(light music) - On today's show, we're headed to Horseshoe Lake to learn more about the history of the channel catfish in the area.

Let's get some fish.

- Yeah, this is gonna be fun.

- [Bret] And how they got there.

(Darren laughs) - Pretty nice.

- [Bret] Then we'll look at the benefits of removing the invasive hybrid cattails from shorelines.

- On most lakes, when you see a wide fringe of cattail, it's probably the hybrid.

(light music continues) - Welcome to "Prairie Sportsman", I'm Bret Amundson.

We've got a great show for ya this week, and it starts right now.

(upbeat music) (light music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Prairie Sportsman" is provided by, the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, as recommended by the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, and by Mark and Margaret Yakel-Juleen, on behalf of Shalom Hill Farm, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom Minnesota, on the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

(upbeat music) - When people think about catching catfish, they tend to think about soaking a stinky bait in rivers like the Mississippi or Minnesota, but in this state, that's not the only way to do it.

Today we're in the Cold Spring area to learn a little bit more about the Sauk river chain, at a unique fishing opportunity that all started because of a decision made in the 1970's.

that all started because of a decision made in the 1970's.

(upbeat music continues) We're back at the boat with catfish guru, Darren Troseth of Three Rivers Fishing Adventures, this time, on the Sauk river chain.

So we got a nice foggy morning here for us Darren, and, we're goin' out for catfish What's the plan?

- We are.

So, what's happening in this body of water is these fish are kinda relating to the weeds around the edges here, so basically we're gonna be tossing bobbers right around the weed edge here.

- It seems, strange to me to use bobbers and fish a little shallower for - Yeah, it's kind of a unique situation, and that's why I, you know, thought it'd be fun to come out here, because, it's, that's not how you normally fish these catfish.

And it is a late summer thing, kind of August into September, and, it's a little different.

It's different than even what I fish catfish all the time, and it's even unique to me, so that's why I come here and like to do it, 'cause it's a little different, and it's a lotta fun.

- [Bret] What are we usin' for bait?

- So, (Darren laughs) we are using, we're usin' shrimp.

- Shrimp.

- So, believe it or not, I got this for $3.99 at Hy-Vee.

(Bret laughs) Yesterday, so, you know, for a 50 count for $3.99, you can't beat that, I mean, that's cheaper than night crawlers.

- And if you don't catch anything, you still got something to eat.

- Yeah, bring 'em home, throw 'em on the grill, you're good to go.

(Darren laughs) - Let's get some fish.

- Yeah, this is gonna be fun.

(upbeat music continues) Here you go, you can take that one.

- All right.

- I'll just hit up on the bow here, but.

We're just gonna work along the shoreline.

- You know, we joke about bait lookin' delicious all the time, and, "Oh, if we don't catch anything, "we can always eat the minnows," but, this bait does look delicious, I would eat this.

(Darren laughs) Maybe, are they pre cooked, or are these raw shrimp?

- You wanna use the raw shrimp, the cooked ones will not work, so.

- Okay, why is that?

- That's a good question, I think it's probably 'cause most of the smell is out of 'em after you cook 'em maybe.

- Oh, okay.

- I think they're goin' for the smell.

(upbeat music continues) There you go fish, fish on.

Oh, this is a nice one too, real nice.

- All right.

(fishing reel whirring) - oh man.

- This is a really good one.

(Darren laughs) I'll just stay up here if you wanna net 'em back there.

- [Bret] Sure.

- [Darren] That's a really good one.

Wow, oh, missed it.

(Darren laughs) - All right, here he comes.

There we go.

Wow, nice, toad.

- That's a good fish to start off with.

Think that's over 30 inches, pretty nice.

(upbeat music continues) Big old head on that thing, that's a big male there, big wide head.

- That was a heck of a fish to start off with.

- Yeah that's fun, I mean, that's what I'm talking about when you come up here, it's just, you know, throwin' along the shore line, and bang, 28 incher, I mean, that's a decent cat, that's, in fact, a 28 incher is a Minnesota master angler, so I mean, that's, first fish, like, 10 minutes in here.

(Darren laughs) - Now I've, you know, maybe won't say that size is common up here, but they're getting more common maybe, or they've been more common lately?

- They are, yeah, so the DNR has increased the bag limit to try to thin out the amount of cats in here.

