Nice fish DA. Glad to hear the baetis are starting. Hopefully I’ll be able to get out in late March or early April this year and get a good shot at some dry fly action.

Lew,

Sorry if you thought I was upset. I certainly wasn’t. I’m also not worried about you or most of the other people who frequent this site ruining a river by keeping every nice fish they catch. However, I’ve seen a few places ruined because someone posted the name of a river or stream online so I think it’s just best to not name locations. There are too many people out there who troll around looking for the next place to exploit because they harvested everything from the other places they’ve heard about. Seeing a few places get ruined just makes me sensitive to people listing locations. Therefore, I was just throwing out my suggestion for people to keep the locations to themselves.

Lew,

I’m hoping you don’t get an answer to that question. Posting locations online isn’t a very good idea. Especially for smallmouth which can easily be fished out in our SE MN rivers by just a few people who don’t practice C&R.

Unfortunately, yes . Hopefully it won’t be too many more years and I’ll have more days to fish.

Quite a few people have drown on the Mississippi this year. Most/all were in boats and did something stupid. Maybe the state government should pass a law that no one can boat on the Mississippi so that this won’t happen anymore. Using the same logic maybe we should outlaw hunting so that no one dies from getting accidentally shot while in the woods.

It’s very tragic that someone drown in FA, but it’s not the governments fault. People have to take some responsibility for their own actions in this country and not expect the gov’t to do everything for them. If we don’t, then we may end up with a gov’t that takes away everything under the guise of protecting us.

It’s a Shiner not a chub.

I fished it once about 10 years ago. It is a small stream with very little holding water. I don’t believe there were any trout in the stream at that time. I stomped on banks and poked sticks under a couple banks. Only thing I saw were a few suckers and chubs. I walked it all the way from the mouth to wear it runs under hwy 52.

Obviously this is just beating a dead horse, but you should only tell people about places you never plan to fish again. This applies to lakes, rivers, streams, and ponds. It especially means never put it on a public forum like this one. Posting it here or any other message board is the same as telling 1000 people. Any good spot will be worthless within a month.

A few years ago my son and I found a very nice smaller river to fish. I only told my fishing buddy who I swore to secrecy and since we both practice C&R it was no big deal. He took 1 other person there and swore that person to secrecy. That other person never told anyone the name of the stream, but when bragging about the fishing people of course asked where. He just said over near ‘city x’. Unfortunately there was only 1 river near city x so guess what happened. By the end of the year it was no longer worth fishing.

Same answer as everyone else, just thought I’d give another factual example.

My experience seems somewhat similar to your. I thought the NBWW was worse last year (2005) than it had been in previous years. I also fished it a couple of times this year and it seemed about the same as 2005. In 2005 the MBWW seemed poor enough that I didn’t even bother fishing it this year. Other people I have talked to have said the same thing.

The DNR has said that there have been very poor hatches the last few years. Since both streams are managed for wild brown trout, they do not get stocked. Therefore, a couple consecutive years of poor hatches could certainly cause a decline in numbers.

Good to hear that you managed to hook up with a few smallies. I used to have good luck on that stretch of the zumbro, but I didn’t fish it last year and haven’t fished it this year because like you I just hadn’t done very well on that stretch for a few years. Hopefully it is making a come back.

Looks like you 2 had a great day. Sure wish I could get out during the week more often. I imagine it’s too late for me to do that teacher gig!!!

Let’s see….how long before I can retire????

Not too many fishermen are going to tell where they catch their big fish, especially if it is caught in a location that could get fished out by 1 or 2 fishermen. It’s nice that people share the types of lures, colors, presentation, locations (wood, sand, rock), depth, etc. but as a general rule I don’t think it’s good to name the body of water.

Considering the fact that F.S. didn’t give the location the first time someone asked, I’m betting he won’t be sharing that information with us. There can be a lot of hard work involved with finding good rivers and lakes to fish and then to give that away on a public forum and possibly have all that hard work be ruined by a few people just isn’t a good idea. I have personally seen this happen because someone shared their location on a public bulletin board. There are plenty of people who just lurk around these fishing sites looking for this kind of information without ever sharing. It may feel you are talking to just the people who post here but that’s not the case.

Great fish F.S. I’m sure you earned that fish with years of work practicing your craft and lots of fruitless hours of exploration to find a few good spots like the one where you caught that beauty. The best chance of more people having the pleasure of catching that fish and others like it is to keep the location to yourself.

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.

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.

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.

