DNR capture rainbows for stocking

[Lee Borgersen]

  DNR captures big batch of Kamloops rainbows for stocking program.

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Look for a story and video from the French River in Sunday’s Duluth News Tribune about fisheries officials with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources capturing Kamloops rainbow trout. Fisheries crews, using a seine net, collected more than 600 of the trout, one of the largest net pulls in many years. The fish are captured so that eggs can be taken from them for future stocking efforts. Catch the story Sunday.



Kamloops rainbow trout flop and splash inside a seine net held by fisheries workers with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources at the French River on Wednesday morning. Eggs from the fish will be used to raise next year’s Kamloops rainbows for stocking.

                   

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[Lee Borgersen]

  ....  Update!   

Fisheries crews capture big run of Kamloops at French River.

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It was a remarkable sight — more than 600 Kamloops rainbow trout writhing, flopping and splashing in the French River on Wednesday morning. The big fish, ranging from 5 to perhaps 8 pounds or more, were corralled in a seine net by Department of Natural Resources fisheries officials.

As it turned out, the exact Kamloops total from that netting was 673. Last year, a total of 888 Kamloops rainbow trout were captured at the French during the entire spring run, on par with the long-term (1992-2015) average of 884, according to the DNR.

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“In my years here I do not recall ever having a single-day total as large as (Wednesday’s),” said Josh Blankenheim, DNR large-lake specialist at French River. “I’m sure we didn’t get all the fish in the pool with the one pull of the seine, either. It will be interesting to see if we see many more fish when the weather eventually warms up, or if this is going to be the majority of the run.”

This was the first step in the process to stock another year class of Kamloops rainbow trout along the North Shore about a year from now. Unlike steelhead, Lake Superior’s other variety of rainbow trout that reproduce and sustain themselves with only limited stocking, the Kamloops population is dependent entirely upon stocking.

The first eggs for next year’s batch of Kamloops rainbows will come from the adult females that were swimming inside the seine net on Wednesday morning. DNR employees used dip nets to scoop rainbows out of the seine net and load them into the waiting bucket of a small front-end loader. The loader hauled the fish up the hill to the French River fisheries building, where eggs will be stripped from the fish and fertilized.

About twice a week from now until June, DNR fisheries workers will seine this pool near the mouth of the French River and collect eggs from adult rainbows. Later, the young fish that emerge from eggs will be transferred to one of two DNR hatcheries.

After eggs have been collected from the adult Kamloops rainbows captured on Wednesday, those adult rainbows will be returned to Lake Superior. Kamloops rainbow trout provide a unique fishery for anglers who fish from shore along Lake Superior, mainly from the Lester River to the French River.

After being raised in either, or in some cases both, the Spire Valley Hatchery near Remer and the French River Coldwater Hatchery near Duluth, the yearling Kamloops rainbows will be stocked in either the Lester River or at the mouth of the French River, fisheries officials said.

The fish then typically spend three or four more years in Lake Superior before returning to the French or other rivers. Little to no successful spawning occurs naturally among Kamloops rainbows.



Josh Blankenheim, (right) large-lake specialist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources at French River, helps hold a seine net filled with Kamloops rainbow trout Wednesday morning at the French River. DNR employees will take eggs from the fish to be raised for next year's stocking of Kamloops rainbows on the North Shore.

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