And, as they've done that, the size has increased, the population's gone down, the sizes increased.

And that's what, it's really gettin' my attention now, 'cause you're catchin' fish like that quite often actually, - In 2013, the average size was about 16-and-a-half inches, and one-and-a-half pounds.

In 2024, the average size was, oh, I think it was just about 22 inches, and almost four pounds, so.

- [Bret] Channel catfish are native to Minnesota, but they've only been in the Sauk river chain since the mid 1970's.

- There was some issues with the high numbers of bullheads, and small black crappies, crappie numbers were through the but the growth was really slow.

And so, in order to try to decrease those, the population of the bullheads and the crappies, to help increase, stimulate growth, they want to put a bigger predator in there, so they introduced channel catfish in 1976.

From 1976 to 1986 I believe it was, they stalked upward of, oh, about 60,000, fingerlings to yearling channel catfish.

- [Bret] Even though these fish were brought in for good reasons not all locals and anglers were fond of the new introduction.

- I started as the area manager in 2013, and I started working with the lake association.

We started talkin' about issues that there may be, and one was catfish.

There was a conception that by locals that there's just way too many the catfish, that's all they're in here.

And so it was kinda part of throwing 'em a ball, like we'll try and experimental regulation.

We'll increase the channel catfish possession limit to 10, which is basically double what the state is, but you can only have one over 24 inches.

We'll run that for 10 years and we'll see what shakes out.

- You're catchin' 'em on top waters, you're catch 'em with spinner baits, you know, you're fishing for other fish and all you're catching is catfish.

- So if you're encouraging people to keep some, or if you're gonna have some ya know guiding clients out here, is there a size that you're looking for for keep fish?

- Kind of that you know 20 to 24 I think is probably a good good size.

I mean, you start gettin' smaller, ya know the 12 to 15 inches, you're not gettin' a lotta meat out of it.

So, I would say probably that 20 inch range is a good eater fish.

- Well seein' a 28 to start, it, that gets you excited a little it, so.

- (Darren laughs) They fight so hard too, they're fun.

- Let's get some more.

(light music) (metal thudding) (Darren laughs) It's right there.

- Still, oh nice.

(Bret laughs) (upbeat music) (Bret and Darren talking indistinctly) Nice.

- Oh man.

(Darren and Bret laugh) You see that one go down?

Was right when you're talkin' about it too.

- [Bret] Darren is hooked up again.

(Darren laughs) - That took what, five minutes?

Another pretty decent one.

(upbeat music continues) Dang, (Darren laughs) they just bulldog.

- And you can't see 'em.

- There we go.

Not quite as big.

I guess, you know if I was to keep one, that would probably be a good keeper there, that's probably 22, 23 inches.

Ya know you'd get a nice little meal outta that one.

(upbeat music continues) - In 2013 is where we seen this, the peak of channel catfish in the Sauk chain, of about 27 per net.

2018, 2021, and then this year we sampled, we've seen the numbers of channel cats go down tremendously.

(upbeat music continues) - So, we're casting this out Darren, and you're only leaving it out there for a little bit.

- Yeah, 15 seconds at the most, And we're just, we're also moving quite a bit too, we're just workin' the shoreline try to find these active fish.

- Why are you only keepin' it out there, you're just trying to find 'em?

More about?

- I-- - Locating?

- I have found that that's the way they bite.

Like if you keep it there for a minute, they're not gonna bite, it's like, they're reacting to the sound of the bobber hitting the water, and also the sight of the shrimp falling.

Yeah, so I've found, I've cast to the same spot twice, and they'll hit it right after I cast to the same spot.

(Darren laughs) So that's, that's how I know they're reacting to the cast.

- [Bret] There's one thing that you said, we saw some cormorants up in trees.

You said, for whatever reason, whether it's coincidence or not, you feel like, sometimes the catfish are relating to those same areas?

- [Darren] Yes, and a friend of mine came up here before me one time, and he's like, "We were catching fish "all around the pelicans and cormorants," so that's kinda where I first started looking.

And, sure enough.

So I don't know if they're eating off of fish that they're dropping in the water, maybe they're defecating in the water, I don't know, maybe they're eating that, I don't know.

(Darren laughs) (upbeat music continues) - Well we just saw one surface right over here, and, he surfaced three times, and I didn't quite cast far enough, so, he's still there.

