Trout return to Afton’s Trout Brook

The stream restoration project creates different types of habitat that fish need, including deep pools with slow-moving water, shallow riffles with fast, turbulent water running over rocks, and runs with deep, fast water and little to no turbulence.

Read More

What do bugs have to do with it?

One of the best measures of stream health is the amount and biodiversity of macroinvertebrates we can find in the water.

Read More

Brown’s Creek Watershed District Receives Two National Awards in 2020

This fall, the Brown’s Creek Watershed District will receive awards from the American Water Resources Association and the Water Environment Federation for long-term work to protect Brown’s Creek.

Read More

Brown’s Creek Watershed District to work with Oak Glen Golf Course on a new Clean Water project

There are three main goals for the Oak Glen stormwater reuse project. The first is to keep warm stormwater out of Brown’s Creek. The second is to keep phosphorus and sediment out of Brown’s Creek and the St. Croix River. In addition, this project will allow Oak Glen Golf Course to reduce the amount of groundwater it pumps for irrigation.

Read More

Paddle, Bike, Repeat: Four days on the Namekagon and St. Croix Rivers

We started our trip at the County Rd K landing (Namekagon River), near Trego, Wisconsin, and ended four days later at the Lower Tamarack landing (St. Croix River), 47-miles downriver. To avoid using a shuttle or bringing two cars, I brought my mountain bike along and rode back to our put-in at the end of each day to bring our truck and camping gear down to the next location.

Read More

Meandering in the woods

There is an art to meandering in the woods. For Trout Brook and other naturalized streams, the “wiggles” allow for different types of habitat that fish need.

Sometimes people need a pause to wander in the woods as well.

Read More

Lending a helping hand to Afton’s Trout Brook

South Washington Watershed District partners with Great River Greening and Vail Resorts A coldwater stream flows through the hills of Afton Alps and Afton State Park, bringing life to a valley in the woods. Over the past 150 years, Trout Brook has weathered the rise and fall of logging in region, decades of farming, and…

Read More

Local school groups release baby trout into Brown’s Creek

“Put your hand over the cup so no one falls out!” Evan Griggs calls out as he leads a dozen 4th and 5th grade students through a tangle of trees to the edge of Brown’s Creek. The students, who hail from St. Jude’s of the Lake in Mahtomedi, have been raising rainbow trout in their…

Read More

Brown’s Creek fish hoping for a big chill

This is a story about trout. It’s also a story about local history, changing landscapes, and people trying to do the right thing. Somewhere in the wetland dappled landscape near the now-closed Withrow Elementary, water begins to gather and form a stream we now call Brown’s Creek. The stream flows through soggy fields in Grant…

Read More

Mooneye, sturgeon and microplastics in trout

In the swiftly flowing waters of the St. Croix River, a federally endangered species of mussel called the spectaclecase shelters among boulders on patches of gravel and sand. It’s not easy to make babies when you’re spectaclecase. First, the male must release sperm into the river current, hopefully upstream of a lady mussel. If a…

Read More