Bob Capron
Cody, Wyo. Retired Oil Worker, Carpenter

A lifelong resident of Wyoming, Capron urged his Trout Unlimited chapter to start a fish--rescue operation to prevent entrainment—fish becoming trapped and eventually dying in irrigation canals after the watering season. Each fall, volunteers walk the miles of ditches and, using electroshocking, safely remove some 3,000 trout. As a more permanent solution, the group is also installing deterrent screens.

When I was younger, one of my uncles was a manager for one of the irrigation districts that we salvage fish from today. So I've known about fish loss pretty much all my life.

We've been actively trying to rescue trapped fish for about 20 years. It's a long day's work, but it's also quite rewarding. During our best year so far, we rescued 3,600 trout. Still, we know that unfortunately this is only a small part of the big picture. Back in 2007, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department did an entrainment study on one of the canals and estimated that, over the course of a season, 50,000 fish entered the canal. Of that 50,000, there were somewhere right in the neighborhood of 10,000 trout. Multiply that by every year, every irrigation season…

Our ultimate goal is for the fish to never enter the system in the first place. The best way we know how to do that is with fish-deterrent screens. We've been working with Game and Fish on this and we have installed five around the Big Horn Basin. Contrary to what some people think, there's very little maintenance to them.

I fish a lot in the Shoshone River system, and one of my goals is to restore some of these fisheries back to what they used to be 50 years ago. I've got eight grandkids. And I'd like to leave something here in Wyoming for them to enjoy.

—As told to Tom Tiberio