Got Enough Water Yet?

[DARK30]

Lanesboro up 5 feet from yesterday? This has not been the most trout fishing friendly year so far eh? I've been waiting to take a little trout/morel trip down there but maybe next year.

[ted4887]

Yeah, it's been rough the last two weeks. But if you watch the gauges closely, you'll see they're really moving up and down. The ground is so over-saturated right now the water is just going directly into the streams. But if you want to fish in the area, there will be plenty of fishable water by Saturday. Shoot, I drove over a handful of fishable streams this afternoon north of I-90.

[DARK30]

NOW hows it lookin? SHEESH!

[JIvers]

I got off work last Friday afternoon, thinking I was heading up to Fillmore County on Saturday. Then I saw the rain totals for the previous day, plus the forecast for Saturday and Sunday.

I unpacked what I had in the car, and decided to put that trip north off until the following weekend.

[JIvers]

Never mind muddy water--sounds like portions of SE Minnesota and SW Wisconsin took considerable flood damage this past weekend. Here are some pictures from Houston County:

http://www.winonadailynews.com/news/local/collection_32d9b1b8-dd2c-11e2-b909-001a4bcf887a.html#0

There are some nice trout waters in the vicinity of those Houston County roads.

The trout hatchery by Lanesboro suffered some flood issues too, I'm told.

On the bright side, the local trout streams bounced back from 2007, and they can handle this just fine in the long term, too.

If I get out fishing in SE Minnesota next weekend, I will be concentrating on the headwater streams.

[JIvers]

According to the DNR Stream report for Thursday, some of the headwater streams in Fillmore and Houston County had started to clear: http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/areas/fisheries/lanesboro/stream_conditions.html

I'm going up there today, and hope to find some fishable creeks around Preston. They've gotten a little rain over the last day or so, with more possible today and tomorrow, but hopefully not enough to matter.

I have business to tend to, so even if the trout fishing is a wash it won't be a total waste of gas.

[JIvers]

I checked out a couple of streams--or at least those portions of the streams where the road was open--near Lanesboro last night.

They actually looked fishable, maybe, but the streambeds and floodplains looked like a tsunami rolled through...which is not too far off from what happened.

Trout don't mind a little high water, and I like fishing water that's a little stained, but I decided to take a pass on fishing last night. I have to think it takes a little while for trout to recover their bearings from that sort of flooding.

This morning I found some water in good condition due west of Preston where the rain was not so heavy, but that will be another report after I get the pictures uploaded.

[JIvers]

With trout streams in eastern Fillmore County wiped out by flooding, I had to change trout-fishing plans this weekend and headed for Etna Creek, west of Cherry Grove and southeast of Spring Valley.

I hadn't fished Etna in a couple years or more for a simple reason: it is not a top-notch trout stream, IMO. However, it does have brownies in it, and that area got less rain than eastern Fillmore and Houston Counties got, and was probably in good shape for fishing.

Etna Creek was indeed in good shape: just a tiny bit high, and almost clear.

I always managed to pull a few fish out of Etna, and today was no different. I got a 10" brownie to break the ice, and a couple of very small browns as well. I got no more than one fish a pool or run, but at least I got a fish.

My best of the morning came in the largest pool in that section of the creek, when a 15" brown hit my spinner on the first cast to that spot. Not a huge fish, but not bad, either.

Having read about the DNR's efforts to reintroduce brook trout to the East Fork of Etna Creek, I decided to check that out. I'd fished it once before, and was not impressed with the East Fork: shallow, surrounded by pasture, and with very little cover.

Today did nothing to change my mind about the East Fork, and my skepticism of the DNR's efforts to establish wild brook trout in it. Stream conditions have not improved, and I did not catch a single brookie in it. I caught a couple of small browns there, and these things:

When you catch more largemouth than brook trout in a stream, that is probably not a good sign for the chances of brook trout taking hold there.

Still not a bad morning, all in all, and catching a few browns and a couple of green trout was better than catching nothing at all.

[DARK30]

I'm thinking fall is gonna be better than spring down there this year. Got a camper set up in my old hood again. Can't wait for the first good smartfire