8-24 Vermillion River

Got out for a couple hours last night in the park in Farmington. Managed a couple small browns, a sucker, a 6lb range Northern, and this nice 17.5″ male brownie.

Nice, what were using for bait?

Been a while since I fished for trout, but that is a nice brownie.

What did you do with the sucker? Cant say I would do it, but I guess they are good smoked.

“It could taste like pumpkin pie but I wouldn’t know cuz I’d never eat the filthy motherlover”- Winnfield

Crawlers never fail but, I got the Nordern on a little sucker colored Rapala. Very fortunate I hooked him right too. I hate losing $7 lures on fish that aren’t supposed to be there

Nice fish!
Is it a pond or a stream in the park?
I have never made it up that way to fish. I stay down here in se mn but need to make it up to goodhue county to try new water.

River, I’ve just seen more and more northerns in there over the years. Apparantely the sucker population is helping them strive? Also, Dakota County next one up

Its nice to see the Vermillion River making a come back in fishing for the community. As a little boy some 50 years ago I also fish it. I remember catching many suckers in the 6 inch range and saving them for my dad. He would use them for pike fishing. At that time I believe that was the only fish in the river. It’ made a great come back. As a kid I put many hours on that river from Empire to south of Hastings. It was a good time for me and my friends.- – fish333.- –
Oh! nice fish I will have to carve one of them some day.

Jon did you keep that northern? Northerns can wipe out a trout population in short order. Know of a brook trout stream in WI where DNR introduced pike to get the river back to it’s natural state. Big mistake.

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Jon did you keep that northern? Northerns can wipe out a trout population in short order. Know of a brook trout stream in WI where DNR introduced pike to get the river back to it’s natural state. Big mistake.

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That wouldn’t be the Beef (Buffalo)River would it? Or have they managed to make the same mistake more than once?

It really would be a little too late. Everytime I go now I catch at least one and see dozens more. It’s very depressing to see but hopefully the bigger trout aren’t that affected? Everytime we get a big rain they really seem to go on the chew. I’ve been meaning to ask the local conservation officer whose idea it was to put them in there or maybe it wasn’t anyones idea they just migrated up over the falls IDK but it really sucks however they got there

In the case of the Vermillion I understand way back when it used to be a very productive brook trout stream. Some will argue that trout are not indigenous to the Driftless, they were introduced – German and Scottish browns.

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That wouldn’t be the Beef (Buffalo)River would it? Or have they managed to make the same mistake more than once?

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Not the Beef/Buffalo River. Send me a PM if you are really curious. I wish I could tell you however it would reveal another hot spot I cannot share with the masses. The particular river in question did have northern reintroduced by the DNR which was a huge mistake. They were wiping out the brookies in short order. Landowners I talked to did their best to harvest the northerns but that was not enough. Eventually the river had to be poisoned, all fish killed, and then trout reintroduced.

As for V, sure the biggies will likely survive but they are also the brood stock and my guess is a SMALL percentage of fingerlings survive with big predators — northerns AND big trout. So the best thing to do IMHO is to KEEP those northerns. If you don’t like them I bet somebody else does — family or neighbor.

Thanks for listening to my rant.