Flooding river hospitable to wildlife

GUTTENBERG -- Nothing like a brisk boat ride across the Mississippi River on the last day of March to blow away the stale dregs of winter.

Even though the river was just 4 inches below the 15-foot flood stage at Guttenberg on Thursday morning, navigation could hardly have been easier as Department of Natural Resources fisheries technician Kevin Hanson guided a large flatbottom down the channel and into the backwaters to collect spawning northern pike for the hatchery.

With all the islands under water, Kevin did not have to worry about running aground as we wound through normally impassable areas below the dam on the Wisconsin side.

The water, reflecting its recent history as northland snow, was cool, barely 40 degrees in the backwaters, and surprisingly clear for the river at flood tide.

From the pairing of birds and mammals and the gathering in the shallows of spawning northern, it was obvious that the spring flood and the unseasonably chill weather had not cooled the springtime ardor of Upper Mississippi wildlife.

It was also apparent that the wild things were only slightly more concerned about people in boats than they were about the high water.

A pair of trumpeter swans, brilliant in the morning sun, flapped their wings and stretched their lengthy necks but otherwise held their ground as we idled past.

Nearby, a pair of muskrats frolicked atop shoreline vegetation as if we were not there.

Pairs of Canada geese wheeled noisily overhead while other duos watched warily from shoreline roosts as we motored by.

And in the far reaches of a remote slough, a pair of bald eagles tended their eggs, seemingly oblivious to the DNR fisheries personnel working just beneath their nest tree.