Bass Ponds at the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge: past, present, future

Like the Kelley Farm, which lies nearby, the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Bloomington has been impacted by the airport's new north-south runway.

The glory days of bass

Though the ponds are no longer used for rearing and stocking bass, as they were from about 1926 through the mid-'50s, they have served as an important environmental study area for the Twin Cities metro area since the establishment of the refuge in 1976.

Now, however, with jet planes from the new runway screaming overhead, the refuge is shifting its educational efforts to a new facility, in Carver, jet-propelled by $26 million in Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) money.

The ponds and the visitor center will continue to be used for environmental education, but the emphasis has clearly shifted upriver. Which is not to say that in the minds of both old-timers and small fry the Bass Ponds will be forgotten.

How the ponds got their start

Oldsters and historians might recall that the Bass Ponds got their start back in 1926 when the Ikes, or members of the Izaak Walton League, were looking for a place to build bass-stocking ponds in order to replenish fished-out lakes in the Twin Cities. Just east of Cedar Avenue at the river bottom, the league found an ideal spot, where a cool, clearn stream full of brook trout promised a good supply of water; they leased the land and dug out a series of ponds; and they raised, over a period of 30 years, some 2.5 million largemouth bass as well as tons of smallmouth bass, sunfish, crappies, walleyes, and shiners.

In 1938, Dr. Samuel Eddy of the U of M used breeding pools on the grounds to hybridize muskies and northern pike, the famed tiger muskie that proved "so voracious that they would begin eating each other if they were without minnows for an hour" ("Bass Ponds Environmental Study Area" brochure, Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge, US Fish & Wildlife Service, US Department of the Interior).

In 1981, after a period of neglect, the new refuge's staff began to restore the ponds to their breeding days condition, and since then the ponds have been used as environmental education laboratories.

And how they continued as environmental labs

So now small fry too remember the ponds, as, for years now, schoolkids have swum out on buses and taken self-guided tours with their teachers.

Or they might have been guided by staff like Refuge Operations Specialist Terry Schreiner. The ponds remain close to people young and old, both geographically and emotionally, insists Schreiner. "People use it on lunch breaks, just to relax, especially people who live or work nearby. There’s a fishing pier down there for those who want to try their luck, and an annual Fishing Day each summer in June. There's an interpretive trail. And until this fall, anyway, we've had an active wetlands management program we used for environmental education.

"Only one fishing pond has bass in it. Other ponds we draw down and manage for migratory birds — ducks, shore birds, water birds — so they can fish there, so wildlife is benefited. We show how we cycle down the water levels in the ponds and then interpet the results.

"Little and Big Bass Ponds and Meadow Pond we just manage for wildlife but don’t stock with game fish, because we draw ‘em down and the game fish wouldn't survive. The migratory birds feed on minnows, darters, crustaceans, invertebrates, all kind of creatures that occur naturally in shallow water and recycle in these ponds, the normal ecology that occurs in shallow wetlands."

Because of the new airport runway, however, the Refuge's educational program is being diverted to the new Rapids Lake unit that breaks ground next spring in Carver.

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