We just got word from the plant that they plan to begin discharging warm water within 12-24 hours. I don’t know how quickly the ice conditions will deteriorate, but between that and the warm weather forecast for the next week or so they may change dramatically and potentially rapidly.
Please use extra caution when recreating in the Upper Pool 4 area.
As of this morning the ramps at Hoksila and Roschen were both ice free. Yesterday (Wednesday 11-29-20232) we launched at Frontenac to download fish tracking receivers and had to break 1/4″ of ice for about 7 miles. There was thin ice from Hoksila up to Point no Point where we encountered a ~1″ ice sheet and didn’t break any further. By afternoon the Hoksila area up to long point looked to be clear with only floating patches. Not sure about refreeze at Frontenac or the status of WI side launches, but I doubt the thicker sheet we encountered went away, and it may have slid downstream.
Hope that helps.
Nick
The registration was simply a way to prevent duplicate entries via e-mail verification, but was quickly recognized as a hindrance to easily being able to provide information.
The folks managing the survey changed the requirement today and it no longer requires registration to submit your input.
Nick
My profile photo is actually of a pike. The heaviest one I have ever sampled in fact and it was from Lake Pepin (42.5″ and 27.75lbs if I remember correctly) which made it heavier than a 48 incher I sampled once on the Canadian border.
As for Muskies in Pool 4 we see them occasionally. I have never sampled one in our gear, and every time I thought we had one electrofishing it turned out to be very large pike, but the commercial seines (particularly down at the bottom of the lake) occasionally sample them. SO far of the say 2 dozen or so I have had reported to me in the 11 years I have been on Pool 4 almost all of them have been ~30 inches long. Our best guess it they are primarily originating from stocking in the Chippewa by the WI DNR.
That being said we have had an occasional acoustically tagged Muskie from the St. Croix show up on our array and about 8-9 years back a very large muskie head was found in Pool 5 I believe so there are likely a few transient fish our there. I doubt that we have a breeding population in Pool 4, but if we ever stumble into a large one or numbers of them they will show up in my reports.
I haven’t seen anything too wild in the nets on Pool 4. During sampling American Eels that we usually get electrofishing are about the rarest. We have had a few Pacu caught by anglers (almost certainly from illegal aquarium releases) and while I was sampling in college we electrofished a blue and black Plecostomus on a river in Iowa (also almost certainly an aquarium release).
As far as Silver and Bighead Carp go. We know there was movement during the high water in 2019. We had one snagged by an angler near Red Wing that was entered into our creel and collected by our invasive carp staff. We have also taken part in several multiagency efforts to find and remove them called MUMs where MUM stands for Modified-Unified Method (see more about that here Modified-Unified Method (MUM) . To date other than the fish in the creel we have not captured a Silver or Bighead Carp in Pool 4 using our standard sampling gear. Most have come from commercial operations or targeted efforts by our Invasive Carp Team who are typically using methods similar to commercial anglers like large seines etc. If you have more specific questions about Invasive Carp I recommend contacting Grace Loppnow [email protected] the MN DNR Invasive Fish Consultant as she is likely to have a better overall perspective.
See attached for figures that show the hydrograph information I discussed in the previous post.
Thanks for the question about year classes. First off I want to apologize for whatever happened to those figures when converting to pdf attached are jpegs of how they are supposed to look. That may make you less surprised by the results.
That being said water levels are one of the strong drivers for year class on Pool 4 with both Walleye and Sauger benefitting from a timely (typically mid April) flood pulse.
One of the differences is that walleye seem to do better when the high water is extended. This is likely due to their preferred spawning areas (at least in Pool 4) consisting of terrestrial vegetation that is inundated by floodwater. The longer that water stays around the more developed the fry can get in that relatively low flow area with ample food and cover from predators.
Sauger on the other hand seem to prefer channel borders. This means they can likely more consistently get good reproduction as floodwaters aren’t necessary to access their spawning area (but if high waters don’t occur they have to share this area with the Walleye), but fry hatched in the channel are potentially susceptible to being washed away in high flow conditions so previous studies indicate that a rapid drop in water levels post spawn benefits Sauger production.
