© Dan Wilfond/Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Dead fish of several species are washed up along the shore of Grand Lake on Monday. Thousands of fish in the lake north of Duluth were lost to winterkill, a condition in which dissolved oxygen levels are too low for fish to survive.
The fish began piling up along the western shore of Grand Lake near Duluth on Monday, not long after the ice had gone out. Pushed by a strong east wind, thousands of dead fish washed up in reed beds and the front yards of lakeshore residents.
Perhaps as many as 35,000 fish died, said Dan Wilfond, fisheries specialist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources at French River, although he cautioned that that was a rough estimate.
The fish, victims of winterkill -- low oxygen levels -- included sunfish, crappies, walleyes, northern pike and largemouth bass, Wilfond said.
Grand Lake, a 1,600-acre lake between Saginaw and Twig, is popular with anglers.
"It was disheartening," Wilfond said. "It was a pretty severe kill."
Tim Goeman, DNR regional fisheries supervisor at Grand Rapids, said he was not aware of other lakes across northeastern Minnesota that have suffered winterkill.
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