The New Ulm Journal's Fritz Busch reports in Sparlin talks about river fishing:
River watershed district board members and Minnesota River enthusiasts attending a resources tour got a real time look at fishing Thursday at the Riverside Park boat landing.Scott Sparlin, Executive Director for a Clean Minnesota River (CCMR) talked about the fishing on the river to several dozen people while a night crawler and spinner dangled on the end of a fishing line. Sparlin got a strike and reeled in a small catfish halfway into his talk. . . .
. . . Sparlin said the story of the American eel itself should be reason enough to feel strongly about improving the water quality of the Minnesota River and its big watershed.
"When they're (eels) ready to propagate, some American eel will swim the length of the Minnesota River to the Mississippi River at St. Paul, then swim south through St. Louis, past New Orleans, into the Gulf of Mexico, around the tip of Florida, far offshore to the Sargasso Sea to deposit their eggs," Sparlin said.
From there, young eels may take years riding ocean currents and migrating inland to rivers, lakes and streams where they feed and mature for 10 to 25 years, then migrating back to the Sargasso Sea.
"If that story isn't enough to make you believe its important to preserve the river, I don't know what it will take," Sparlin added.
Read the whole story at the Journal. Bluestem's editor is an unabashed Minnesota River Valley nationalist, so we hardly need any prompting, much less eel tales.
At the end of May, West Central Tribune staff writer and riparian enthusiast Tom Cherveny reported in Electro-fishing expedition shows fish taking advantage of removal of Minnesota Falls dam:
The news is good. The two temporarily stunned large numbers of blue suckers, evidence that this fish is migrating upstream. It seeks out riffles and areas where water tumbles over rocks, which is the habitat now restored to a three-mile run of the river thanks to the dam’s removal. Gizzard shad, river suckers, highfin carpsuckers and smallmouth buffalo were also shocked and counted by the two. Their presence is further evidence of that native fish species are returning to this section of river.
Aadland, a river ecologist, believes lake sturgeon and paddlefish from as far as the Mississippi River will be seen here soon too. This is ideal spawning habitat for them.
Image: American paddlefish. Have no fear: that scary-looking open mouth allows the fish to feed on zooplankton, not your teenagers.
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