My son and I fished the MBWW on a fairly nice day in March with almost the exact same results. He caught 1 fish on a spinner and I caught 0 fly fishing. I’ve done ok the other places I’ve gone. The water was perfect color for nymphing when I went.

It just seemed like the dead sea then too. The water had some tint so it wouldn’t be overly easy to see fish, but we never even saw another fish. Normally I would expect to spook a few and see the movement in those types of conditions.

I believe Jake’s question is “would YOU mount a trout caught out of Foster Arend knowing that it was a stocked fish and probably from their brood stock”. The answer for me is no. It just wouldn’t have much meaning for me. Now if I caught a brown trout in a SE MN stream that was probably stocked as a fingerling and had a chance to wise up to get to 25″ then I would probably do it.

That doesn’t mean everyone should feel that way, but that’s my answer.

I read on another website that Senator Steve Murphy has decided not to proceed with the bill to remove the special regulations from the Zumbro.

Thanks DA and anyone else who sent off e-mails to Sen Murphy and their representatives in support of the special regulations.

“The DNR usually wants eight to 10 years to fully evaluate such regulations, but under the compromise, the catch-and-release rules would have been in place for just five years.

The proposal would have special regulations through 2007, with a creel census that year, as well as electroshocking, followed by public hearings in 2008, he said.”

I would interpret the preceeding comments from the PB article to mean that the special regulations have only been in effect for 3 years and 2007 would be the 5th year when the DNR would do it’s sampling. Therefore, I don’t think the regs have been in effect long enough to determine whether or not they are improving the fishery. Smallmouth aren’t overly prolific, this part of the state is well known for spring floods that can wipe out a full years hatch, and smallmouth are slow growing. I assume those are the types of reasons that the DNR likes to wait 8-10 years to make an evaluation of the effectiveness of the regulations.

I also assume that since the reg’s haven’t been in place for 5 years yet that the DNR hasn’t done creel surveys and electro shocking to make a determination either. It seems a shame to drop the reg’s now before they have had a legitimate “chance” to improve the fishery. After having them in place for 3 years or so already it seems like waiting another 3 would be a decent comprimise. If they are dropped now nothing will have been learned.

I haven’t fished the Zumbro enough in the last 2 or 3 years to have much of an opinion on how the fishery is compared to 3-5 years ago. I used to fish it quite a bit, but at least for me the smallmouth fishing had been deteriorating on that portion of the Zumbro so I started fishing other locations more often.

I would be interested to hear others opinions on how the fishing has been in that stretch from the dam to zumbro falls over the last 5 years or so. Have the numbers seemed like they have been declining, improving, stayed about the same? How about the size?

Like I said, I thought the fishing had declined considerably before the special regs were extended to include the plunge pool and the stretch from the “green bridge” down to zumbro falls. What is everyone else’s impression?

I read the article in the Post Bulletin and it’s been awhile, but hopefully I will be able to state something close to what the article said. Basically some people from the area have formed a group to try to get the special catch and release regs from the zumbro dam to zumbro falls dropped. These regs were put in place with a plan to decide in 10 years whether they improved the numbers and size or not. At that time a decision would be made to extend, modify, or drop the regs.

Evidently this group met with the DNR last year and the DNR thought they came to an agreement with them to make a decision on the regs in 7(?) years instead of 10.

The group is currently trying to get the special regs dropped immediately. I believe they have a petition signed by some number of people and are working with area legislators to pass legislation that would force the DNR to drop the regs. I believe there was a quote from someone in the group that they think a bunch of people from outside the area forced this on the DNR and the local people.

I’m trying to do this from memory of reading the article which I believe was in the Post Bulletin at the beginning of the year, so my apoligies if I got any of this wrong.

I wasn’t planning to get too excited about this until I heard that the DNR was actually considering changing the regs back to catch & keep. I assumed there would be some meetings and a chance to comment at that time.

My personal opinion is that the Zumbro could use the catch & release regs right now. It seemed to be going downhill the last few years. Hopefully the legislators will stay out of the business of making fishing regulations as opposed to the professionals at the DNR, and the DNR will stand by the regulations they decided were needed in the 1st place. Otherwise, what’s to stop people from getting every special regulation in the state dropped.

ok Lew…now that the discussion is started, let’s hear your opinion.