Now that we have those basics for Pool 4 covered we can see that extremely high water levels in 2018 and 2019 definitely favored walleye. The hydrographs were not as good for Walleye in 2020 and 2021, but remember fish grow and mature fast in Pool 4 so many of those fish from 2018 will be spawning in 2020 and 2021. To many spawners can suppress production of a good year class (indeed we have some evidence of that in Pool 4), but my initial take is there were just more Walleyes out there in 2020 and 2021 that lead to better numbers.
The rapid drop in water levels is pretty apparent in the 2020 hydrograph (makes sense the Sauger spawn was good) and similarly the higher and more extended flood peak 2019 was bad for the Sauger year class. The hydrograph in 2018 had a double peak, though the drop is later than I would have thought would benefit Sauger production. I will follow up this post with some marked hydrographs to illustrate my points.
Sauger-Year-Class-Strength-Pepin.jpg
Walleye-Year-Class-Strength-Pepin.jpg
Sorry for duplicate file attachments.
Typically we use April 15th as our benchmark for Walleye spawning. On Pool 4 the best Walleye spawning conditions seem to be high or rising water levels by April 15th with an extended period of high water and slow drop following. The theory behind this is that Walleye seem to prefer spawning in flooded terrestrial vegetation in Pool 4 and the high water gives them access to that while the continued high levels and slow fall mean that eggs have time to hatch and even allow for some fry growth before they have to leave the cover of vegetation (both from predation and flow) and enter the flow of the river. Currently we have strong year classes of Walleye from 2018, 2019, 2020, and maybe 2021. The additional vegetation that grew along the margins of the river in the low water of 2020 and 2021 may provide the Walleyes with additional spawning habitat at lower than normal water levels in 2022, but we won’t know until we sample those young of year fish this summer and fall.
Sauger like moderately high water for spawning, but tend to spawn on the edges of the main channel so high water is less important. They need the increase in flow to keep their eggs clear of sediment, but once the fry hatch since they are already in/near the current they benefit from a quick drop in flows after hatching to prevent them from being washed away etc. In 2020 we saw conditions just like this (see image: arrow indicates rapid drop in discharge at LD3 after mid-April that is associated with successful Sauger spawning) and preliminary estimates place the 2020 year class of Sauger as the 3rd highest recorded since annual sampling began in 1965. As always I am happy to answer any questions folks might have and can be reached via phone or e-mail.
Nick
LD3-2020-Hydrograph_LI-scaled.jpg
Hey Shockers,
If what you are catching are about 4-5 inch fish those are this years young of year. I also have been catching them in certain areas. When I have found them they are bunched up and as aggressive as a school of piranha attaching baits over and over until one gets hooked.
We were limited in our ability to do field work this summer due to restrictions on certain gear types and inability to distance, but our seining data seemed to indicate reasonable recruitment this year. Our gill netting in the first week of October will give us a better idea of how those fish grew and what numbers we have going into this winter.
Nick
Sorry I missed Brian’s comment earlier.
I can work up a more detailed explanation of what we know, or at least what we have documented about White Bass populations in the Upper Mississippi if folks would like to see that. In the mean time YES multiple long term data sets have documented decreasing numbers of White Bass. I have attached a few of the documents we put together to provide information about different species as part of our regulation review open houses a few years back. I would be happy to try and answer any questions folks might have after reviewing them. We are still largely working from home and rapidly approaching our busiest field season so calling me will not be the most efficient method of contact. I can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] and if there is enough interest I can put together a more complete evaluation of the available data to post here.
Nick
This link will take you to daily values for the LD3 tailwaters all the way back.
It updates daily.
By the way it is a long csv file going back to the 30s so you probably want to open on a computer not a phone. And 6/1/2019 was 680.11 ft
various data sets are available for all the Locks and Dams and other locations as well at this link.
https://www.mvp-wc.usace.army.mil/Data.shtml
Hey Chuck,
The link below is to another post on IDO about the Iowa efforts to bring their Walleye Regulation up to the Minnesota border on the Mississippi. There will likely still be differences that occur at the Iowa/Minnesota border you need to be aware of. That is one of the difficulties of lateral management of a longitudinal resource. Early in the process we worked with Iowa and they expressed an interest in extending the slot limit they use for walleye to the Minnesota border. In an effort to give that regulation a “hard” border we applied it to our short section of Pool 9 as well bringing it op to LD8.
