Minnesota Steelheader

Here is a nice shot from our 2011 fall Salmon clinic on a North Shore River. Thanks again to all who attended that event.  Special thanks to our staffer, Murph, for having the willpower to leave his rod in the truck and document this event with his Nikon! Photo: © MurphShot Photography

With our Sucker River clean up efforts just around the corner, this news release seems fitting to share. Conservation officers report litter on Minnesota roadways, waterways (Released February 23, 2012) Weekly activity reports from conservation officers (COs) with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) are littered with evidence of various types of refuse being discarded along Minnesota roads and waterways. “We’re seeing everything from wooden fish house blocking materials on lakes to old appliances in roadway ditches,” said Col. Jim Konrad, DNR Enforcement Division director. Littering is a misdemeanor with a fine of up to $1,000. Konrad said the DNR wants everyone to keep roadways and waterways clean by properly disposing of used materials with their local refuse haulers or at their local landfill. Konrad added that litter tarnishes nature’s beauty, destroys wildlife habitats and ruins many opportunities for recreation. Read the whole DNR news release here .

Man, I don't know about you but I am flummoxed... Since last year started really early and this year it's even warmer, I started looking for all the pre-run indicators I wouldn't normally even look for until March at the earliest. Much to my surprise, a couple cropped up right away. First, we're already seeing some significant brown-up in the St. Louis River estuary as well as along the lower shore. This isn't necessarily good because we need the snowmelt to feed flow for the runs; and snow is exactly what we have very little of. Lets hope for lots of precip, snow or other wise soon. The North Shore drought continues... Secondly the gauge signature for the Knife is showing signs of ice pack movement we don't normally see until just a short time before the run. It almost looks as if the ice is in the very early stages of breaking up based on the signature. This would be crazy early if it's actually happening. Now, I'm not predicting an early run by any me...

The 2012 North Shore Steelhead season is fast approaching and so with it is our Annual River Clean Up. For those of you not familiar with our involvement in this program, Minnesota Steelheader adopted the Sucker River in 2011 through the Minnesota DNR Adopt-A-River program. You can read previous posts to find out more details on why we selected the Sucker River. In short it is a good fishery with a lot of traffic and trash. Our commitment continues this year with another clean up weekend. We are sticking with the 1st Sunday in May. We meet late morning in the parking lot and spend an hour or so, depending on volunteers, cleaning up as much shoreline and parking area as possible. We will post more details on this as we get a few fine details ironed out. As most of you know, Minnesota Steelheader started as a virtual online organization. We do not currently have any formal membership rather a "floating" group of web, social media, event and streamside followers, we als...