Recap of 2024 WDNR Trout Habitat Projects by Nate Anderson
I want to give a quick recap of what trout habitat projects took place in 2024 and share the field season plans for 2025. I will be giving a full description of each project along with photos at the Kiap-TU-Wish chapter meeting on May 6th.
The Eau Claire habitat crew started the year working at Parker Creek, which was the second and final year of the project. This site is in St. Croix County just northeast of River Falls downstream of Pleasant Ave. We started the season off on May 8th, had 8 rain days while there and finished on July 1st. We were able to complete 8,392 feet of integrated bank treatment while using 7,000 tons of rock. We installed 78 root wads, 3 ERO structures, 13 spawning riffles, 13 rock clusters, 7 rock v-weirs, 3 islands, 19 overwintering deep-water pools, and 4 backwater refuges. Total cost was $172,851.93 or $51 per stream foot.
The second project for us was the Plum Creek-Martin easement. This project is south of Plum City along Highway U. The goals of this project were to increase and protect the amount of instream habitat available to trout and thereby increase the number of trout within the project area and increase fishing access and fishability for anglers. Total project length was 2,680 feet of both banks and 911 feet of one bank. We installed 77 root wads, 5 rock V weirs, 1 double ERO, 6 spawning riffles, 3 backwater refuge, 10 mid-stream boulder cluster, 1 island. Total cost was $95,483 or $15.22 per foot. We also installed a new parking lot along HWY U for anglers to be able to park in a safe spot while fishing.
Our final habitat project was on the Kinni-Moody easement which is upstream from East Division Street (HWY M) This project is a highly visible and very accessible project due to the location right in the town of River Falls. Access for fishing is from Hwy M bridge. We started August 26th and ended September 24th. This was a very tight location with my crew only working on one side. We used a lot of rock to protect the high bank next to the house. This bank was steeper than we would have liked but were limited on what we could do. There are still a lot of nice Cottonwoods, Bur Oaks and Black Walnuts on site which will make this a very nice-looking project soon. On the upper section of this site, we just added rock to the inside of the bank because the stream was overly wide, and this allowed us to save a lot of nice Black Walnut trees. We spent a lot of time in the track truck making the long hauls but were able to save the trees. We completed 2,700 feet of streambank protection and installed 28 root wads, 1 log spur, 4 spawning riffles, 6 deep pools for overwintering habitat, 5 rock deflectors. Total streambank rocked was 2,685 feet. Total rock used was 4,331 tons or 1.6 tons per foot. Total cost was $151,000 or $56 per foot. Total stream length for 2024 was 8,786 feet (1.66 miles) for a cost of $412,408.
We were able to do some upland work on South Fork Kinni Fee Title Property. Correct size rock for making ERO’s were delivered to the site this winter, at a cost of $8,200 which KIAP paid for. (Thank You!) 4 Control spraying was applied in the fall to help eliminate unwanted woody vegetation. The total cost to spray the site was $8,054. Pheasant Forever paid $5,000 for the spraying and Kiap paid the remaining balance. Kiap donated $5,000 for equipment use so Josh and Nick spent 68 excavator hours in October and November removing large trees that were too large to spray. Total cost for equipment of was $11,818.57 with $6,818.57 coming from Trout Stamp funds.
Our 2025 field season will consist of:
Wilson Creek-Manwarren project Wilson Creek is in Dunn County and just north of Knapp. This is a NRCS partnering project to take an existing ditched section of the North Branch of Wilson Creek and put it back to somewhat the original channel. We were able to work a couple days in October to remove trees and knock down reed canary grass in hopes the site will freeze better. This site is very wet so we wanted to be able to try and work while the ground was frozen. We were able to create the new channel and fill in the old ditch section with the fill from the new channel. This summer, we will add habitat features such as root wads and double wing deflectors. We will do this project during a dry spell this summer and it should take us about a month and a half to finish everything we need to complete.
Plum Creek-Von Holtum 2025 This site is in Pierce County south of Plum City on the upper Von Holtum easement. This project will take place upstream of our project last year and the project consist of 4,400 feet of stream length to be completed. The crew removed trees this winter and hauled 7,500 tons of shot rock at a cost of $8.95/ton for a total cost of $67,125. This will be our first project of the year starting sometime the first week of May. It should take us about 2 months to complete.
South Fork Kinni ERO building/ 1 week of Feconn work It was recommended to burn the South Fork of the Kinni property this spring for best management practices on reducing woody vegetation but not having that as a viable option for many reasons, WDNR will borrow a state skid steer with a Feconn head attachment and spend a week of mowing. The Feconn is like a large brush hog that will mulch all vegetation flush with the ground. Any resprout of woody vegetation will be sprayed by 4-Control in the fall. This should give us the advantage of getting the woody vegetation under control.
