S.E. MN Trout Fishing

O.K., Bear with me and please think about this. First of all I am a hook and release fisherman. I used to think that a good outing was when I could come home with my limit! I also do not think that it is wrong for someone to catch and keep a legal limit of trout. Now we have been led to believe that with regulations on trout streams that the fishing will be even better than it has been. I have gone along with these regulations without questioning them. I am 67 years old and have fished trout since the age of four. I now have the following observations and doubts about our present regulations. They may not be correct but this is what I see. First of all the idea of barbless hooks is great. You really do not need a barbed hook to keep bait on or to keep a fish on and the releasing is easy if you want to. Second of all, and very important, is that the idea that we do not need to do planting of brown trout because they will naturally produce is not correct. With the early washouts in March that have been occruing in the last 7 years or so, the “reds” are being washed out which equals no natural reproduction. Maybe I should state, “limited reproduction”. The areas of fishing regulations that have slot limits or no keeping should be reduced or eliminated. Why? Simply because the catch as you can for a legal limit areas are being so concentrated with fisherman that if the fishing is good they will be havrested so much to deplete the fish in those areas. Did anyone of you drive around and watch the huge number of fisherman on the regular areas on the opening? I mean I counted close to 135 cars on the Main Branch of the Whitewater from Beaver to Elba. Also, maybe a larger number of cars and fisherman from Elba to the last parking lot on the Fairwater Hill parking area on the north branch. Now these people are not dumb. You can buy a combination license for husband and wife for a nominal fee. You can then have your 5 kids fish for free and all your take on a five fish limit is legal. Go way back and you will find that there was at one time an early open season in March to reduce the opening day problem that was stated that the old opening of the first day closest to the first day in May meant that 80% of the fish were taken on that day. So with all these regulations where do we now stand? Thanks for this site to open some questions. JJ

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So with all these regulations where do we now stand?

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That’s an answer with many parts. I did not venture out on Saturday, and usually I never go out on the harvest opener for the 135 car reason. I trout fish because it’s a true passion; harvest has nothing to do with why I fish. I fish because I enjoy being outdoors not in the presence of 135 other cars. If you ventured out on Saturday, good for you as you had a beautiful day to fish. The harvest opener is my favorite and least favorite day of the trout season, for obvious reasons.

To get to the possible answers to your question, the catch and release, as well as slot limitations have been working on a few streams. The catch and release reg. on the Middle Branch of the WW appears to be working, but that area also needs stocking as there is little in the way of suitable habitat for consistent reproduction. I know it has been working on the upper stretches of those sections as well.

The North Branch has declined, IMO, in recent years, but I don’t blame the regulation neceessarily. I blame water quality and the many washouts as you have referenced as being a main cluprit. Streams definitely cycle, and this stream appears to be a down cycle right now. Is stocking the answer to rejuvenate the river? Possibly.

I’m all for moving the harvest season to what Wisconsin does: harvest for lakes and inland trout streams are on the same weekend. Make people make a choice as to where they want to bonk fish.

FWIW,
D.A.

SM,

I have never heard the DNR say that they were going to quit or even reduce the total number of brown trout stocked in SE MN streams. As a matter of fact the only changes in stocking that I have heard of as a result of the Large Trout Management plan (which the special regs are a portion of) are less stocking of trout on some of the special regulations streams so that there are fewer trout that will then be able to grow larger, and MORE of the catchable sized trout will be stocked in those streams that do not have special regs.

It’s way too early to know the results of the special regs. The hatches have been very poor the last 2 or 3 years so the numbers are down in all the streams in the area. I can’t imagine that we will ever get a majority of watersheds that can support a self sustaining population of wild trout in SE MN, and I don’t think the DNR expects they will ever get to the point they can quit stocking either. At least I have never heard that expressed.

You’re correct about the March opener in years past. It certainly took away the circus atmosphere that existed in the May opener they had before that. The April opener was sort of a compromise to protect the over harvest of large fish that occured due to the March opener and give people a longer season. Give things a few weeks and as you know the crowds will thin out. As long as we have a catch & keep opener that occurs before the walleye opener and during nice weather, it will always be crowded.

Thanks for your input. Check it out. Some streams have not been stocked for some long periods. Some of my information comes from the head of the Crystal Springs area by the name of John Huber. I appreciate any input to my serious questions. John Huber gave this info on the Jan. meeting for winter fishing which is held at WW St. Park every year. I do not have the solutions but unless we ask questions it will never get better!

FWIW, before I presented at the last Hiawatha TU meeting on nymph fishing, the DNR gave us their annual spiel about the current state of affairs, particularly on the ten streams that they collect data on yearly going back to the early 90’s. Adult fish populations are down on almost all of them with the exception of two. One of those two has a slot limit.

