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Thanks to Matt Jennings for a terrific presentation on pursuing migratory fish in the Lake Michigan tributaries. If you'd like to see his presentation on YouTube, click here. If you'd like to download his presentation, click below. 
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A new edition is out from our friends in SE MN and Iowa, including everything new about Habitat, Conservation, Advocacy, and, of course, a fishing report!
By Jim Sauter
Greetings from TCTU Streamkeepers! As I’m writing this article, I’ve been doing some fishing this week in the Driftless area in Wisconsin. I was shocked when I took the stream temperature on Tuesday, 9/5/23, and recorded 62 degrees on the WISEH2O app, and the air temperatures hit 100 degrees. Truly amazing. Our Streamkeepers have been busy battling buckthorns and extreme heat to monitor our streams. Kudos to all our “targeted” and “general” Streamkeepers for their efforts! We usually attempt to take at least three measurements on each stream after a major weather event (i.e., rain), and this year has been a challenge. Become a hero. Help clean up our streams. As we begin the fall season, we are starting a Fall Challenge. The effort will involve cleaning up our streams. There are a number of options that are available:
The Wisconsin DNR will be hosting a public input meeting regarding changes to Pierce County trout stream regulations on October 11, 2023 from 6-8pm. These proposed changes will affect several streams in Pierce County including the Rush River and tributaries, Plum Creek, Isabelle Creek, Trimbelle River, Big River and Kinnickinnic River and tributaries.
You can find information on how to attend virtually and in-person via the DNR event page.  By Gary Wittrock
TCTU’s Youth Education emphasis is focused on developing the next generation of Conservationists. One TCTU supported program is the National Trout Unlimited Teen Leadership Conference which was held from June 28 th to July 2 nd . This year TCTU awarded a scholarship for this conference to Mathias Westermeyer, a Junior at St. Michael-Albertville High School. Below is Mathias’s recap of his experience. Whether you are on one of the streamkeeper teams that takes regular measurements of our target streams, an at-large streamkeeper, or you just happen to possess a WiseH2O kit with some test strips that you’ve barely used, September is the time to get out and take some measurements! You can earn a chance at some Swag, and contribute to our conservation efforts. Read below for more details, including an explanation of how WiseH2O measurements are being used to assess Brook Trout habitat.
A new edition is out from our friends in SE MN and Iowa, including everything new about Habitat, Conservation, Advocacy, and, of course, a fishing report!
by Bob Luck
On Friday afternoon I sat in a parking lot in Menomonie, Wisconsin, about an hour east of St. Paul, and gave my wife a call. She told me that it was pouring rain and hail at our home in downtown Minneapolis, and she wasn’t sure if our rooftop garden of cucumbers and tomatoes would survive. As we spoke, I watched a dark low-hanging cloud approach from the west. It wasn’t raining yet, but the wind was gusting and just after I hung up, the civil defense siren sounded. All summer long, I’ve been having the same sort of foreboding that I experienced prior to that storm. Apart from a stretch of smoky days, it has been a pleasant summer here in the Bold North. The trout fishing has been excellent, and the Trico hatch has been bigger than any year I can remember. More often than not, we are able to turn off the air conditioner at night and sleep with the windows open. But as I read about wildfires in Canada, heat waves in the South and the recent fire in Maui, I know that climate change will not spare Minnesota. And climate change is not our only challenge: it seems that we are hearing daily about threats to our streams: nitrate contamination in the Driftless Area, or a new CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) in a fragile watershed, or a bottled water plant in the Vermillion River headwaters.  In June, the Elko New Market city council approved a plan for a new Niagara bottling facility, located near the headwaters of the Vermillion River, moving the project to its final permitting step: a water appropriations permit review by the Minnesota DNR. This review is currently underway.
In an April article for the nonprofit Freshwater, TCTU Board member Chris O'Brien dug into the science and policy at the heart of this project. A major question is whether the project may contribute to warming of the Vermillion River that would be unsustainable for trout. As Chris states, “In the summertime, sections of the Vermillion River can approach 73 degrees Fahrenheit, the lethal threshold for brown trout, forcing the fish to seek refuge in deep pools or tributary streams.”  In an unexpected move, a Pierce County Land Use Committee member changed their vote on the county’s 6-month CAFO moratorium, preventing the issue from moving to the county board for a vote. The Kiap-TU-Wish chapter and other local Pierce County groups had been advocating for the moratorium in the hopes it would give the county a chance to review its current CAFO permitting procedure and reevaluate the impact of these facilities on drinking water and the Rush River and Plum Creek watersheds.
