puts together a plan and commits to helping fund the FAS, the proposal would go out for public comment. This is not expected to take place for at least a year.