Steve Klots, a great guy from teh Lanesboro fisheries, talked about how weather patterns and trends int eh past five years have severly affected the age class of adult trout that they are seeing (or not seeing). We’ve had some heavy periods of flooding, as well as periods of lower than normal flows, which definitely will result in those fry having a larger time surviving, as well as the biomass (all food particles) remaining stable enough for those fish to survive and grow.

Throw in some very liberal land use practices and tiling of wetlands and farmlands, and silt ends up everywhere. Think about how we live in a high demand ethanol era and the demand for farmers to not have any land just lying fallow bu to have it in as much corn as possible.

There are a lot of variables to consider, and while there is no one right answer to trout populations, there are certainly lots of things to consider that effect our coldwater ecosystems.

D.A.

SM,

You are correct in saying that there are streams that have not been stocked for a long time. These streams have been able to sustain themselves in the past with natural reproduction. The populations in these streams has always flucuated based on the success of previous years hatches. Having 2 or 3 bad years in a row as we have had lately will have a big effect on the populations in those streams. Just as having 2 or 3 good years in a row can produce excellent fishing. These streams can bounce back awfully quickly if we can get a good year class.

I would suspect (I certainly don’t know) that if there were enough bad years that the DNR would stock those streams with some fingerlings to supplement the remaining trout. Unfortunately raising trout is an expensive undertaking and with a limited budget that seems to keep getting cut or at best staying even that would just mean less trout stocked in other streams.

Trying to protect the watersheds so that floods aren’t as big and damaging would be the best thing that could happen to the streams. This would help produce better hatches and reduce the need for stocking in many streams. This in turn would allow the DNR to have enough money to appropriately stock those streams that don’t have enough or any natural reproduction.

There is “potential” for the special regulations to help in this regard also. If catch & release or slot limits allow more trout to reach spawning size, then even in some poor years there may be enough recruitment of young trout that along with the reduced harvest could ensure an adequate population. Since those streams would not need to be stocked, it would allow the available trout to be stocked in those streams that need it most.

It’s a complicated problem with many variables and the DNR is trying to manage streams using the variables they have control over. The different special regulatios are just a few of the many variables and hopefully after a few years it will show that those are valuable tools.

Thanks for sharing your opinion and I hope you have a good season. I sure wish I could get out more vs sitting here reading others reports. I guess I should have thought of that when I was going to college so I could have become a teacher and had the summer off to fish.

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Thanks for sharing your opinion and I hope you have a good season. I sure wish I could get out more vs sitting here reading others reports. I guess I should have thought of that when I was going to college so I could have become a teacher and had the summer off to fish.

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I teach because the money is so good. .

D.A.

There are a couple more things that come into play in the ag scene also. For years New England bureaucrats insisted on continuing to give a subsidy based on data dating back well over 50 years (totally irrelavant today) to dairy farmers there which forced a lot of dairy farmers in SE MN and WI out of business because they couldn’t compete. So pasture land and hay land was converted to row crops. To make matters worse there is very little soil conservation practiced in the rolling topo of SE MN (as in terraces) so you have fertilizer, insectide and herbicide running free into streams. I don’t necassarily blame farmers for this although they are losing tons of valuable topsoil but have very little incentive otherwise to make changes.

On a related note two years ago a friend took me fishing downstream from Parsley bridge on Hwy 52 south of Chatfield. At the first large turn down less than a mile, there’s a gravel pit between the river and a cornfield. To make sure the gravel pit didn’t get any runoff someone made a ditch so runoff from the field would run directly into the river. That is just wrong in every way! I immediately contacted the DNR in Rochester who in turn was to contact MPCA. It would be interesting to see if anything was ever done.

By the way DA, you had my son in AP english in 2000-2001 and he thought highly of you. He’ll be joining the Air Force in less than 3 weeks. PM me if you want more info about that. It would be an encouragement for him to hear from you before he leaves.

Thanks for your resonses. To D.A. “no I did not go out on the opening to fish”! I have not done that for years! I just drove around to see how mad this opening date is. One thought that I had was if we went back to an opening date in March 1st it would mean that the conditions would not be very good for catching and it might cut down on the “hoards” on the opening day as it stands. JJ

They DNR got rid of the March 1st catch & keep opener after just a few years (3?) because it was depleting the resource. There just aren’t enough trout to allow harvest for that long. The only thing that would help get rid of the hoards of people while protecting the trout populations would be to move the catch & keep opener to the same day as the walleye opener. I would love to see that happen, but I doubt if it will.