See if I can get to him.

- [Darren] It's kind of a long cast.

- Yeah, there we go.

- There you go.

- All right.

(Bret laughs) - [Darren] Oh, nice one.

- Catfish are fun to catch.

Man, they put up a pretty good fight.

You know it's one of those fish, Darren, I think that doesn't get the respect it deserves, because of maybe the way it's classified.

- [Darren] Right.

- [Bret] Maybe the way, you know, maybe people are scared of 'em a little bit, but, man they're fun to catch.

(upbeat music continues) - [Darren] They definitely fight hard.

- Right.

(upbeat music continues) Maybe, maybe not.

(Darren laughs) There we go.

- There it is.

- All right.

Nice.

- That's a good one.

- Might be a good one to eat.

- Yeah, if you're gonna eat one, there's a good size right there.

Nice clean one.

(fish squeaking) It's talkin' to ya.

(Bret groaning) - You speak catfish?

- [Darren] That's classified.

(Darren and Bret laugh) - All right, that was fun to catch.

You can catch a lotta these up here, and they're good fish to eat, they put up a good fight, so, don't be afraid to come up and try to catch some of these catfish.

Simple, simple to catch, a lotta fun.

(upbeat music continues) All right, so the setup is pretty simple.

Darren, you just got what, 30 pound braid on this rod?

- Yeah, roughly 30 to 40 pound.

You wanna be a little bit heavier on it, but yeah, about 30, 40.

- And, a bobber, split shot, and then a circle hook right there.

And you're just tied directly onto this braid.

- [Darren] I do like having a bigger bobber 'cause it makes a little bit of a noise when it splashes, so.

- Oh sure.

But this is a real easy setup.

So this is the, you know there are so many times, and usually it's wit you Darren that we talk about it, trying to catch some of the biggest fish in Minnesota, and the gear is simple and not that expensive.

You know, like these big catfish rods, you can usually get those fairly cheap.

- Yeah, they're just ugly sticks.

- Big tough rods, yeah.

(Darren and Bret laugh) So, but they're good gear for it, and simple setup, and we're not, you know you could shore fish really for these things.

- For sure.

- And, catch some big fish here in Minnesota.

They're also delicious to eat.

(upbeat music continues) - My bobber, oh, it's under.

(Darren laughs) (upbeat music continues) That's a nice fish.

- Oh, that's another nice one.

There we go.

They use these whiskers to kinda sense what's goin' on around there, don't they?

- Yeah, they're, essentially they're, just a swimming tongue.

Their whole body has like sensory glands on 'em, so they can, if they you know go by with their tail, they can taste the bait and stuff.

But, generally its their whiskers.

(light music) - In the wintertime, about 12% of all anglers that fished out here, fish for channel catfish.

And oddly enough, in the summer, almost 20% of anglers are actually fishing for a channel catfish.

One thing we did see though was that about 50% of the channel catfish that were caught were all released.

And so, you know that kinda led me to believe like, well it's probably not angling that's actually decreasing the population.

So in 2021, we actually took a big aging sample from all of our fish that we caught over the summer, and what we found was that this population is a very old population.

82% of those fish were aged 10 or older.

We had fish all the way up to age 17.

Typically those fish live to around 14 to 18 years, and so what we're seeing is I think we're seeing a lotta these fish that are aging outta the population.

(light music continues) 2024 is a year that we review the regulation that was put in in 2015, depending again, what public common comes in at.

You know, I can see staying with the 10, or I could see let's simplify it and just go back to five.

And, you know, leave it like what statewide is.

- While Joe doesn't believe you can give catfish all the credit, there's not doubt, the crappies in the Sauk river chain are in a better place than they were 50 years ago.

- Back in the 70's and 80's, very very seldom would catch anything over eight or nine inches for black crappies, and now we're seein' crappies, 12 to 13 inches, especially in the spring of the year when we're doin' our targeted surveys.

(upbeat music) - [Bret] That's a good one?

- [Darren] Yeah.

- [Bret] All right, I'll grab the net.

- He's not movin'.

Get the net!

(upbeat music continues) Wow.

This might be the, oh it's about the same as that other one.

Right.

- Nice, all right.

Just that easy.

Well Darren, this has been a lot Obviously, you don't need a lotta gear for it, guys can come up here and do it on their own.

