Healing Waters

Mark Reisetter ’68 moved to Lewiston, Minnesota, straight out of Luther and spent his entire career as a high school teacher there. In 1970, he was drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. He returned two years later and says, “The 50 trout streams within a 20-mile radius of Lewiston became my psychiatrist.”

Mark Reisetter ’68 has spent nearly 50 years protecting the trout streams of southeastern Minnesota.

In the late 1970s, Mark noticed the work that Minnesota Trout Unlimited (MNTU) was doing to restore trout habitat, and he started volunteering with the organization. “They don’t just talk the talk—they really do the work to protect the streams,” he says. 

Mark explains that outdated farming practices in southeastern Minnesota starting in the 1930s led to topsoil eroding from the hillsides and into critical trout streams, undermining fish reproduction. “When I moved here in the early seventies, most of our streams were being stocked with hatchery fish,” he says. “Today, I’d say over 90 percent of our streams are kept alive with healthy populations by natural reproduction. We’ve impacted for the better over 100 miles of trout stream here in southeastern Minnesota.”

But the work is ongoing, requiring vigilance and action. Mark has testified at the Capitol for an MNTU joint lawsuit, against the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and Minnesota Department of Agriculture to compel them to do a better job of monitoring nitrate use and fish kills. 

Recently, Mark testified before Keith Ellison’s Advisory Task Force on the Future of Minnesota’s Water about the effects of neonicotinoids—a pesticide used to coat seeds like corn and soybean—in Minnesota coldwater streams. Neonicotinoids that run off into streams have a devastating effect on aquatic insects like mayflies, an important food source for trout and other fish. 

By this point, nearly 50 years after he started volunteering with MNTU, Mark has served as chapter president, vice chair of the state council, and social media guru. For his outstanding dedication to Minnesota coldwater conservation, he recently received an MNTU lifetime achievement award. 

Beyond volunteering, Mark’s love of Minnesota trout waters runs so deep that for nearly two decades he shared it with others as a flyfishing guide, leading people from six countries and nearly 50 states out on the water. He continues to teach an annual flyfishing class at Whitewater State Park.  

“When you step into a cold stream and become part of nature and hear the babbling brook,” he says, “your mind takes you to some marvelously beautiful places.”