GRAND FORKS – For the primary time since 2015, the North Dakota Recreation and Fish Division, together with the Minnesota Division of Pure Assets, will conduct a creel survey this summer time to measure angler exercise and harvest on the Purple River.

The survey will start in early Might and proceed by means of September.

The 2 businesses, which share administration of the U.S. portion of the Purple River, historically conduct the angler survey each 5 years, however the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic delayed plans for a survey in 2020, and the businesses opted to carry off on conducting the survey in 2021, as properly.

The Minnesota DNR funded the 2015 survey, and Recreation and Fish will fund this 12 months’s angler survey, mentioned Todd Caspers, Northeast Fisheries District biologist for the North Dakota Recreation and Fish Division in Devils Lake.

“These surveys are necessary as a result of they permit fisheries managers to gather knowledge about anglers and what they catch,” Caspers mentioned. “The data collected can be utilized to estimate the overall period of time anglers spend fishing, in addition to the overall numbers of the varied fish species which can be caught and harvested.”

As a part of the survey, two creel clerks – one based mostly in Fargo and the opposite in Grand Forks – will journey to varied entry websites alongside the river, counting anglers and conducting in-person interviews, from the supply of the Purple River at Wahpeton-Breckenridge to the Canadian border close to Pembina, North Dakota.

The Fargo clerk additionally will survey a website on the Otter Tail River, a Purple River tributary, downstream from the Orwell Dam southwest of Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

The 2 creel clerks have been employed, Caspers mentioned.

Over the last angler survey in 2015, Purple River anglers logged an estimated 88,860 hours of fishing effort on the Purple River through the Might by means of September survey interval – down 20% from the 2010 creel survey and the bottom of any creel survey since 1994.

As I reported in 2015, fishing strain alongside the Grand Forks stretch of the river held regular, whereas much less shore fishing exercise within the Fargo-Moorhead and Wahpeton-Breckenridge areas contributed to many of the general decline.

Channel catfish made up 53% of the overall harvest in 2015. Anglers caught an estimated 44,721 cats and stored an estimated 6,868 of these fish for 35,343 kilos. Different gamefish species sampled within the survey have been walleyes, saugers, smallmouth bass and northern pike.

A brand new twist to this 12 months’s survey shall be an digital element, which shall be utilized in mixture with the in-person interviews. The creel clerks will distribute playing cards to shore anglers, Caspers says, and in addition go away playing cards on the windshields of vehicle-boat trailer rigs parked at numerous boat ramps alongside the river.

Anglers then can both scan a QR code or go to the web site listed on the cardboard to entry an internet survey.

The net survey ought to solely take a few minutes to finish, Caspers says, and can assist to supply extra info than the clerks can collect throughout their in-person interviews.

“The playing cards and digital survey will enable shore anglers who’re given a card to ‘full’ the interview that was began by the clerk, since shore anglers usually aren’t achieved fishing when they’re interviewed by the clerks,” Caspers mentioned. “Boat angler interviews are laborious to get on the Purple River for the reason that clerks can’t spend plenty of time ready at anybody website for boats to return in. The playing cards will enable boat anglers to take part within the survey with out truly being interviewed by the clerk.”

Anglers could get a number of playing cards from the clerks over the course of the survey and are inspired to finish the survey every time, Caspers says.

“Every day’s fishing supplies distinctive and helpful info,” he mentioned.

Along with the Purple River creel survey, the Minnesota DNR will pattern the U.S. portion of the Purple River this summer time as a part of an evaluation that primarily goals to make clear channel catfish populations.

The DNR has performed the survey each 5 years since 1990 – COVID pressured postponement of the survey in 2020 and 2021 – dividing the river into 4 reaches: Wahpeton-Breckenridge to Fargo, Fargo to Grand Forks, Grand Forks to the Drayton Dam and Drayton Dam to the Manitoba border. Fisheries crews from Detroit Lakes and Fergus Falls work the 2 higher reaches with lure nets, and a crew from the DNR space fisheries workplace in Baudette samples the 2 downstream sections with each lure nets and trotlines.

The DNR tries to conduct the survey in June, timing it to coincide with the catfish prespawn interval when catfish are actively transferring.