2026-09-15 · Green Lake / Calhoun Lake (Spicer / Kandiyohi County)
Ten Weeks Closed — Calhoun’s Bridge Trades Up for a Better Shore Cast
Some Minnesota fishing stories are about the fish. This one’s about a bridge that finally admitted it was tired — and a shore cast that’s about to get a safer place to land.
Some Minnesota fishing stories are about the fish. This one’s about a bridge that finally admitted it was tired — and a shore cast that’s about to get a safer place to land.
Starting September 15, the timber bridge into the DNR’s Calhoun Lake Public Water Access near Spicer closes for about ten weeks. No vehicle traffic. No boat trailer parade. Just a construction zone where an old wood-beam span used to shrug its way across the Crow River diversion channel. (Minnesota DNR; West Central Tribune)
Josh Kavanagh, DNR senior wildlife specialist, didn’t sugarcoat the inventory item: “We are replacing one of the oldest vehicle bridges in our inventory to make it safer and provide additional shore fishing opportunities. The current bridge is an old wood beam bridge in poor condition and in need of replacement.” The rebuild widens the deck and adds a pedestrian crossing so folks can shore-fish the channel under the bridge without playing chicken with a trailer. (DNR)
Underneath the drama, the real Minnesota plot twist: rock arch rapids — big boulders laid out to mimic natural rapids — helping regulate water for the Dietrich Lange Wildlife Management Area and Green Lake next door, while giving fish a cleaner path through. The outlet dam already got the rock-arch treatment in fall 2025; the bypass under the bridge is next. Kavanagh again: better fish passage, a stream layout that looks less like a concrete argument. (DNR)
It’s not a solo act. The DNR’s partners include the Middle Fork Crow River Association, Kandiyohi County, Calhoun Lake Association, Green Lake Property Owners Association, and a private landowner — the usual lakes-country coalition of “we live here, so we fix it.” Get Out MORE dollars are carrying the recreation modernization piece; local reporting puts the broader Calhoun project in the neighborhood of $2 million. (DNR; West Central Tribune)
The whole access sits inside Dietrich Lange WMA — about 900 acres of waterfowl refuge sandwiched between Calhoun and Green. Hunters, shore anglers, boaters who used that ramp: you’re parked for a stretch. The punchline, once the cones come up, is a wider bridge, a walkable shore-fishing perch, and fish that don’t have to negotiate 1930s concrete to commute. (DNR; West Central Tribune)
Campfire takeaway: the loudest Spicer-area fishing story this week isn’t a bite chart. It’s ten weeks of inconvenience so the next shore cast — and the fish swimming under it — get a better deal than a 1937 wood beam ever offered.