A Little Something About Fish

Finally, I got out away from the city and made it into rural Wisconsin for my favorite fish, the brook trout. With a tip from a trout fishing colleague my dad and I headed to a gorgeous little stream about sixty miles west of the Twin Cities. It was one after another all day, both days.

I also saw plenty of deer, wild turkeys, song birds: scarlet tanager, gold finch, indigo bunting, Baltimore oriole, purple martin, red-wing blackbird, and a pileated woodpecker--the goofy one with the big red head. The stream we fished was recently restored. Habitat structures were put into place, the stream channel was narrowed, and as a result trout populations went from 200-300 fish per mile to over 5500.

The stream runs through the unglaciated, driftless area of limestone bluffs which were actually the bed of an ancient sea 350 million years ago. The woods are predominantly hardwood: black oak, silver maple, elm, ash, and the valleys are farmed or in the case of this stream all long-grass prairie. A beautiful place to be.

Salvenius Fontinalis

There few fish that are steeped in legend, tradition, and lore. For the fly fishing set, that fish is the Atlantic Salmon. A large, ocean-going salmonid (more closely realated to brown trout than pacific salmon) that enters rugged rivers and is difficult to catch, when hooked runs, jumps, and generally leads to the exhaustion of the angler. There are few places left to catch ocean-run Atlantics in the US. There are many rivers in the remote portions of eastern, maritime Canada, but those rivers don't come cheap. It has been called the fish of kings, Salmo Salar, the name given to it by Julius Caesar and means "The Leaper." Good populations still exist in Ireland, the UK, and northern Europe. But again, they don't come cheap.

In Minnesota the fish that writes the unwritten stories is the muskellunge. A relative of the pike that can grow to enormous sizes, is tough to catch, and is generally an impressive fish to look at.

But, for those of us who are truly crazy, we like to head to the North Woods, to the stinkiest, most mosquito and black fly infested swamp with a tiny and cold creek running through it to catch a fish that seldom grows larger than twelve inches: the brook trout.

For many years I have headed North to streams that don't see people anymore. The sort of streams that run red with tanic acid through shallows, black in the holes, and yellow through the rapids. It's those black, foam-flecked pools, the hiding places, that I look toward. Beneath a good riffle I will swing a black and white wet fly called a Pass Lake with my short, 3weight rod. The little fish show themselves immediately slashing at the fly, missing only to come back and strike it again. The first sign of the fish is the white tips of the fins. Only an oil painter can match the sides of he fish; the red dots haloed with blue rings. The moss back dappled with gold spots and the orange belly--the entire pallette enables the fish to disapear into the stream substrate as soon as the angler releases it.

For me, it always about the rivers, slithering through spruce swamps and muskegs, some nearly covered by the dense tag alder branches or blackened entirely by white and red pine branches. Usually your only company will be a black bear, otter, pine marten, or most often a moose. Ocassionally, there are the wolves, their yellow eyes, and their howl.

What makes these little fish so important is that the places that they live within are the most pristine places we still have. They are a sign of health and wildness, of good country.

Study to Be Quiet

In the school I work in there is rarely a time when there is silence. My kids, mostly African-American, urban are boisterous, just plain loud. I love their energy, especially when I can focus it. But, some days--fer chriseshakes, shut up!

Fly fishers all over for some reason revere Izaak Walton and his book "The Complete Angler." He didn't fly fish. He dunked worms in the deeper holes of English chalk streams. But, even now, late at night there is no silence here is the big small town of Saint Paul. Sirens keep blurring past. Some drunken ass screams at a street lamp. Neighbors have the strangest sounding sex I have ever heard. I like it better in the winter. The windows stay shut. It stays cool and it is much easier to sleep.

My people came almost entirely from Norway and Sweden. Some also came from Ireland--which I like to believe explains my drunkenness. The point is I don't deal well with Minnesota's new climate. As a Scandihoovian I also don't deal well with loud, talkative people. I am not uncomfortable with long spells of silence. My few friends are those that can sit with me while we enjoy each others company and not have the nagging need to converse. It is Ike Walton who said my favorite phrase, "Study to Be Quiet." Thoreau and Sigurd Olson also favored that phrase and was prominent thematically throughout their writings which I love so much.

Wednesdays are quiet reading days in my classroom. Friday nights are quiet fishing times in my life. I am eagerly awaiting the time when I can get North to a place so quiet I can hear my own heart beat. Until then in my classroom we will study.

A Little Something About Fish

I went fishing in southeast Minnesota, near Rochester with my dad yesterday. We had not been in that area for about five years. It's an area that has enormous potential for trout fishing, but due to some poor farming practices and development is still suffering from habitat degradation.

The biggest issue that Trout Run has is cows are allowed to trample the banks, destablizing the soil and causing erosion which ends up in the deeper, slower holes, eliminating habitat, and also reducing the gradient. When the stream slows down the riffles, rapids which provide spawing areas for fish are also burried by the silt. Riffles also oxygenate the water, keep it cool, and provide rocky homes for a variety of aquatic insects.


The stream was absolutely clear. I could see the fish in the slower areas gliding over the bottom catching whatever insects were swept away in the current. All fish are non-native brown trout. We caught several nice fish, averaging 12 inches. Which is better than it was years ago. The stream now has a slot limit protecting fish: all fish between 12 and 16 inched must be returned to the stream. Five fish limit with only one being larger than 16 inches. The idea for the slot is to protect the spawining population. Wild trout are better for many reasons. The first being that they are shy and will flee from predators and they are harder to catch. The second is that they are self-sustaining, and stocking is not needed--which is expensive.

Trout Run is being repaired, slowly. Habitat improvements such as artificial hiding "cribs" or undercut banks are being added to stablize the banks and provide places for fish to live. Hewlit ramps which are artificial rapids oxegenate the water and stir up the silt washing it out of critical areas of stream. It is working.

So why should anyone care? Because healthy streams mean healthy, self-sustaining fish populations. Also, if banks are stabilized valuable top soil stay on the farm fields which lead to higher yields for farmers, more money. Also, banks are stabilized artificially and then native prairie grasses are added which provide habitat for gamebirds and other wildlife. It's about ecological balance. Grasses also filter out any fertilizers and pesticides, or keep it on the fields where it belongs. It's also about economic balance. Good trout fishing is big business. Those who trout fish spend money on gear, beer, B&B's, food, guides--all of which is good for rural communities. This is not about being a whacked out tree hugger its about good envronmental stewardship and business practices.

(Pleas note my pirated images of an improved stretch of Trout Run and a nice brown trout)