Minnesota Steelheader

You know, it’s awfully hard to be optimistic some days. As I write this piece I can hear the wind outside; not your run of the mill gentle breeze, but the kind of wind which makes your house rattle loudly and shudder with each and every successive gust. I have a large spruce growing just outside my door. I love it. The chickadees do too and use it as they dart back and forth between the feeders grabbing sunflower seeds, then quickly escaping back into the dense cover of the branches. Not because they are scared when people or the cats are sitting out on the deck (they’re not). They know the people dole out the free seed. And the cats well... they’re just fat and slow and the chickadees know it judging by their antics. The cooper's hawk is a different story. She’s taken to hiding high up in a nearby maple, launching periodic aerial assaults on any unsuspecting bird foolish enough to sit for more than a few seconds on one of the feeders. The chickadees are the tacticians,...

Another quick numbers update as promised, just so you have an idea of where things may be at- Total Lower Shore creel numbers from March 10th through March 31 - Day 22: Total Rainbows Reported: 85 Total Brook Trout/Coasters Reported: 2 Steelhead Reported: 48 Kamloops Reported: 37 Average Rainbows Reported per day: 3.86 Currently not tracking numbers of Anglers reporting or CPUE, Sorry... Mid Shore is beginning to wake up, Upper Shore still fairly sleepy. Keep watching those stream temps! Regards- Minnesota Steelheader

Just some quickie analysis of the Trap trends for 2014...     No surprizes here with respect to inititation temps and trap numbers, but I want to throw a new concept at you.     If you read the technical literature closely, you'll find a concept which helps you understand when to change tactics and where to fish under certain conditions. Stream temperatures give you a window on when adult steelhead begin that first big upstream migration, but what happens once those conditions are met and maintained? Well, this is where flow takes over.     Once steelhead begin entering the rivers, they have one goal in mind - reproduction- and they are on a mission. Few things influence their drive to move upstream like flow. Steelhead are biologically programmed if you will to move on high flows. Over time, higher flows have allowed steelhead to reach those areas of the stream which are most conducive to spawning and rearing, and those areas are ...

Our apologies, we've been very busy elsewhere and have neglected our steelhead duties, so it's time to get back on track.     Where to start???..... All kinds movement going on up and down the North Shore. The Knife had a pretty classic ice-dam signature which shows all the indications that the ice pack is finally breaking up. It's always a bit of a crap-shoot with the flows when you see this kind of signature, but our best estimate given the data we have is that the Knife is now running around 275CFS under all that ice.       Mid-Shore streams are moving as well. The Baptism must have a fair amount of open water in and around the upper reaches. Water temps in the lower river were climbing into the mid-33F range which usually indicates open water somewhere. We only see this starting during the initial stages of ice-out when the stream-bed is exposed and the sun is heating the bottom. The bottom absorbs solar radiation and re-radiate...

As of 03.30.2012 Regards-

As of March 28th, tribs from Castle Danger south to Duluth were well on their way to opening up. Still lots of anchor/shelf ice here and there, but we're very close. I would not be surprised to hear of kamloops already in certain streams. The mouth of the French (shown at right), was open enough that fish could certainly run it. The ice you see was Lake ice blown in against shore due to a strong northeasterly wind. Tribs from Duluth south and over to just beyond Iron River are open and fishable with some of the smaller ones climbing into the mid to upper 30's already. Regards- NMF