I am sure there are opportunities to express to Iowa your interest in similar or matching regulations in that section of river.
Keep your eyes open for postings or news releases from Wisconsin as they are more likely to explain the details for the WI/IA shared border. If you have further questions don’t hesitate to contact me.
Nick
At this point there is no active effort to review the regulations for the St. Croix portion of the border. The East Metro or Hinkley Area Fisheries offices would be the places to contact if you want to express support for a review.
To address the issue of launching in areas with different regulations: like in similar situations elsewhere in the state you can proceed directly back to your access point without stopping if you have to traverse an area with more restrictive regulations than what you were fishing under.
Mississippi River Regulations Implementation
New information about the regulations is available at the link below.
We got word today that the changes have been approved in Minnesota though there are still some procedural steps before implementation.
We got the new regulations approved to be printed in the upcoming regulations book prior to a known implementation date so there will be a statement in the book saying to check the online version for a finalized implementation date (no one will be doing anything illegal by following the new regulations so if you can’t check follow the published ones and you will be fine).
As far as I know the earliest that Wisconsin can have its regulations in place is April 1st, but they have language that will allow them to go into place when Minnesota’s regulations take effect if that date is later.
Both states will be putting out a press release once the implementation date(s) are finalized. I will also make sure to put a post out here once we have finalized dates.
For those in the Rochester area if you have more questions one of our conservation officers and I will be presenting at the Walleye Searchers meeting in Rochester at the Elks Lodge 7:00pm on February 3rd. My presentation will be a quick update of Lake Pepin/Pool 4 fish monitoring numbers and likely some extensive Q&A about populations and regulations. Someone from the club can correct me if I am wrong, but typically the public has been welcome for this meeting.
Thanks,
Nick
No problem Joe, I struggled with getting the daily info for LD3 and Lake Pepin to put in my annual reports for a few years when they closed their websites until this one came back online.
Generally seems to be better now.
Good luck fishing.
Nick
This website will have what you want, but is map based so unfortunately hard links to specific output doesn’t seem to be possible.
http://water.usace.army.mil/a2w/f?p=100:1:0:#
From the splash page with the picture of the dam click Map in the top right. From there click on the dots through several levels until you have selected the gauge you want. As you click on smaller areas a complete list of available gauges will appear on the right side of the screen. For LD3 when you get to that level on the map it will display 2 options Lock and Dam 03 Tailwater and Mississippi R Lock and Dam 03. You want to select Mississippi River Lock and Dam 03.
That selection will show you a graphic of the dam with current info on it. To get your time series select Time Series from the top tabs (near the middle), choose up to two outputs elevation and outflow are default and the timeframe (5 days is default, but can go back to around October of 2018 if I remember correctly). Longer timeframes will take awhile to “think” and if the computer doesn’t seem to be doing anything try changing a parameter to force it to recalculate.
If you are a data nerd and want to store the data itself of look at it in tabular format in Excel etc the little disk icon next to the camera icon in the upper right corner (see attached image) lets you download the data for the displayed period.
This is all clunkier than the old system, but is a bit more polished and has some advantages.
You can also go to this site to download a full data history for LD3 info, but you have to make the visualizations yourself.
https://www.mvp-wc.usace.army.mil/data/LockDam_03.Data.shtml
Hope this is helpful.
Nick
5-month-flow-history-LD3.jpg
Our website has been updated with the new contact information for all of our fisheries staff. The link below will take you to our webpage and the contacts tab has all the new phone numbers.
https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/areas/fisheries/lakecity/index.html
Thanks,
Nick
Gotta run for a meeting, so no long post today, but here is the link to the rule markup language posted with the text BK shared above.
https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/fisheries/rules/wi-mn_borderwaters_rule.pdf
I can try and address any questions either via e-mail or here over the next couple of days as I have time.
The link to the Rulemaking process page containing the text BK posted is here.
https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/input/rules/fisheries/mn-wi-fishing-regulations.html
Nick
As of noon today Baypoint is open with the docks in. Lake City has heavy equipment in working on clearing the parking lot at Roschen. I don’t know what their time frame is, but that is where their crew is working now.