I thought the fishing on the North Branch was worse this year than previous years also. The slot limit has been on that stream for a few years now and I personally didn’t see much of a difference over those years in the number of fish over 12 inches. I can’t really comment on the number of big fish (over 16) because I switched from fishing with live bait to fly fishing at about the same time the slot limit went on so I started catching less big fish everywhere because of that. The North Branch is not stocked with brown trout so it relies on natural reproduction. I think the reason the fishing has declined somewhat is because there have been a couple of poor hatches in recent years. Hopefully this years hatch will be better, but this fall was pretty dry so I don’t imagine the water flows are too great going into the winter.

Once school starts there won’t be so many people out during the week. Need to get those students and teachers back to work and give the rest of us a chance for some solitude when we take vacation!

yes, I am talking basically about the branches of the zumbro river and the branches of the root. I would be curious about the cannon river too, but I’ve never personally fished it. The numbers of larger samllmouth (14+”) that we have caught has been so significantly different this year than the last few that I figured it couldn’t just be FishinSmallies and I that are having this problem. Haven’t seen anyone else say much of anything so I was just curious.

I had mentioned in a different thread that my wife and I had fished around the green bridge with no luck. That’s probably what you remembered reading.

There hasn’t been much of a response from others about their impressions of the number of large smallmouth this year compared to years past. Must not be too many smallmouth fishermen around SE MN that frequent this board.

There were spring floods in 2003 and 2004 that seemed worse than the September flood last year so I would be surprised if that was the cause of a dramtic drop. F.S and I caught a lot of big fish over the last 2 years, but this year has been a different story. Over the last 2 years we routinely caught 15-18, even a couple 19″ fish. This year we have struggled to catch 14″ fish. I “think” most people release all their smallmouth bass so I would be surprised if there was a large change in the size structure of the fish based on that factor. At least not a sudden change.

I know this last winter was hard on the trout populations because of low water flows and anchor ice etc. I would think that would be a more likely cause. Of course it’s possible it’s just the weather this year, or maybe we just haven’t been as good of fisherman.

We were just curious if it’s just us, or if other people think there has been a drop in the population of large smallmouth. That question would relate to the root and zumbro since those are the 2 river systems that we fish.

About a week ago my wife and I fished upstream from the green bridge for about 1.5 hours and neither one of us caught a fish. That reminded me of why I quit fishing that area a couple of years ago. It just kept getting worse everytime I went there. I started catching quite a few northerns back then and thought that might be the reason.
Has anyone had decent luck there this year?

If there had been any type of pattern to speak of, I would have said so. I don’t mind giving that type of information. The bottom line is that at this time of year, smallies are pretty active and can be caught on most of the lures that are popular for smallmouth. When they are active, they will chase or wait for bait fish in all types of water. There just wasn’t really anything news worthy to report other than the fact that some decent fishing occured.

As for where he was fishing…….I’ve already given my opinion on that as have many others recently.

He caught the fish in one of the smallmouth rivers here in SE MN. They were caught in different types of water and he caught them on spinners, plastics, and rapalas. The 2 largest fish were hooked in the same pool and on different lures. One was caught in the slowest deepest part of the pool while the other was nosed up into the riffle at the head of the pool. There wasn’t much of a pattern to the lure preference or the type of water they were holding in.

The rivers around here are small enough that you don’t really need to figure out what type of water the fish are holding in that day. It doesn’t take that much extra time and effort to fish them all. Lures on the other hand can make a huge difference, but at this time of the year you can ‘normally’ catch them on several types of lures, colors, sizes, and presentations. Of course even now you can still have days where they will only seem to take one type of lure, and it needs to be a specific size and color.

I have never fished that branch of the Zumbro, but I’m sad to hear that too. I would be willing to bet there aren’t more than a half dozen that size in that whole branch of the Zumbro. If even just a couple more people did the same thing, 50% of the largest fish would be gone between Mantorville and Oronoco. It’s too bad that people just don’t understand how fragile the smallmouth fishery is around here. With smaller streams and all the agricultural runoff in summer and low water levels in winter it is really tough to get a fish to live long enough to get to that size.

This is why I never post where I was fishing when I post a smallmouth report. Any good stretch of smallmouth water can be wiped out in a month by just a couple of good fishermen who keep their legal limit, and then they will wonder why the fishing isn’t as good as it used to be.

I was hoping that maybe we could get a concensus on what to call that section of the root from after the middle and north branches run together and before the south branch runs into it. I have found that the majority of the time when someone says north branch of the root they seem to mean the root after the middle branch runs into it. I have always called that the main branch since that’s what my DNR map calls it. Just thought it might be nice to have most of us use the same name so that if someone wants to say where they are fishing, people would at least have a general notion of where they are talking about.