Friends of the Upper Mississippi

Fathead minnow fingerlings are used throughout the year as a forage base to feed hatchery captive broodstock as well as advanced growth largemouth, smallmouth, and walleye. These species feed on zooplankton and invertebrates as their primary food source when they are first stocked into hatchery ponds, as these fish grow, they switch to larger forage items, hence hatchery fathead minnows are stocked into ponds as their secondary food source. Prior to 2003, the bulk of fathead minnows used on station were purchased from private bait dealers in the area. This method was discontinued due to the risk of transmitting many unknown diseases from wild populations of fish to hatchery fish and to eliminate the risk of nuisance species such as brook stickleback. A fathead minnow brood line was developed at Genoa to prevent disease transfer and to reduce costs associated with the purchase of the wild baitfish.
In early spring approximately 50 gallons of broodstock fathead minnows are stocked into a 34-acre pond. During the summer these fish will spawn multiple times producing millions of new young of year fathead minnows. By mid-July, fathead minnows can be trapped using specially constructed minnow traps baited with dog food. This method results in variable catches of minnows per day using cloverleaf traps. The traps are available in a variety of mesh sizes to target different sizes of minnows. Hatchery staff irregularly set cloverleaf minnow traps around the pond by boat. Two people are required during the collection, a boat driver and another situated on the bow that can grab the float of each trap. The traps are emptied into an oxygenated 50-gallon tub filled with pond water in the center of the boat. After all the traps are collected and reset, the fathead minnows are transferred to a distribution truck and then to production ponds where minnows are measured by gallon and fed to production fish.
By: Orey Eckes

YCC student and staff getting ready to collect minnows in their boat. Photo: USFWS.

Over the years at the hatchery we’ve been working to improve how we manage ponds for mussel culture. Often the best conditions for growing fish don’t result in great algae and bacteria for growing juvenile mussels, so it takes lots of data collection and experimentation to find a balance between the two needs. This year we’re trying to culture our freshwater mussels in pond 10 right next to the mussel building. We placed our cages before the pond was filled. Our Youth Conservation Corps workers stocked the Largemouth Bass infested with Plain Pocketbook into the cages this week. The juvenile mussels will drop off into the sand in the bottom of the cages and hopefully grow and thrive. We added a tarp below this year’s cages to see if many of our juveniles are washing out of the cages due to fish movement or waves from storms. Any juveniles will be cultured to a large enough size to stock into Iowa to replace Plain Pocketbook killed in a spill. By: Megan Bradley

YCC workers place freshwater mussel infested Largemouth Bass into mussel culture cages at GNFH. Photo credit: Megan Bradley/USFWS.

Reghan feeds Hines Emerald Dragonfly larvae. Photo credit: Megan Bradley/USFWS.

We’re excited to welcome a new Pathways student to the hatchery. Reghan Yourell joins
us from U.W. Eau Claire where she’s majoring in Environmental Science with a minor in
psychology and is on the Dean’s List. Reghan started at the hatchery in May and has
been working hard from day one, learning, caring for our fish, mussels and dragonflies,
and building things to help move forward our hatchery programs. Reghan finds that most
of her time is occupied with classes since she’s still a student, but she enjoys reading,
playing with her family dogs, spending time outdoors and traveling. We’re looking
forward to her teaching our staff more about how we can put together psychology and
the environment to improve our conservation mission and to seeing how she grows in her
conservation career. By: Megan Bradley

Ongoing Lake sturgeon restoration efforts were jump started this year due to a dedicated collection of conservation partners. While losing the original source of lake sturgeon eggs for 3 ongoing restorations from the Rainy River due to a retirement at a First Nations tribal hatchery in Canada, a temporary holding site was needed on the U.S. side of the river to hold and spawn spawning adults. Conversations began in early 2022 to begin a search where a temporary adult holding facility could be housed by the source population of Rainy River to collect eggs from. With several coordination meetings arranged by our neighbors to the north (the Midwest Fisheries Center) to determine partner roles, the hatchery volunteered to begin equipment acquisitions to set up a mobile brood stock holding unit on the banks of the Rainy River close to an active spawning site. A generous donation of poly tanks was made by the Red Lake tribe of Chippewas to get us started. Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) found an optimal site located inside a Minnesota State Park with available electrical and facilities. Genoa acquired the pumps, piping and alarm monitoring and notification systems for the mobile unit. Upon reports that the lake sturgeon had gathered at the spawning site, the mobile holding facility was rapidly set up and put into operation. DNR personnel began collecting adults and 8 females and 18 males were placed in the tanks for Genoa NFH and partners to begin hormone induction to stimulate egg and milt release. Eggs were gathered for two federal hatcheries with all the adults being safely returned to the river. After a grow out period of 4-5 months 6-8 inch fall fingerlings will be released in 2 Minnesota tribal waters and the Red River of Minnesota. Thanks to all our state, federal and tribal partners and our very own maintenance and biological staff members at Genoa and Upper Midwest Fisheries Center in La Crosse Wisconsin for your talents, technical expertise, and muscles to make this effort possible! By: Doug Aloisi