The only access currently open in Lake City is the Lake City Marina. I believe their fee to launch is $9/day or $80/season, but I might be a bit off on the numbers. The city began cleaning up the debris from its parks in the last few days and I would assume the boat accesses will be next on the list if the water continues to drop. I will try to remember to post here when the Lake City Accesses open.
I have been monitoring around the lake on a weekly basis because the closure has suspended our ongoing creel twice this spring. Currently Everts, the Lake City Marina, and the farthest east ramp on the dike road to Nelson, WI are the only ones I know are open. Camp Lacupolis may be allowing boats to Launch, but you probably should call ahead. The ramp on the dike road puts you in an area with lots of submerged hazards and fast current near the bridges. Be very careful if you launch there. For that matter a lot of debris, relatively cold water, and high current in some locations remain on the river so care should be taken no matter where you launch.
Stay safe and enjoy your weekend.
You are right buschman that some of the data in the charts is extrapolated from a subsample. For instance of the 2260 Sauger that were sampled in that table I aged 1267 with otoliths, and applied those lengths to the others. The Walleye figure on the other hand is even tighter, because of the 611 fish included 590 of them were aged with otoliths leaving only about 20 fish (mostly Age1 fish based on the table) unaged.
Tag data does help us with age and growth information (for instance we had a paddlefish that was at large for ~20 years and only grew an inch or so), but is most useful for movement information which we don’t get from standard sampling conducted in the same location year after year.
Thanks in advance to any folks that take the time to accurately record measurement, location, and tag number data from a fish they capture and report to us. If it comes to me I try to provide a history of the fish both in table and map form if possible so folks can understand that they are an important part of the tagging studies we have ongoing.
Hey guys,
As mentioned earlier we prefer to use otoliths in our aging for reasons I will explain below.
I age between 800-1200 fish every year as part of the Large Lake Sampling program for Lake Pepin/Pool 4. It helps use to determine the proportional contribution of a year class to the fishery, understand growth rates, and to help monitor what types of environmental conditions (flood, hot, cold etc) produce good reproduction.
Fish structure aging began with scales, and for years that was the primary structure used by the MN DNR. They have benefits: they are easy to take and store, are non-lethal, and when pressed into acetate plastic they can be aged on a microfiche reader. The distance between annual rings (annuli) can also be measured to determine annual growth throughout the fish’s life.
Scales do have some drawbacks though. Annuli are produced when fish go through a period of slower growth often associated with stress and slower metabolism from winter (spawning and summer stress can also produce rings in different species). Because the scales are essentially expendable to the fish if they are in a situation where they are starving etc. they often reabsorb some of the minerals deposited in the scales. This results in the loss of outer annuli when the fish resumes growth (I always describe this as “shaking the etch-a-sketch” to those old enough to understand). This means that scales can be good for young fish, but if a fish is older (and therefore much more likely to have gone through lean times and wiped out some annuli) it has a tendency to under age them. I primarily use scales for largemouth and smallmouth bass that we sample with electrofishing (a non-lethal sampling gear).
For most species I prefer otoliths. Otolith are functionally the same as our inner ear to a fish and therefore are important in maintaining equilibrium and balance (important things if you live in a three dimensional world and need to catch other things to eat). Due to their importance even when starving fish rarely reabsorb the minerals from otoliths making them a good record for accurate ages especially in old fish (though researchers can even use otoliths to identify and track growth on a daily basis in larval fish). I use otoliths on all the fish I age from our gillnets because we strive to collect as much information as possible from the fish captured in this lethal gear. (Walleye, Sauger, White Bass, Gizzard Shad, crappie, Bluegill, bass, Rock Bass, etc)
One example of the structure choice making a difference is with White Bass. When we switched to otoliths from scales for White Bass we discovered that rather than the short lived cyclical panfish we thought they were White Bass in Pool 4 can grow to their late teens. Another use would be to compare growth between lakes. I have attached a comparison for walleye growth between Lake Pepin and Rainy Lake that I have posted before.
To age otoliths I prefer the crack and burn method, where I remove and dry the otoliths then crack them through the center with my thumb and toast them to golden brown over a candle flame. This turns the white surface into bands of black or brown and white kind of like when an egg white goes from clear to white when cooked. The otolith is then mounted toasted side up under a scope and a drop of baby oil gives a smooth surface to focus on (see photo).