North Branch Wilson Creek Stoll Easement If time allows this summer, we will start another project on the North Branch of Wilson Creek. This site is an old pasture and is being overtaken by reed canary and tag alders. This section is 1,800 feet of stream length, have good access and help take angler pressure from Wilson and Gilbert creeks. This will be a more typical project with rocking the banks and adding instream habitat for all size structures for trout.
When most people think of a typical trout habitat project, they think about increasing trout numbers and having an easy place to fish. Another goal of a trout habitat project is to reduce streambank erosion. Historically, agricultural soil erosion from fields led to heavy deposition of fine sediment in streambeds. Excessive bank erosion in wooded and heavily pastured areas continues today. Generally, bank erosion rates are excessive when overhanging vegetation dominates the top of the bank, trees fall into the stream annually, or soil slips and slumps are common. Excessive bank erosion (lateral instability or widening) and downcutting are indicators of unstable streams. Excessive sediment deposition in a stream (formation of central bars or a braided stream) is also an indicator of instability.
Sedimentation of streams results in the loss of deep-water fish habitat and declines in spawning habitat and stream productivity. “Streambank erosion has long been identified as having negative impacts to water quality. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lists excessive sediments as a leading problem in our nation’s rivers and streams. Unnatural quantities of sediment entering streams can degrade aquatic habitat and alter physical and chemical characteristics of the water. Nutrients associated with soil particles enter the stream and become available to aquatic plants and algae, ultimately contributing to eutrophication of local and downstream waters.” (Pierce County Land and Water Management Plan. August 2021).
Erosion of streambanks is a naturally occurring process for many waterways, but impacts from humans such as removal of vegetation, foot/vehicle traffic, and channel modifications can exacerbate erosion. Conservation practices such as stream bank restoration, rotational grazing, fencing and buffer strips can be taken to reduce active bank erosion and reduce the impact of fine sediment to streams.
In a recent meeting with Pierce County Land and Water, KiapTUwish and WDNR, Rod Webb shared a formula to calculate how much soil loss is happening each year on local sites.
Eroding Bank Length X Eroding Bank Height X Lateral Recession Rate (FT/YR) X Soil Weight(lbs./ft3)/2000 = Estimated Soil Loss Per Year
Let’s use the latest project on the Trimbelle River-Thom easement using the formula. We did 4,000 feet of integrated bank treatment and the average height of the banks were 7 feet. Lateral Recession Rate for this section of stream is in the severe category with a .4 value due to banks that are bare with rills and contain severe vegetative overhang. Many exposed tree roots and some fallen trees and slumps or slips are present as well. The channel cross section becomes U-shaped as opposed to V-shape. Soil Weight has a 95 value with the Silty Clay Loam texture.
4,000 ft X 7 ft X .4 ft/yr X 95 lbs/ft3 / 2000 = 532 tons per year or 24 quad axle dump trucks of soil are lost each year from streambank erosion within the project site alone!!!
Phosphorus is also reduced by .2 pounds per ton of sediment. With this completed project, we are reducing phosphorus by 106 pounds per year just from within the project area.
Once a project is completed, soil erosion is very limited if not eliminated. Rock protects the bank, the grass covering the rock prevents any future erosion and by sloping the banks to a more gradual slope, lessens the pressure on the banks while allowing the stream to reach its floodplain more easily.
“WDNR records show that Pierce County trout streams have improved substantially during the past 40 years due in part to projects like the Thom easement project and the improved farming practices taking place. In 1980, Pierce County had 17 trout streams for a total of 97 miles. By 2002, there were 47 trout streams for a total of 159 miles and Class I trout streams increased from 11 miles to 47.7 miles and Class II streams increased from 55 miles to 108 miles. The most recent information from Wisconsin DNR, shows 109 miles of Class I trout streams and 95 miles of Class II trout streams in the area.” (Pierce County Land and Water Management Plan. August 2021).
The two photos shown below are the same outside streambank, before the project started and a few months after the project was completed. It not only has habitat for trout and easier to fish, but it’s not allowing any fine sediment to reach the stream, now, and into the future.
Maintaining Habitat Projects For Years Of Enjoyment.
Nate Anderson WDNR
After a trout habitat project is complete, Trout Unlimited and the DNR plant desirable native trees in select spots. Kasey Yallaly’s (WDNR) current plan is to plant larger seedling trees (over 6ft tall and at least 3 years old) along the stream every 50 feet, a distance that will allow continued maintenance after a project is completed. This spacing allows mowers enough room to get around and in between the trees and the stream. Once mature, the trees will provide some necessary shade to help maintain beneficial thermals. Kasey feels that this is a good compromise between (a) reforestation, which could result in a return to unfishable streams or (b) simply planting nothing.