- It's pretty easy, I mean, we, I don't know what we caught today, but it was a good number of 'em, - Yeah, all right, thanks Darren - Thank you, appreciate it.

(upbeat music continues) (light music) - [Claire] We're doing minnow trap sampling and vegetation sampling at six lakes across Minnesota this summer.

- We've learned tat if you set them out for 10 days you collect probably all the species that are there.

- Cats, love this plant, hence its common name.

Eat the greens, eat the flowers, you can make a tea out of it.

(light music) - So we have a native cattail in Minnesota, it's called the broadleaf cattail.

We also have a non native cattail called narrow leaf cattail that came from Europe, it's been in Minnesota since probably the '40's.

Wherever you have that narrow leaf invasive and the native, they always reproduce together, and that hybrid is what causes the problem.

(light music continues) When you have invasive broad leaf cattail, it causes negative impacts to fish communities, negative impacts to water quality.

On most lakes, especially around metro, when you see a large fringe, a wide fringe of cattail, it's probably the hybrid.

Native cattail grows, really in more marshy areas, not out into the deep water.

Lotta times you'll see it in a ditch by the road, or in a wetland, you'll see it's interspersed with lots of other plants.

The native has a very much wider leaf, it also has a bigger fatter catkin.

This brown part is the catkin, that's the female flowering part of the plant, the top part is the male part of the plant.

It's a little bit past flower, but you'd shake this, and that's where the pollen comes from.

And you can see, there is a space here, a really visible space between the male and female part of the plant.

So if you were looking at a native cattail you would see hardly any space, they would be touching, almost touching.

The hybrid grows in both deeper and shallower water than either of its parents.

When water's low, cattail moves in, and then it keeps expanding and expanding.

It, suppresses native plants, you get this big monoculture of cattail that turns what was once water, into almost terrestrial area, and fish don't seem to like it as well, dissolved oxygen is much lower in the water column when you have cattail.

There are some lakes that are entirely ringed by cattail, and that's probably all hybrid cattail.

And we started to think about the fact that it's ubiquitous, it's everywhere, we're never going to eradicate it.

So how can we manage it at a small scale in a way that doesn't impact non target species?

Right, for example, if you spray it with herbicide, you would be negatively impacting amphibians and larval fishes.

So we started thinking about, mechanical removal.

Cutting cattail below the water to increase the area available for native plants, and perhaps increase habitat suitability for fishes.

The Minnesota Aquatic Invasive Species Research Center was interested in funding some work on hybrid cattail, so that's how it was funded, through MAISRC, and by the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund.

We, scouted a lot of lakes in our first summer, trying to find suitable sites on areas of public land, and DNR was really helpful with that.

So we came up with nine lakes that we studied.

- The initial cattail removal happened in the fall of '21.

After the first year of sampling it was contracted out to a local company to do removal, which they did with mechanical harvesters, and also a lot of hand trimming with motorized weed trimmers.

When we're removing cattails, we're doing it underwater.

They have to be cut below the water in order to deprive the stems of oxygen so that they don't come back.

So here, we've got a couple inches of water basically, so you would need to go, basically all the way down to the root here, to get them to prevent them from growing back.

When we revisited our sites this year after they were initially cut in 2021, definitely we've noticed shifts in the vegetation community, we've got a lot of native aquatic species coming back and colonizing in the sites where cattails have been removed.

- From phase one we learned that there is, when you remove cattail, you see increases in dissolved oxygen in the water column.

And we do seem to be seeing differences in fish community, but we needed a little more monitoring data.

So that's what we're doing now, is looking a little bit more extensively at fishes, looking at how fishes are using these openings and cattail stands at different times of the year.

- We're doing minnow trap sampling and vegetation sampling at six lakes across Minnesota this summer.

There's been at least some regrowth of cattails at all of our sites.

So we have been going in with basically just a weed trimmer and removing what has sprung back up in the year since 2021.

Today we are out doing our minnow trap sampling at Big Marine Lake.

We set minnow traps earlier this week, and so every day we go out and check them to see what fish have wandered into our traps overnight.

We have minnow traps set in like a stand of native vegetation, set in a cattail stand, and also in our site where we've cut down the cattails.

We're looking to see just if there's differences in the fish community between those three different sites.

