A Roving Creel Survey of Selected Southeast Minnesota Trout Streams - 2005

Thirty-three trout streams were surveyed from April 1 to September 30, 2005 throughout southeast Minnesota in a roving creel survey. Anglers were interviewed, counted, and given a post-card to return indicating total hours fished. Anglers consisted of mostly males (90.2%) using a variety of bait (37.0%), fly (35.3%), lure (20.7%), and mixed method (7.0%) gear types. Mean angler trip length was calculated as 3.77 hours with a catch rate of 1.10 trout/hour. An estimated 214,307 trout were caught in 52,687 angler trips totaling 190,859 angler-hours. Angler harvest rates were 17.3% for brown trout and 34.4% for rainbow trout. This creel will help natural resource managers meet their long-term goal to conserve, enhance, and restore self-sustaining trout populations and their habitats for anglers and the people of Minnesota.