Minnesota Steelheader

    One of the other big questions we are trying to answer with the Creel Project is, "Is there a "Normal", "Standard" or "Typical" run picture?" In other words, what if anything, is common to the runs across the North Shore with respect to steelhead, and what does that look like?       That picture is beginning to resolve itself in a big way; but the key has been figuring out whether there is a common denominator and how to apply it.       We have to go back to one of the things that frustrated us initially. That is to say, conventional wisdom at the time was that flow was the be-all, end-all in steelhead fishing: Flow goes up, fish move, flow goes down, movement changes and or decreases. Turns out that what we are learning is while this still holds true, it really depends on for lack of a better description, what stage of the run we are in, and the key factor appears to be stream temperatures early in the season. ...

    Seems like steelheaders always have more gear than they have pocket-space to carry it in, so being able to organize effectively is always a good thing.     A couple weeks ago, my wife was in the bathroom organizing and putting jewelry into these neat little boxes. So I just had to ask because when I saw all the little compartments, the light-bulb went off....     Turns out they were just pill organizers. Couple nice things about them: You can get them with varying numbers of compartments, you can remove the entire divider making for one big compartment, they are very low profile which means they fit well in smaller pockets and can be stacked, and the lids close pretty securely. But best of all, they are a dollar or less depending on size and are available from most pharmacies, Walgreens, Target, Wal-Mart etc.     These boxes make for great yarn boxes, hook organizers, spare fly boxes, sinker holders, bead boxes and indicator boxes....

A Little bit about the Creel Project and how we prepare the data:     Each year since 2010, Minnesota Steelheader has asked anglers for voluntary catch reporting of Steelhead, Kamloops, and what are presumed to be Coaster Brook Trout, caught in the tributaries during the Spring migration. We collect those reports along with daily flow, temperature and other open-source data, then run them through an app we created. The results are subsequently plotted in Daily, Weekly and Historical formats in what we hope are intuitive and easy to use charts.     This is not a scientific creel by definition, but we do try to use and present as much of the available scientific literature as we can in the context of the charts with the goal of better understanding these various species. The information is presented to you for your consideration in the hope you'll find it useful.     A long time ago, we began with the premise of Informing, Educating, Entertai...

DATE: 05/18/2015 Knife River Flow: 213 CFS French River Steelhead Kamloops Number Captured 7 43 Total Captured 117 774 DATE: 05/18/2015 Index River Temp: 50.31°F Knife River Steelhead Kamloops Number Captured 34 3 Total Captured 708 13 DATE: 05/11/2015 Knife River Flow: 560 CFS French River Steelhead Kamloops Number Captured 2 12 Total Captured 110 731 DATE: 05/11/2015 Index River Temp: 42.78 °F Knife River Steelhead Kamloops Number Captured 16 1 Total Captured 674 10 DATE: 05/08/2015 Knife River Flow: 145 CFS French River Steelhead Kamloops Number Captured 5 15 Total Captured 108 719 DATE: 05/08/2015 Index River Temp: 52.1°F Knife River Steelhead Kamloops Number Captured 39 0 Total Captured 658 9 DATE: 05/04/2015 Knife River Flow: 41 CFS French River Steelhead Kamloops Number Captured 2 29 Total Captured 103 704 DATE: 05/04/2015 Index River Temp: 52.74°F Knife River Steelhead Kamloops Number Captured 22 2 Total Captured 619 9 DATE: 05/01/2015 Knife Riv...