November 2025 Macro of the Month- Northern Caddisflies

Northern Caddisflies (Family Limnephilidae) Last month, we explored the importance of October foliage after it falls into a stream. Let’s take that further! As leaves fall into cold November water, there’s construction underway beneath the surface. Among the cobbles and leaf packs, case-building caddisfly larvae - members of the family Limnephilidae...

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Evaluating Stream Habitat Designs Across Southeast Minnesota

Over the past few decades, Minnesota has made tremendous progress in restoring and enhancing its coldwater streams. Across the state, partnerships between Minnesota Trout Unlimited, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MNDNR), local Soil and Water Conservation Districts, and others have brought new life to miles and miles of degraded...

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Why I Became Involved With Minnesota Trout Unlimited

Volunteer Spotlight on Mike Madigan Both my mother and father were fly fishers. They gave me my first fly rod when I was 7, a seven-foot Fenwick glass rod. For the first few years, I spent a great deal of time extricating my flies from the trees and bushes that lined...

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September 2025 Macro of the Month: Beetles

All it takes is a little wind on the grass and you might be lucky enough to hear a little plop under the bank – maybe a beetle tumbling into the water to become a late afternoon salmonid snack. In late summer and early fall, beetles are a terrestrial staple...

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Trout in the Classroom: 19 Years and Growing

In its 19th year, Minnesota Trout in the Classroom has 86 tanks in 74 schools and 2 nature centers throughout the state ready to be filled, cycled, and prepared to welcome 300 tiny, neon orange trout eggs this winter. Check out this map color coded by MNTU chapter to...

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Why Toewood Is Showing Up Along Minnesota Trout Streams

For MNTU, the goal of using toewood is not just to “hold the bank”. It’s to restore function, including banks that resist erosion, channels that can move a little without failing, and cover habitat that supports abundant fish and invertebrates

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Judge orders state agencies to assess whether manure and commercial fertilizer rules protect MN from nitrate pollution

DATE: 09/08/25 CONTACT: Sarah Horner, MCEA, shorner@mncenter.org, 612-868-3024 Saint Paul, Minn – A Ramsey County District Court judge ordered the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) to review whether the rules they have in place to protect Minnesotans’ drinking water from nitrate pollution are working....

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Macroinvertebrate of the Month: Grasshoppers (a.k.a. “Hoppers”)

It’s August in Minnesota. The heat has settled in, and streamside vegetation hangs thick and heavy over the banks of coldwater streams and rivers across the state. In our backyard, my daughters love to pass the time catching grasshoppers in the tall grass and tossing them into the stream, watching...

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Another Year of Trout in the Classroom

The 2025-26 Trout in the Classroom season kicked off with our first teacher and volunteer training in Duluth and the Twin Cities! This year we’re holding training sessions in two locations to support our growing and dispersed network of classrooms across the state. The location of the trainings also offered...

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