Thanks to an increase in self-sustaining, naturally reproducing brown trout populations, there was no need to collect brown trout eggs this fall. Today, all brown trout caught by anglers have spent their entire lives in the stream. Past stockings of French Creek-strain brown trout have helped to establish wild fisheries throughout Northeast Iowa.

Years of work to protect and enhance the South Pine Creek watershed in Winneshiek County has allowed Iowa’s only native trout, the brook trout, to thrive and continue to naturally reproduce in that stream.

There’s natural spawning, mostly brown trout and some brook trout, in more than 100 northeast Iowa streams thanks to improved habitat and trout genetics, and an extended period of above average annual rainfall prior to the drought these past two years. 

Read the Iowa DNR Article