Trout Streams Became My Psychiatrist
Hello, my name is Mark Reisetter and I am a longtime member of Minnesota Trout Unlimited.
I came to Lewiston in Southeastern Minnesota 57 years ago, taking a teaching job right out of college. After my first year of teaching, I was drafted into the Army and sent to Vietnam in 1970 as an infantryman with the 101st Airborne Division. Two years later I returned to my teaching position in Lewiston, and soon the 50 trout streams within a 20 mile radius of Lewiston became my psychiatrist.
I didn’t get married until I was 32 years old. Before my wife and I began our family, raising three children, we installed a water distiller to provide our drinking and cooking water. And it’s a good thing we did, because an article appeared in the Minneapolis Tribune on February 2, 2011, with a dateline of Lewiston, Minnesota, titled “Poison on Tap.” The article referenced the condition of Lewiston’s city water.
Spring creeks are under appreciated. Even though we have over 700 miles of trout streams in our corner of the state, globally and nationally, spring creeks are rare. How rare? 3% of the earth’s water is fresh water, not saltwater. We used to say, of that 3%, only 1% of the earth’s freshwater is not frozen in the Poles. 1% of that 1% is in a river or stream, not in lakes. 1% of that 1% of 1% is in a spring-fed creek. That’s how rare and precious our trout streams are, and they deserve protection!
On July 23, 2022, I helped report a massive fish kill on Rush Creek, one of my favorite local trout streams just three miles south of town. The massive die-off was the third one within a seven-year period, all within a 13-mile radius of my town. And it wasn’t just the number of fish, but the size. A landowner along that stretch of Rush Creek became sick when he found and photographed a dead 27-inch brown trout, the fish of a lifetime. It could take a decade for that part of Rush Creek to produce a fish of that size again. Rush Creek winds through large corn and soybean fields and the fish kill was clearly linked to a combination of manure run-off and aerial fungicide spraying hours before that large rainfall event.
Former Governor Mark Dayton said:
“In the land of 10,000 lakes, clean water should be a right, not a privilege. But the reality is that the quality of our lakes, rivers, streams, and groundwater is threatened from many sources all across our state. We are at a crucial moment – we can continue to let water quality become worse or we can work together to reverse the damage that has been done and prevent future water degradation.”
I have volunteered with Minnesota Trout Unlimited since the 1970s because I embrace the mission to conserve, protect, restore, and sustain Minnesota’s coldwater fisheries and watersheds.
I have also volunteered for 40 years with Lewiston’s Fools Five Road Race committee, which has raised and donated close to $3,000,000,00 for cancer research, because the incidence of cancer in our area seems more prevalent than in many places.
As I age, I am lucky to still be able to enjoy time outside on our local trout streams, and I have learned how precious good health is. Clean water is important today and will become more crucial with each passing year. I am proud of MNTU’s participation in this lawsuit. We all need to do what we can to protect our water.
January 28, 2025, Minnesota Trout Unlimited joined the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA) and the Minnesota Well Owners Association (MNWOO) in a lawsuit against the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and Minnesota Department of Agriculture to compel them to do a better job of protecting coldwater ecosystems from harm caused by high nitrate levels and fish kills. Read more about it here.
We are soliciting stories from the angling community of your experiences and what you have seen. Contact [email protected] if you would like to contribute!