We use the subsample we age to apply age ratios to the total sample and generate age-length-frequency tables (Walleye, Sauger, and White Bass) (attached)
Other structures that we use occasionally include: cleithra (northern pike), fin spines or rays (Musky, walleye, sturgeon, suckers), and jawbones (Paddlefish)
As always feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Nick
Pepin-ALF-Walleye-Fall-GN-Pepin-2011-2015-MandF.pdf
Pepin-ALF-White-Bass-Fall-GN-2011-2015.pdf
Pepin-ALF-Sauger-Fall-GN-2011-2015.pdf
Pepin-ALF-Walleye-Fall-GN-Pepin-2011-2015.pdf
Age_8_LI.jpg
Pepin-Walleye-Growth.pdf
That’s a good question. As I have pointed out many times at some of our UMRCC (Upper Mississippi River Conservation Committee) meetings where management folks from the 5 upper Mississippi River states get together, we are attempting to manage a longitudinal resource laterally. Ideally individual pools or groups of pools could be managed as blocks with all bordering states agreeing on a specific set of regulations for each.
1) The reality is that while not impossible interstate cooperation to that level would be difficult. If not at the staff level certainly at the legislative (state capital) level where separate rule or legislative language would likely have to be produced for each pool or group of pools. While often not directly affecting management of fish overlaying federal agency (Corps of Engineers, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Cost Guard) interests also influence activities on the river and partnerships with these groups, while very beneficial, can use a lot of staff time for environmental review, meetings, planning etc.
2) Additionally, there is often push back from the public who accuse state agencies of making rules and regulations too complicated and specific. For every person who wants highly tailored regulations there seems to be at least one who wants everything to be the same (particularly on bodies of water that are connected and navigable by boat by locking through).
3) In order to develop highly tailored regulations more fine scale monitoring of each pool would likely be necessary. In Minnesota we have one fisheries management office that covers the Mississippi River from Pool 3 to Pool 9. We have 1 staff member who covers Pools 3, 5, 5A, 6, 7, 8, and upper 9, 1 Large Lake Specialist (me) who covers Lake Pepin/Pool 4 (annual monitoring program), a supervisor, and staff of 2 additional management folks that fill out our crews for field work in addition to their inland duties. We also house a federally funded long term monitoring program that focuses on Pool 4 (Wisconsin has a similar team focused on Pool 8) though they are not focused on management, and 2 research scientists who occasionally work on river related projects. Other river states often have similarly low staffing levels relative to the number of acres of river they manage.
As you pointed out we did include a split at Lock and Dam 4 for Walleye and Sauger alone in one of our proposals. This was do to the extensive information we have showing that Pool 4 did not merit the concern for the sauger population expressed in lower pools.
Personally, I would love to work towards longitudinal management of the river which would likely include a unique section for Pool 4 or Pools 3 and 4 due to their unique features (Pepin) and highly interconnected nature, but don’t feel we should risk the good in pursuit of the great at this time.
Hey Tim,
I appreciate your interest in the regulations review and revision process. You are correct that when we talked about Walleye spawning and recruitment I pointed out that on Lake Pepin/Pool 4 we tend to see our biggest year classes of walleye produced during periods with relatively low stocks of larger fish. Specifically, work done in the early 2000s by Brian Ickes as part of his masters thesis looked at Walleye data collected on Lake Pepin/Pool 4 from 1965 to 1998.
What he found was that his statistical model explained 27% of the variability in walleye recruitment. If he removed a single outlier data point (1987 in this case) his base model explained 42% of the variability. So far these models used only Walleye older than Age-4 as spawners and used numbers of Age-2 fish captured 2 years later as a measure of recruitment. We all know however that rivers are complex systems so he attempted to look at other variables that might affect recruitment. Two of them were ultimately added to his model 1) the cumulative degree days in the previous August which explained another 16% of the variability (high temps in Aug likely reduce recruitment by adding stress during egg development) and 2) the minimum discharge in cubic feet per second (higher is better) during the spawning period which explained 10% of variability.
One of my predecessors updated this model to approximately 2010 and got the same basic results, and I am currently in the process of updating it again.
