Anonymous tip leads to recovery of water-quality device streamside along Big Hole River

An anonymous tip Tuesday afternoon led to the discovery of a missing water-quality monitoring device submerged in mid-August in the Big Hole River near Dewey.

The device, valued at more than $10,000, was found stashed in streamside willows about 10 feet above the waterline. Wade Fellin, a lodge owner, fishing outfitter and co-organizer of Save Wild Trout, found the device, known as a sonde, after receiving the anonymous tip.

The tip followed publicity earlier this week about the missing sonde and its value.

Sam Flynn, an assistant for Save Wild Trout’s lead scientist Kyle Flynn, Ph.D., adjusts the mount for a sonde, a water-quality measuring device, on the banks of the Big Hole River at the Jerry Creek Fishing Access Site on Aug. 15.

JOSEPH SCHELLER, The Montana Standard

“My sense is that it had been returned and placed in the willows,” Fellin said.

Scientist Kyle Flynn, Ph.D., was hired by Save Wild Trout to lead a team researching possible causes of, and solutions for, declining trout populations in the Big Hole River and other rivers in the Jefferson River Basin.

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