Why do Minnesota anglers need a special stamp to fish for trout?

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Gavin Bauer spent a recent workday hauling hundreds of trout about 20 miles.

The Department of Natural Resources hatchery technician added about 450 fish to a stream in Chatfield, near Rochester.

But first Bauer and Scott Sindelar, who supervises the DNR’s hatchery in Lanesboro, had to corner the fish at the end of a long pool. Then they loaded them in a tank in the back of a red pickup, one 25-pound net-full at a time.

“I’m gonna keep stocking the rest of the day, and basically come back to the hatchery and redo the same thing,” Bauer said.

Trout stocking is just one of the programs funded by Minnesota’s trout stamp, a special add-on to fishing licenses.

Reader Mary Moilanen has been wondering about the stamp. She reached out to Curious Minnesota, the Strib’s reader-powered reporting project, to ask: Why do you need a specific endorsement to a fishing license to catch trout?

The stamp costs either $10 or $10.75 for the collectible version, which features the annual trout stamp contest’s winning artwork. Harvesting sturgeon also requires a $5 tag, while walleye enthusiasts can voluntarily purchase a walleye stamp to fund similar stocking efforts.

Requiring a stamp to hunt or fish for certain wildlife began as part of broader national conservation efforts.

In 1934, the federal Duck Stamp Act required people hunting for migratory waterfowl to purchase a stamp and fund efforts to conserve the birds’ habitats.

Since then, stamp programs have expanded to dozens of states, including Minnesota.

When the concept of charging a fee to fish in trout waters was first introduced in the Legislature in the 1950s, it didn’t immediately catch on.

John Lenczewski, the executive director of Minnesota Trout Unlimited, a group that aims to promote trout angling through conservation, has been fishing for trout since the stamp program was first implemented.

“People saw it as a way to improve the angling, improve the quality of the angling” and access to streams and shores, he said. “So people supported [it] because they thought it would improve their angling opportunities.”

Fishing often connects people to the environment, said Chris O’Brien, a longtime angler and advocacy coordinator with the Twin Cities chapter of Trout Unlimited.

“I think that one of the neat things about the fly fishing community and the trout fishing community is that there is this really strong conservation ethic, and this desire to protect the habitat and the clean, cold water for the future,” he said.

The program has undergone a few changes though the years.

By law, at least 90% of the proceeds from trout stamp sales must go toward stocking trout and salmon and maintaining the Minnesota lakes and streams where these fish thrive.

The state operates four cold-water hatcheries. Combined, they rear a whopping 1.7 million trout annually. Then staffers release them into streams and lakes for anglers to catch. These population management expenses comprised the majority of trout stamp fund expenditures in fiscal year 2023.

At a hatchery like the one in Lanesboro, operations mirror those at any other farm, said Sindelar — care, cleaning, feeding and breeding.

The fish begin their lives as eggs, with around 50 collected from every trout in the facility to ensure genetic diversity.

The eggs grow into fingerlings — young fish that are about the size of a finger — in a huge nursery containing dozens of long, bathtub-like tanks. The separate tanks and quiet atmosphere help keep fish healthy.

Young trout are most vulnerable to death and disease, but after around three months, the fish can be held in larger pools or stocked in lakes and streams, depending on the breed, Sindelar said.

Brown trout are typically released at this age, while rainbow trout and brook trout are released once they reach the “yearling” stage.

In 2024, trout and salmon stamp sales brought in around $1.1 million. Stocking is what most think of when they think of trout stamp funds. But trout stamps also fund longer-term efforts to promote Minnesota’s trout populations.

The stamp funds support three goals: rearing and stocking trout, restoring and maintaining habitat and purchasing public access to lakes and streams (called easements) from landowners, said Melissa Wagner, Lanesboro area fisheries supervisor with the DNR.

Expenses can vary from year to year, she said. For example, when the economy is in a downturn, more landowners are willing to sell easements on their property.

“Essentially, it allows the DNR, or somebody like us, to do [habitat] work,” he said. The DNR should focus on “not just maintaining the level of acquisition, but increasing it,” he said.

Since 2003, the DNR has also focused on the long-term restoration of native brook trout in Minnesota’s Driftless region.

After isolating the species’ native or “heritage” genes, officials developed a strain of the fish believed to be most similar to the ones that once inhabited the area.

Then, the DNR reared thousands of heritage trout. Since 2023, they have been stocking a handful of streams and lakes with the strain.

Initially, some waterways needed to be checked for temperature and other environmental factors to make sure they would be habitable for the trout. But others already had a strong brook trout population, suggesting reintroduction efforts would be successful.

The DNR sometimes stocks brook trout in areas where anglers can’t easily catch them, Wagner explained.

The idea is to target areas where the populations are likely to succeed, she said, planting the seeds for future generations of Minnesota fishing.

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