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IGERT Story

Taking the Brook Trout's Temperature

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Taking the Brook Trout’s Temperature: Notre Dame biologists study how native fish could be restored to the Namekagon River watershed.
By Greg Seitz – St. Croix 360, Tuesday, Sep. 24, 2013

The skies above Cable, Wisconsin were unsettled last Friday, with rain showers interrupted by sunshine. Good fishing weather. But Patrick Shirey and his companions weren’t using typical methods.

Shirey, a researcher from Notre Dame University, was accompanied by two PhD candidates and a writer who was kind of wishing he had brought a fly rod.

The group ventured into the remote upper reaches of a small creek in the eastern extremity of the St. Croix River watershed. They were looking for brook trout – the beautiful, fragile and native fish which once thrived throughout the Namekagon and its tributaries….