Spring Trout and early season Smallmouth:

WIth the discussion Turk brings to the surface, regarding the “big” river, high/low Spring waters, I now pose a similar synposis and ponderment.

Last Spring, SE MN Trout and Smallmouth streams/rivers suffered a severe blow from unusually high flooding.

Many medium to small streams were scoured. In turn, only about 50% of the regular insect hatches occurred, eliminating a large portion of the food source for Trout and Smallmouth and other fish that trout and smallmouth feed upon etc etc.

A few medium sized smallmouth streams received a hard blow, killing many crawfish, washing them out of their burrows. I immediately noticed a downturn in production, fishing for both trout, mostly noticeable, size of game fish!

I am anxiously awaiting for the arrival of Spring this season. Will we get those El Nino downpours, again flooding the streams and small rivers?? It’s all a crap-shoot for now.

For those of you who wade for trout and smallmouth, what has your experience been after severe Spring flooding, especially last year? Did you notice change?

I do know that with little Spring flooding we should have excellent trout fishing, more so for the avid flyfisherman. Reason being, lower streams mean more grasses lining the edges and bottoms. More places to hide in the gin cool/clear waters! Might have to have a couple water crest feeds this year eh? (Good salad)

I am yet to see what effects it will have on the smallies. I can’t wait to find out!!!

Good luck all!! Looking forward to another season!!

Keep the rods bendin’!!

Jim W

I thought the drought of the late 80’s (and early 90’S?) was much worse for the trout fishing than the floods of the last couple of years have been. During the early part of the drought the fishing was great, but at the end of the drought years and the first couple of years after the drought, I thought the fishing had declined considerably.

In the mid to late 80’s I used to fish Gribben and Duschee all the time. The watercress was thick and would almost dam the stream and make it 2 feet deeper than during the winter months. In some places, it would actually be impossible to fish because the watercress covered the stream from bank to bank. Many other places had a channel a a foot wide or less and these would be full of trout.

After a few years of drought and heat, the watercress died out on many streams and they held many less fish. The small streams seemed to be affected the most, but I also thought it had a big affect on streams like Trout Run and Rush creek.

I don’t know if this caused a large drop in the amount of food and caused the trout to die or if they all just moved down to the root river where there was more cover and food, but from my point of view the number or trout in the streams seemed to decline significantly.

I have had pretty good fishing for trout the last couple of years although I don’t get out nearly as often as I used to. The numbers have seemed about the same although the size isn’t as good as it used to be. I know many people have complained of this same problem, but for me it might just be the lack of time to explore and find the streams that are the best each year. The size and number of fish varies immensely in streams from year to year based on hatches, stocking, and localized problems and I used to fish often enough to figure that out. Now that my kids are older and playing sports, I don’t have the time to do that anymore. I tend to fish the same few streams every year now.

As far as smallmouth, I have felt like the fishing on the Zumbro river has gotten worse every year for about the last 10 so I wouldn’t say that the floods of the last couple of years have made a big difference. I only started fishing the Root for smallmouth the last couple of years so I can’t make a comparison to the fishing before the floods.

Very good points Mark!!! Most of my comments are in relation to the Root River, it’s non-designated waters and some of the designated streams as well. Size of fish on a lot of designated waters have indeed dwindled. IN part, over harvesting. I am hoping that LTM(large trout management) will take off and be successful, correcting the over all reduction of “trophy fish”.

Streams rebound very fast I believe more so during drought years. Increased vegetation, doesn’t mean less fish or fish moving down stream. It does make it hard for us to catch them a you mentioned!

One of my concerns in addition to the Spring flooding is the removal and lack of run-off inhibitors like CRP land etc.

I am not sure if you are aware(since you have just started fishing the Root River), but the the last couple years, especially last season, the Root took a considerable amount of time to clear after a hard rain. SOmetimes up to 3 even 4 weeks. Clearing, meaning more than just a couple feet of visibility.

Great stuff here!! Thanks for showing some interest Markp!!!! Sometimes I wonder if I am all alone out here. Maybe I should just keep my trap closed and enjoy this wonderful fishery all to myself?? Nahhh, that wouldn’t be any fun!! Keep commenting, keeping me in check. We are all students of the waters we fish! We will never cease the progression of knowledge we gain each time we step into the waters of SE MN streams and rivers!!!

Get in touch this season MArkp!

Keep the rods bendin’!!!

Jim W

I pretty much keep to the white water..but I did notice that the high water pretty much flooded the springs and the water flowed dirty all year….never seen that before?

Hi Jim, When I fished the “north branch” as a kid I can remember catching crabs in the shallows and rocks. Maybe now that I’ve “grown up” I really don’t even notice the crabs in the river like they used to be. Maybe they are there and I just don’t see them but, I do not see nearly as many as I did. I can also remember waiting forever for that darn river to clear after a heavy rain. So to me it is not unusual for it to take a while for it to clear now. We used to go to “Chuck’s” hole, catch 20 smallies and keep 8, but we didn’t always catch fish. Some days were really dogs for fishing. We may have made four trips to the hole and only really caught fish one time. That in comparison to the last few years I really don’t see a big difference one way or the other. I may go and catch 30 fish one day and a week later, nothing! I must say though that I have been catching a large number of first year fish the past two years. I have also caught quite a few 2-3 pounders. I did find last year to be a little slower but with numbers of the smaller smallies. SOOOOOOOOOO I guess things have not changed a great deal for me through the years except for adding walleyes to the root menue now. JLK