In the 1920s and ‘30s, there were so many walleye spawning in the Rat Root River that former Minnesota Sen. Bob Lessard recalls seeing the fish swimming up stream from the nearby highway.
And, he says, there were so many fish that many riverfront residents dropped illegal fish traps to collect the spawning fish, forcing game wardens to snag them and dump the fish back into the river as they traveled upstream under the cover of darkness by boat.
A $215,000 Conservation Partners Legacy grant is intended to restore and enhance the historically productive Rat Root River walleye spawning run.
The state grant, awarded to the Rainy Lake Sportfishing Club and Koochiching Soil and Water Conservation District, will be used to implement with assistance of the local Department of Natural Resources Fisheries staff the next phase of a project begun this year.
A $22,500 CPL grant allowed this year for the removal of more than 30 log jams in 15 miles of the river from the Galvin Line Bridge upstream to Highway 217.
With the larger grant, more of the river will be cleared of log jams, which are causing a silt-over of the walleye spawning rock, to improve fish passage and water flow. The grant will also allow for the repair of eroding river banks.
Lessard, who now acts as a liaison for the DNR, joked that he shared his recollections about the early years of the river at risk of losing his job.
“When we have the fish trap problem again, I will know we’ve succeeded,” he said laughing.
According to those involved, the project could serve as a poster child for the smaller CPL grants. Funding for the CPL grant program is from the Outdoor Heritage Fund, created by the people of Minnesota in a
constitutional amendment. The CPL Program was recommended by the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council, named in part to recognize Lessard’s efforts in the Legislature to benefit the outdoors and environment.
The DNR manages the program to provide competitive grants from $5,000 to $400,000 to local, regional, state, and national nonprofit organizations, including government entities. The grants are for work to enhance, restore, or protect the forests, wetlands, prairies, and habitat for fish, game, or wildlife in Minnesota.
“To me, this is a perfect example of what can be done with this revenue. I’m excited. I won’t know the full benefits of the money for this project, but maybe before I kick the bucket we will go back to the old days,” said Lessard from St. Paul this week.
DNR Fisheries Supervisor Kevin Peterson said he, too, is very excited about the opportunity to enhance walleye spawning habitat of the river, which could benefit all of Rainy Lake.
He said a combination of factors — land use changes, exploitation of the walleye stocks in Rainy Lake, as well as altered flow patterns — likely contributed to a decline since the 1950s in the walleye run up the Rat Root River. Land clearing for agriculture and development increased erosion and led to sediment deposits in the Rat Root Lake, potentially limiting walleye spawning movements and degrading walleye spawning habitat upstream.
“We are dealing with one of those pieces of the puzzle — the habitat,” he said. “There are some of those pieces that will never go back to the way they were in the 1930s.”
However, he said, there’s no doubt that the Rat Root River provides important walleye spawning habitat for Rainy Lake — “the scope of which we’re just now beginning to understand as we get tag returns. There are fish that are dispersing to the North Arm that we didn’t know about before.”
Tags were placed in walleye found in the Rat Root River spawn run, and anglers have reported catching the tagged fish as far north as the lake’s North Arm located on the Ontario side of the border. That information will be enhanced in 2012 when the DNR plans for a radio-telemetry study to locate specific walleye spawning sites in the river. At least two sites will be selected for the construction of walleye spawning riffles, or a series of small rapids, using methods successful in other areas of the state, he said.
Tim MacKay, president of the Rainy Lake Sportfishing Club, said the grant and project is good for the fish population and local community.
Collaboration with the DNR and SWCD provides technical expertise for the project.
“It was a good fit,” he said. “Everybody has something to offer and like a snowball, it’s growing a bit.”
With the start of the project this year, he said No. 1 for the club will be to open more of the river, which will allow the DNR to continue monitoring efforts further upstream.
“The eventual goal is to get the stream opened to allow walleye to get up there during the spawning season,” MacKay said.
However, he said, more club members are needed to chip in with dues to provide a 15 percent match of the grant funds.
The club and DNR have a long history of collaborating on efforts to restore and enhance the fishery of Rainy Lake, including Black Bay spawning shoal enhancement and implementation of the first protected slot limit for walleye in Minnesota in 1994.
And with a full staff, Peterson said he’ll be able to devote a portion of the time of new fisheries specialist Brent Flatten to the project.
“We’ve already made a schedule for next year, and from the time the ice is out of the Rat Root and the leaves come out and the bugs get too bad, Brent will work on the Rat Root River,” said Peterson.
The DNR has been assessing the walleye spawning run in the Rat Root River since the 1980s.
Now, Peterson said, walleye are going up the river to spawn and are laying eggs, but it’s not known how many of those eggs are surviving.
“It’s safe to assume the walleye are spawning, but if the eggs are not landing on good, clean, rocky substrate, they may not be producing fry,” Peterson said.
Peterson said he’ll feel the project is successful if the group of walleye that goes up the Rat Root River every year to spawn continues to do so.
“We’re just learning about the contribution of those walleye to the overall health of Rainy Lake,” he said.
