On the Move!
Even the turkeys stayed in bed late today. I spotted a dozen or so still up in the trees as I drove past one of their neighborhood roosting areas this morning. Even the toms, who had over the last few days been on the ground strutting and gobbling well before sunrise, were hunkered up, clinging to the branches of a spreading maple looking miserable and wet.
Despite the snow, signs that spring is on the move are everywhere. The buds on maples are swelling red, sap buckets festoon trees at the local sugar bush, and pussy willows are full of fuzzy buds.
On the North Shore there are clear signs the streams are waking up and shedding ice. I don't get too excited about early flow increases alone. Most of the time it's simply snow-melt running over the top of the ice but when I see this, I start seriously thinking about steelhead:
What you are looking at here is a gauge reading with stream discharge and water temperature super-imposed over the top of each other. As I said earlier, I don't get overly excited when it's early, the discharge values are high or bouncing around AND, I know for sure that streams are largely iced over.
What IS exciting are those water temperature readings beginning on March 30th. Note the distinct daily peak increasing each day. That type of signature tells two stories; the first is that the water is warming to which you might say, "Well duh." What isn't quite as apparent is that the ONLY way that happens is there has to be open, ice free water for the sun to be able to do its thing and create that type of signature. It also means that ice-out is accelerating and it's only a (short) matter of time before fish will start entering the rivers.
We know from the MNST Creel Project and DNR trap data that upwards of 10% of total steelhead returns in any given year will enter rivers as soon as they are able. Based on this signature alone, we are at the point where this early run phase is about to occur. Much will depend on how quickly the river mouths become passable, or enough water is flowing for fish to navigate over the ice and into open water upstream from the mouths. Either way we are getting very close. We are now less than 14 days from the historical steelhead return peaks on the Lower North Shore, it doesn't necessarily mean we are that close this year as the historical peaks are just that, but things are on the move.
Speaking of historical peaks and the creel project, MNST would really appreciate any creel reports you may be willing to provide. If you are not familiar with this project, you can read about it here on the MNST Creel Project Page
To be clear we DO NOT solicit/post actual fishing reports, nor do we post MNST Creel Project submissions during the actual run in given run year. When you submit a report, all you are providing is the date, species and number caught, the North Shore Region where caught and it is 100% anonymous. If you are concerned that we are somehow using your submissions for nefarious purposes, you are certainly welcome to hold off and submit them at a later date. As long as MNST gets the submissions by June or July we'll incorporate the data into the MNST Creel Project.
The last item is we have significantly re-worked the submission form. It is far easier to create a submission and it works better from mobile than the old form. You can bookmark the MNST Creel Submission Form here
We greatly appreciate any and all creel data you are willing to provide!
Tight Lines-
The Staff at Minnesota Steelheader
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