Is Red River fishing poised to be flooded out again?

[Snow Bird]

MONDAY FEBRUARY 15, 2010 Last modified: Monday, February 15, 2010 11:04 AM CST
Is Red River fishing poised to be flooded out again?

by Curt Wells

Well, another weekend in the Dakotas and another snow event, but not as bad as last weekend.

The white stuff just keeps piling up and it seems clear another flood in the Red River Valley is inevitable.

We went into fall with extremely wet conditions, wetter than the fall of 2008, so the ground is soaked to capacity.

We don’t yet have as much snow as last year, but we haven’t even hit the snowiest part of winter yet.

To make matters worse, Mother Nature seems to have forgotten what a mid-winter thaw is.

Whatever happened to those warm spells we used to get?

Unless we get a month’s worth of mild temperatures, I can’t see a scenario in which a flood is avoided.

There’s simply no place for the snow melt to go.

The most significant impact of a Red River flood is social, of course, but from an outdoor perspective the fishing really suffers.

http://www.wahpetondailynews.com/articles/2010/02/15/sports/doc4b796ef1b7d12743253746.txt

[MineralMan]

1. Severe flooding is predicted for the Red River again this year.

As if last year's floods weren't bad enough. The fishing is the least important issue. Flooding causes millions, if not billions of dollars in property damage. I'm more concerned with that than fishing, to tell you the truth, and I'm an avid angler.

[timeforpeace]

2. Where is the Red River? Is it a trout fishery?

[kickysnana]

3. Runs north through Morehead MN and Grand Forks ND into Canada

Thawing begins in the south the water has no place to run as it is frozen further north. The flooding is much worse and over a much longer period of time. Sorry I cannot tell you what kind of fish are there.

[Odin2005]

6. MOORhead

Sorry, I live in Moorhead and had to nitpick!

[kickysnana]

7. Sorry, typing while not thinking. Go Eagles! n/t

[MineralMan]

4. Nope, no trout. Walleye, catfish, northern pike, perch, and sturgeon.

Those are the main species of interest to anglers. They'll all survive. It'll make the river harder to fish for a while, but then the water will go down and the anglers will return.

The fish will do far better than the people who live near the river. They were flooded last year, and will be again this year, I expect.

The fish will be fine.

[malakai2]

5. It's the boundary between MN and ND

Runs through Winnipeg on the way to Lake Winnipeg. It's channel runs through an old lakebed, so the surrounding area is very fertile and very flat. A bit of flooding up here goes a long way. The fishery is mostly warm water species...channel catfish, walleye, sauger, smallmouth bass, northern pike, muskie, and carp. It's probably the best channel catfish fishery in the world, and is also good good enough for carp that tourists come over from Europe to fish it.

The nearest trout would be lake trout in Lake Winnipeg and Lake of the Woods. The nearest stream trout would be in various rivers and creeks further east in Minnesota or Manitoba.