The 2012 Minnesota Fishing Opener
Metro Area Offers Great Fishing Close to Home
Odds are there is good fishing not far from your front door.
With more than 250 lakes in the metro area managed for fisheries and nearly 300 miles of good-sized streams and rivers, anglers would be hard-pressed to find another major urban area with such a wealth of fishing opportunities. Take the Mississippi River, for instance. Flowing through the heart of the metro, its northern reaches are well known as a top-notch bass fishery. Then there’s "Pool 2," the area between the dams at St. Paul and Hastings. A few decades ago, it was so polluted that bullheads could barely survive. Now it’s recognized as a world-class catch-and-release fishery for walleye and sauger—thanks in large part to the federal Clean Water Act and state and local efforts to clean up the river. Another metro river, the St. Croix …
