Spottail

Initially, the focus of the story was a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources regulation that prohibits the use of hard-sided traps to catch spottail shiners and other minnows in waters infested with zebra mussels.

Jonny Petrowske sets hard-sided minnow traps to catch spottail shiners in April 2015 on Upper Red Lake.

Upper Red also is one of the state’s premier sources for spottail shiners, which typically are found in Minnesota’s largest lakes, most of which are now classified as infested with zebra mussels.