We currently put each new habitat project on a 4-year rotation for mowing to keep out unwanted woody vegetation in an effort to promote native grasses. There are 2 types of mowing that take place on finished trout habitat projects, fishing access paths and mowing maintenance. Fishing access paths allow anglers to access the stream more easily during summer months when streambank vegetation is extremely high. These paths are at least ten feet wide and run along one side of the stream. We have been mowing at Cady Creek, Trimbelle River CTH W project, and Pine Creek annually. The mowing generally occurs through the width of an easement, commonly 66 feet wide and on both sides of the stream. This year’s mowing locations were located at; Gilbert Creek on Thorud’s easement, the fee title property just east of CTH Q, the Trimbelle River Holst easement and the Red Cabin site on the Kinnickinnic River. All mowing takes place in July to reduce chances of disturbing breeding birds but still get to the vegetation before it gets too high.
This year, mowing was done by Extreme Excavating out of Knapp, WI. The total cost came in at $16,800. Cost breakdowns showed that trout stamp monies paid for $8,500, Kiap-TU- wish contributed $1,500 from a past gift to the DNR designated for this type of work and $6,800 was paid by The DNR Parks and Recreation Department.
There are many sites along the Kinnickinnic River that have been brushed within the past several years that cannot be mowed. In order to prolong the effects of the brushing this year, the DNR hired a contractor, to chemically treat by foliar spraying 4 sites in order to control the invasive seedlings that usually sprout after brushing has been completed. The contractor hired for this project was 4-Control out of Menomonie, WI and the total cost was $3,500 paid for with Trout Stamp money.
Kasey Yallaly and I work closely with the Kiap-TU-wish- Maintenance committee each year to discuss what needs to be done. Please reach out to your chapter committee members if you have any ideas, thoughts, or comments regarding maintenance issues in your area or favorite fishing spot.
Our first project of the field season was on Gilbert Creek in Dunn County. The project is located within Gilbert Creek Fisheries Area and on Gene Holte’s easement and is 1,300 feet in length. This project is in cooperation with the Clear Waters Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Dunn County Fish and Game Assn, and Dunn County. This project was a continuation of past 3 years of trout habitat projects along this section of Gilbert Creek. Gilbert creek is a Brook trout reserve stream that has had numerous habitat projects completed on it and this newly acquired easement will allow us to tie in many years of habitat work together. It is a highly visible section, just off HWY 29 which will allow the public to safely park off the busy Hwy in a 75×50 parking lot. Work started on 5/9/22 and project was complete on 5/24/22. We created 1 rock island, 3 spawning riffles, 98 root wads and used 3,025 tons of rock which comes out to 2.3 tons per stream foot.
Our second project of the year was on Sand Creek in northeast Dunn County. This is a highly visible project that enhanced habitat and access to the stream in the park of the town of Sand Creek. It is now a great spot for senior citizens and the youth to fish due to the location and access from a parking area with the potential of catching a trophy brown trout. We partnered with ClearWaters TU, and the Town of Sand Creek. Work started on 5/25/22 and project was complete on 6/15/22. Total distance is 650 feet. We installed 8 LUNKERS, 1 plunge pool, 5 riffles and 1 rock v weir and hauled in 440 tons of black dirt, used 1,325 tons of shot rock and 125 bales of straw. We removed all old, unstable and unsafe trees within the park and will plant more trees in the near future.
Sand Creek City Park
Our next project was on the Trimbelle River-Halvorson easement. This project was partnered with KiapTUwish Trout Unlimited. We completed 3,200 feet with potential for more stream footage downstream on the same landowner’s property/easement. Native species such as Ash, Oak and Maple will be left standing to provide some shade, but this site is a horse pasture with very short turf grass. The project started on 6/20/22 and we finished on 8/16/22. We installed 22 riffles, 41 root wads, created 5 islands, 5 back water refuges, 2 ERO’s, 5 rock v weirs and 1 cross log while also adding too many to count mid-stream boulders and boulder clusters. We used 7,500 tons of shot rock @ $7.98/ton which comes out to 2.34 tons per stream foot and 400 bales of straw @ $8.00/bale and 900 pounds of Orchard grass.
The final project of the field season took place on the headwaters of Gilbert creek, which is owned by the State. We completed 1,550 feet with 1,550 more feet to be finished next field season. We started 8/17/22 and we finished up for the year on 9/15/22. Thirty-six root wads, 3 ERO’s, 16 riffles and 3 backwater refuges were installed. This project site will make for great spawning areas for Brook trout once we are able to flush out the fine sediment and create more spawning riffles.
