Article: Minnow man to end 39 years of trapping minnows.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

DEER RIVER, Minn. _If the years have taught Fred Bartick anything, it's how to judge a minnow.

As soon as he saw the silver shiners spilling out of his seine into a holding box afloat on Lake Winnibigishosh, he knew they didn't look right.

These weren't the firm, tough shiners of early spring. They weren't the same robust minnows he had trapped here just two days before.

At 74, after 39 years of trapping his own bait for his bait shop, Bartick knew what had happened.

"They're done," Bartick said to his helper, Skip Lyons of the Leech Lake Indian Reservation. "The run is over here." The water had warmed up. The shiners' spawning run ...

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