Interestingly, early indications are that the 2018 year class could be very good, with record catch rates of YOY walleye from both our trawl and fall electrofishing surveys. The average Lake City temperature in August (2017) was 66.81F (the second lowest in the last two decades), and the 2017 catch rate of walleye over age-4 was on the low end of what we have seen in the past decade.
I apologize for the lengthy response, but wanted to lay that out first. Now as to how that relates to our regulation proposals.
1) We have incredible amounts of data for Pool 4, but in general relatively poor (Walleye and Sauger) data for the remaining border water pools. Sampling difficulties and staff and time limitations mean that the lower pools receive far less Walleye/Sauger specific monitoring. Tailwater surveys that are done in the lower pools (primarily by the WI DNR) have documented YOY numbers below the average for 9 of the last 10 years for Sauger.
Ultimately we have to propose regulations for the entire Mississippi River border waters and though walleye and sauger regulations on Pool 4 were relatively low on our list of priorities (due to in depth monitoring) there were concerns about the lower pools and certainly a large amount of public concern, particularly about what was perceived to be excessive harvest of large fish.
One of the initial comments we received a lot was a recommendation to adopt the “Iowa Slot” (15” min with a protected slot 20”-27”, only 1 over 27”). I have some concerns about applying that regulation to Pool 4 both because of potential suppression of recruitment by high numbers of larger fish (described above), and the potential for increased summer mortality during warm water events like we experienced in 2012 (~2 weeks at 90+F surface temps). Larger fish in particular are more susceptible to mortality from these extended periods of warm water. The 1 over 20” regulation proposed for Walleye and Sauger allows some harvest throughout the population of mature fish, should act to spread out the harvest of those larger fish among more anglers during a hot “big fish” bite, and allows for harvest of a fish that would otherwise not survive release (deep hooked etc), a common criticism we hear about protected slots where all fish in a size range must be released.
2) Your second question involved the purpose of the proposed regulations. Each proposed change to a regulation has various purposes. In this case there is a large overarching goal behind our regulation review process. We wanted to evaluate regulations that were in most cases unchanged and unevaluated for 50 years to see if they fit with current management philosophies, reduce discrepancies between (MN and WI) and within (inland vs border waters) states, and to examine whether regulations were consistent with what the public was looking for from their shared resource. Through our two sets of meetings and electronic surveys (May and October) we received 850 and 1,125 responses respectively (~82,325 individual questions answered) with many additional written comments.
Additionally we wanted to look at some proactive changes that could potentially increase the resilience of our fisheries to changes that are occurring with pressure (technology and effort), climate (altered flood timing and increased heat stress), invasive species (bighead and silver carp, invertebrates, and diseases), and habitat (the pools are an aging reservoir system and loss of habitat means they are constantly getting smaller).
Most folks are familiar with how difficult it can be to “fix” a fishery that has failed. Often if regulations are used there must be extreme reductions to effectively recover populations. These are difficult to get the public to accept and generally even when successful take a significant amount of time to achieve their goals.
Our hope is to prevent the border water fisheries from developing these problems. Some of the regulations are designed to spread harvest out among individuals or over time (white bass), while others are designed to prevent over harvest by reducing bag limits to levels that creel surveys indicate are typically taken (catfish).
The Walleye and Sauger regulation proposals were designed to proactively buffer the system from changes mentioned above while allowing us to maintain opportunities like a continuous open season for anglers. The proposed regulations should distribute the harvest from a hot bite over time (number of days) and anglers, particularly the harvest of larger fish. The reduction in bag also seeks to address concerns about populations in lower pools without restricting anglers to bag limits below what they indicated they would accept in our surveys.
As usual I am happy to discuss any of these items further with folks if they are interested. My contact info should be listed below.
Second meeting is tonight Wednesday, Nov. 14, from 6-8 PM in Winona, MN at the Winona Middle School, 1570 Homer Road, Winona, Minnesota.
I just realized that folks who are not logged in cannot see the signature lines containing my contact info. Sorry I didn’t catch that earlier.
Nick Schlesser
Large Lake Specialist (Lake Pepin/Pool 4)
[email protected]
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
1801 S Oak St Lake City, MN, 55041
651-345-3365 ext 235
Last day for the survey. See link in previous post to comment.