- We've learned that if you set them out for 10 days you collect probably all the species that are there.

So this is the third year of the project, so we have two years, a little bit of a break, and then this is phase two.

So we'll have either two or three summers going forward.

As we all know, years are really variable.

The first year of our study was a drought, the second year was a flood.

So, when you have a lot of variability, it's important to sample multiple times so you can get a sense of what's really going on, in spite of the climatic variability.

If we can remove cattail and let plants grow back with a permit, which of course you need to remove cattail, that can be beneficial.

So it's something that has the potential for Minnesotan's to do.

You can get an aquatic plant management permit from the DNR.

The permit currently is 15 feet from shoreline to open water.

They will come out and inspect, and let you know, yes or no, whether you're able to do that.

There are a number of commercial contractors who will come and remove it.

Some people do it on their own.

Our crew does it with kind of what I call the underwater weed whacker.

Some people just use a hand rake method.

You can't dig up the soil.

(light music continues) We're never gonna get rid of it, but we're trying to manage it.

Cutting cattail's only part of the story, we really wanna make sure that we're allowing native plants to grow back.

We move it outta the water.

It allows sunlight into the water column and down to the sediment.

Aquatic plant seeds are viable for many years in the sediment, so really, we found just opening up the space, and the sunlight to get to the sediment, native plants are coming back.

Things like bull rush, lily pads, all those different pond lily's, water celery's, potamogeton's, what you think of as, as I was a kid, seaweed.

Lakes are super important to Minnesota, we're the land of 10,000 lakes.

One of the things we really like to do on lakes is fish, and recreational fishing is of economic importance to Minnesota, and people, you know their grandkids come and wanna fish.

So, if we want healthy fish communities, healthy lake ecosystems, you wanna be able to swim, you need to make sure your vegetated near shore ecosystems are healthy.

(light music continues) (light music) - [Announcer] Stories about aquatic invasive species research are brought to you by the Aquatic Invasive Species Task Forces of Meeker, Yellow Medicine, Lac Swift, and Big Stone Counties, and by, the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund.

We can stop aquatic hitchhikers from infesting more lakes and streams by cleaning up everything we pull out of the water.

It's a simple drill, clean in, clean out.

Before leaving a water access, clean your boat and water equipment.

Remove and dispose of all plants and aquatic species in the trash.

Drain water from your boat, ballast tanks, motor, live well, and bait container, remove drain plugs, and keep drain plugs out while transporting equipment, dispose of unwanted bait in the trash.

To keep live bait, drain the water and refill the bait container with bottled or tap water.

And if you've been in infested waters, also spray your boat with high pressure water, rinse with very hot water, dry for at least five days.

Stop the spread of AIS.

(upbeat music) (light music) - We are sitting next to, it is a non native plant, it is commonly called catnip, and it is a member of the mint family.

Now, tell tale sign of a mint family plant would be that the stem is actually square, it's not round.

And you can tell that by feeling and also just looking at it.

Also, the leaves of catnip are opposite each other, meaning it's almost kinda like they're shaking hands, and the stem is kind of in between them then, so shaking hands with the stem.

And then, you can see the blooming part is it's kind of a white-ish, white-ish flowers.

Cats love this plant, hence its common name.

My mom called me over the other and said there was a cat rollin' around in their yard in a certain plant and wanted me to come over, sure enough, it was catnip.

So catnip has an effect on cats, there's a chemical in the catnip, and it attracts the cat, and it serves as like a great kind of calming agent.

So you might see a cat roll around in this stuff, and then they just kinda get zoned out after that.

And so, kinda the same affect for humans, maybe to a little lesser extent.

But the plant is edible, so you can, you know, eat the greens, eat the flowers, you can make a tea out of it.

You know if you drink it before it's supposed to promote, just like a good full night sleep, and it's just kind of a body calming plant.

So, again, you can dry that, or have it fresh.

Edible parts, you can throw it in a mixed green salad, and it has kind of a pepper-y minty flavor to it.

Also, if you see this and you know that it's catnip, take a clipping.

If you have a cat, bring it home and they'll thank you for it.

So, catnip, kind of a fun little (light music continues) (light music) (light music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Prairie Sportsman" is provided by, the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, as recommended by the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources.

And by Mark and Margaret Yakel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farm, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom Minnesota, on the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

(light music)