The National Eagle Center and Trout Fishing

My husband recently had a milestone birthday and to celebrate the kids went to the In-laws and we had a weekend to ourselves. Today I am going to share with you a couple of things we did on the east side of Minnesota. Next week I will share with you the three wineries and one brewery that we went to on the east side of Minnesota and west side of Wisconsin. We also did those that same weekend.

The first thing we did was actually go trout fishing for a while at a designated trout stream just outside of Zumbro Falls. This was actually the first time we have ever gone stream trout fishing. Just so you know, you do need a trout stamp on your fishing license in the state of Minnesota, which we have. The stream was incredibly clear and we could see a lot of these tiny baby trout swimming around down the stream. However, I didn't catch anything. Maybe next time. It was a beautiful stream to fish in and see the beginning of Spring.

We also went to the National Eagle Center in Wabasha Minnesota. It is wonderfully affordable attraction that is a nonprofit organization. If you do go to this, make sure you plan enough time so you can watch the show, that is really the highlight of the center. We went there in the spring obviously but they said if we were to come back in the winter there are as many as ten times as many Eagles that call this stretch of the Mississippi River their winter home that fly self to Minnesota from Alaska and Canada. We want to take the kids back there sometime in the winter so we can see all of the Eagles there. It was still pretty amazing to see the half-dozen we did flying overhead as we were crossing the bridge from Minnesota to Wisconsin.

They do have their own resident eagles that no longer able to be in the wild because they no longer can fly because of injuries. They have them in a room and you can see them and only be about six feet away from them. It is pretty neat to be up that close to them. We have also seen and Eagle at the Zollman Zoo in Byron. At the National Eagle Center they had two bald eagles and one golden eagle that were for viewing. They brought in another bald eagle for the class presentation. Plus they mentioned a few other eagles that they must have housed somewhere else in the facility. The building is beautiful and they have a fountain that wasn't on but I can only imagine looks gorgeous once it is running. The national Eagle Center overlooks the Mississippi River which is an awesome site.