Friends of the Upper Mississippi

The annual Kids Ice Fishing Day at Genoa National Fish Hatchery on February 1, 2025 was an incredible success, bringing together over 500 attendees, including enthusiastic staff and dedicated volunteers! Hosted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s three La Crosse area fisheries offices, in partnership with our Friends Group, the Friends of the Upper Mississippi, this year’s event was truly a celebration of community and nature.

With 250 children aged 5-12 participating, many of whom experienced ice fishing for the first time, the day was filled with excitement and learning. Under the expert guidance of Kyle Von Ruden, a Geneticist and avid fisherman from the Midwest Fisheries Center in La Crosse, participants received valuable ice fishing tips and a vital safety briefing before heading out to fish on pond 11.

After a morning of fishing, where many young anglers caught their limit of three rainbow trout each, families enjoyed a light lunch catered by our Friends Group. A cozy warming tent with coffee and cocoa provided a perfect spot to warm up throughout the day.

A heartfelt thank you goes out to our volunteers, the Friends of the Upper Mississippi, the USFWS staff and the Roch Kendrick memorial for making this event possible. It was a wonderful morning spent outside, fostering a love for nature among children and their families!

By: Erica Rasmussen                                                Pictures below

Photos: USFWS staff, volunteers and families on a frozen hatchery pond helping youth anglers catch a fish, kids holding up fish that they just caught and kids ice fishing at Genoa National Fish Hatchery. Photo credit: USFWS.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) annually stocks more than a million brook trout of different life stages across the country. In the Midwest region, Iron River National Fish Hatchery maintains a captive line of Isle Royale strain coaster brook trout for stocking in Lake Superior waters in support of the Brook Trout Rehabilitation Plan for Lake Superior., Coaster brook trout exhibit a unique life history trait in their use of shoreline waters of Lake Superior. Historically, coasters were widespread throughout shoreline waters of Lake Superior. To maintain genetic diversity within the brood stock, new brood lines are periodically developed. Every three to five years biologists from the USFWS Ashland Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office, Iron River National Fish Hatchery, and Genoa National Fish Hatchery travel to Isle Royale National Park to collect gametes from the self-sustaining coaster brook trout population in Tobin Harbor.

A USFWS staff holding up a breeding male coaster Brook Trout. Photo credit: USFWS.

Isle Royale National Park is situated in northwest Lake Superior closer to Minnesota and Ontario than to mainland Michigan. The crew used the U. S. Geological Survey vessel, R/V Mayfly, to make the 60-mile trek from Grand Portage, Minnesota to a Park Service cabin in Rock Harbor and set up gear in Tobin Harbor. Tourist season was over, so power and plumbing had been shut down to the cabin. We would be on our own in the wilderness with a Honda generator, camp stove and some portable Buddy heaters to provide some comfort, communication and cooking source. Our drinking water would be from the lake itself, after a good boiling of course.
Brook trout spawning occurs in October at Isle Royale National Park. In Tobin Harbor, fish spawn along the shoreline in a mixture of sand, gravel, and cobble substrate. Fish are collected throughout Tobin Harbor using fyke nets placed along the shoreline. Nets are monitored daily, and length, weight, sex and reproductive condition data are collected from all brook trout captured. If the fish are releasing gametes, they are transferred to a temporary holding pen for spawning.
Spawning commences once we collect enough ripe adults to meet our target number of families or when we reach the deadline for the work boat to be loaded onto the Park Service vessel, Ranger III, for transport off the island. Approximately 400 eggs are collected from each female, roughly one quarter of the total produced. After milt and egg collection the fish are released back to the wild. Eggs collected from each female are evenly divided into up to five batches and each batch is fertilized with milt from one male creating up to five families per female.
The fertilized eggs are then transported from Isle Royale National Park to an isolation rearing facility at USFWS Iron River Fish Hatchery. There they are incubated, and the newly hatched fish raised to breeding age during which time they undergo several fish health inspections by staff at the USFWS La Crosse Fish Health Laboratory in Onalaska, Wisconsin. If the brood class passes three fish health inspections and are confirmed healthy, they are ready to be incorporated into the coaster brook trout brood program to produce offspring for restoration stocking by USFWS and partner fishery agencies in Lake Superior.
By: Nick Bloomfield, Henry Quinlan, Joe Amundson, and Josh Hartin

Each fall, the previous year’s cohort of Hine’s Emerald Dragonfly larvae are packed up and transferred to overwintering culture systems at the University of South Dakota, and at the same time the new year’s cohort of eggs arrives. The larvae that we cultured at Genoa NFH were collected as eggs in August 2023 in a severe drought, conditions that led to a limited number of Hine’s Emerald females being collected and much reduced number of eggs in the cohort. The hatching success of this cohort was also lower than previous years, but they grew well and had good survival through the later culture stages over the summer. In total, 66 larvae from the 2024 growing season were transferred for over-wintering.
The current cohort were collected as eggs in August of 2024. Water levels were low and conditions were dry this summer, but an increase in collection efforts by project partners led to a more typical number of eggs being collected from the population. The eggs that Genoa NFH received are currently in chilled ‘winter conditions’, where they’ll stay until late March/early April, when they’ll be slowly warmed to spring hatching temperatures.
By: Beth Glidewell

2024 Hine’s Emerald Dragonfly hatch (top) and end of season (bottom). Photo credit: USFWS

Come join us! The FREE annual Waterfowl Observation Day celebration hosted by the Friends of the Refuge – Mississippi River Pools 7 & 8 (FOR78), the Friends of the Upper Mississippi River (FUM), and the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge will be held on Saturday, November 9 at the Brownsville Overlook near Brownsville, MN between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Visitors will be able to view migrating birds as they rest and feed. 

Spotting scopes and bird identification guides will be available for visitors to enjoy. Refuge staff and members of FUM and FOR78 will assist with bird identification and answer related questions. Light refreshments will be available while supplies last, during this event only, courtesy of FUM. Friends’ members from both organizations will have wildlife-themed items available for purchase. Please dress for chilly weather!

The Brownsville Overlook is one of the best places along the river to see hundreds of tundra swans, diving and puddle ducks, bald eagles and other birds. The overlook is located about three miles south of Brownsville, Minn., along MN Highway 26. 

Biologists search for displaying Winged Mapleleaft at the St Croix National Scenic Riverway. Photo Credit: Beth Glidewell/USFWS.

As early fall water temperatures begin to drop in the St Croix River, female Winged Mapleleaf mussels are ready to have their glochidia attach to host fish. They display a lure that helps to attract channel catfish closer to the female, where she can release glochidia into the water and -hopefully- onto the catfish’s gills. Individual females only display a lure for a short window of time (a day or 2) so mussel biologists have to time collection and propagation efforts to match the mussel’s and the river’s fluctuations. Biologists snorkel or scuba dive 2 to 3 times per week during the WML brooding season to visually check the population for females that are in ‘full display’.

A Winged Mapleleaf in full display. Photo Credit: Beth Glidewell/USFWS.