U.S. Highway 12, built in the 1950's, shoved Lolo Creek south of the roadway into a fraction of its original floodplain, turning the creek into a channelized sluiceway that blows out in-stream habitat, facilitates ice movements and erodes the banks and channel. Throw in riparian loss, deforestation, dewatering, sedimentation and long stretches of riprap, and you have a wild trout fishery that is in poor shape.

In 2001,Trout Conservancy began organizing community members in Lolo (pop. 3000) to build long lasting ownership of the restoration and conservation of Lolo Creek. The Lolo Watershed Group was formed and has met since February 2003. With a primary goal of restoring Lolo Creek's wild trout fishery, the Lolo Watershed Group is dedicated to correcting the myriad problems that plague the stream- even though it may take many years. Trout Conservancy spent months producing both the "Lolo Creek Resource Assessment" and "Creeks of Lolo Creek" reports (both available in PDF by clicking names) to provide information of what land use in the Lolo Creek watershed has wrought and conservation recommendations. Now the hard work of watershed restoration begins.

Our first restoration project on Lolo Creek was at the Earl Tennant Recreation site about 18 miles west of Lolo. A joint project of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (MFWP), the Lolo National Forest (LNF) and Trout Conservancy, the Earl Tennant project was chosen because of easy access and trout habitat problems typical of Lolo Creek. Traci Sylte with LNF designed the project, and she and Ladd Knotek (fish biologist with MFWP) supervised structure placement and other channel work designed to add much needed habitat complexity. The finished project dramatically enhanced available trout habitat, already holds catchable wild trout, and is a great start to restoring Lolo Creek's wild trout fishery.