The effort to remove non-native fish species from Flathead Lake

On a boat on the southern half of Flathead Lake, a small tribal fishing crew is waging a slow battle. As gears turn, a carefully placed gill net is hauled into the boat. Mostly lake trout and whitefish are tangled in the net, writhing in the open air. Crewmembers untangle the fish and toss them into their respective bins, removing them from the lake’s population and moving one step closer to accomplishing their goal: restoring the populations of native westslope cutthroat trout and bull trout in the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi.