The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is beefing up efforts to manage catfish in metro region rivers, and it’s looking for a few avid anglers to help.
The project will include DNR tagging catfish to get a better idea of their population and movement. It also will draw upon catfish anglers who are willing to answer a few survey questions and keep diaries of their angling efforts. The angler diaries will provide valuable information that is not typically obtained in standard creel surveys, because many catfish anglers fish at night.
Anglers willing to take the 12-question survey can do so online at www.surveymonkey.com/catfish. Anglers may also send an e-mail to MetroEast.Catfish@dnr.state.mn.us or call 651-259-5806 to request that a paper copy of the survey be mailed to them.
Anglers who catch and release a tagged catfish should record the species, length, tag number, location caught, and release the fish with the tag in place. Anglers who harvest a tagged fish should record the same information and report the fish as harvested. Anglers not participating in the catfish angler diary program can still report tagged fish locations using the MDNR website www.dnr.state.mn.us/fisheries/tagged_fish_reporting/index.html or by contacting the phone number or e-mail address listed above.
Catfish are becoming more and more popular with Minnesota anglers, and metro rivers are fertile waters for big cats. The state record flathead catfish, weighing 70 pounds, was caught on the St. Croix River in Washington County, and the record channel cat was pulled from the Mississippi River in Hennepin County.
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