Call It Extreme Makeover: Trout Stream Edition

FARMINGTON, Minn. (AP) -- It's being billed as Extreme Makeover: Trout Stream Edition.

The Department of Natural Resources and Trout Unlimited are wrapping up a major project to improve aquatic habitat on nearly a mile of the Vermillion River, a trophy brown trout stream near Farmington.

The project involves excavating a new meandering stream channel to replace an old straightened channel used for drainage. A stream channel that zig-zags provides better habitat for fish and the bugs they eat, and it lessens erosion.

On Saturday, several dozen volunteers will help the DNR round up the fish in the old channel and move them to their new home before the old channel is filled in. Surveys in nearby stretches of the Vermillion have turned up brown trout as big as 30 inches.

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