The Kiap-TU-Wish board remains hopeful however. They’ve asked us to pass along a fundraising link for GROWW, the grassroots organization in Pierce County that has taken point on advocacy around this issue. The fundraising drive has a goal of $20,000 by August 22, 2023. If you care to make a donation, you can do so via this link: https://www.gro-wwed.org/donate/#ppp If you have questions about the Pierce County CAFO issue and the Kiap-TU-Wish chapter’s work on this topic, please email info@kiaptuwish.org. By Jim Sauter
The Dog Days of Summer have arrived. Technically, the Dog Days of Summer are from July 3 to August 11 soon after the summer solstice. Usually, these are the hottest and most unbearable days of the year. But where did this term come from? According to Greek mythology, Sirius was the dog of the hunter Orion, and the ancient Romans placed the star in the constellation Canis Major (Latin for “Greater Dog”). The Romans thus referred to the sweltering period when the rising of the sun and Sirius converged as the “dies caniculares” or “days of the dog star.” By the 1500s, the English world began to call the same summertime point on the astronomical calendar as the “dog days.” Due to a wobble in the Earth’s rotation that shifts the position of the stars in the night sky, the dates of the “dog days” now fall several weeks later on the calendar than they did thousands of years of ago. Eventually in the distant future, the “sky dog days” will be during winter months. (Source: Christopher Klein, The History Channel) The implications of this time of year for stream monitoring and fishing is that our air and stream temperatures are at their peaks. Fishing early morning hours or at dusk is a good strategy. On extremely hot days, it may be best to stay home and tie some hoppers. Our highest water temperatures during this last month were recorded on Belle Creek and the Little Canon River at a toasty 68 degrees. The lowest water temperatures that I noticed on a metro streams in July wer 59 degrees on Hay Creek and Eagle Creek. I did also notice an amazing 51 degree reading on Trout Creek on July 24th in southern Wisconsin. T.U.N.E. Camp MN, a 5-day conservation and ecology camp for girls and boys age 11-16, wrapped up a very successful 2023 session in Lanesboro on July 17th. You can see more pictures of the event on the T.U.N.E. website.
As part of the programming, TCTU board member Paul Johnson taught the campers to tie their own flies. The next day, TCTU volunteers helped the kids catch fish with the flies they tied. Thank you to Paul, board member Yves Charron, and all the other TCTU members who volunteered for this event. We'd also like to send an extra big thank you to T.U.N.E. Camp MN Superintendent Bruce Gockowski. Bruce organizes this wonderful event every year, and it's one we at TCTU are proud to support. To learn more about T.U.N.E. camp MN, visit their website. by Bob Luck, TCTU President
Regular blog readers are aware that we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to remove two dams on the Kinnickinnic River, an iconic trout stream that is the home water for much of our membership. This year, the US Army Corps of Engineers is conducting a feasibility study on the removal of the dams and restoration of the river corridor. This feasibility study is the first big step in developing a firm plan for the restoration of the river, and can bring up to $10 million in federal funding to the project. TCTU members have provided critical seed money to get this project going. The Corps will be hosting an open house on Tuesday August 15th from 6 pm to 8 pm at the River Falls Public Library. Corps officials will provide a detailed overview of the feasibility study, and welcome the public to join and provide comment. River Falls City Officials will also be present. The Corps' press release announcing the Open House is here. This is a great opportunity for us to show our support for the restoration, provide comments, and get our questions answered. I plan to attend, and I hope that you can join, too! A strong contingent of TU members at this meeting will demonstrate to the Corps and the City just how important this project is to us. If you would like to read more about the Kinni Restoration project, please check out this page on our website. If you have any questions about the upcoming open house, feel free to email me at bob.luck@twincitiestu.org. A new edition is out from our friends in SE MN and Iowa, including everything new about Habitat, Conservation, Advocacy, and, of course, a fishing report!
You may have pointed your phone at the QR code on our brochure, or perhaps you just blundered into this post. In any case, thanks for visiting! Here is a quick guide to some key info.
The Dakota County Fair is one of the best fairs in a state famous for its fairs. It has great food, rides, and animals like the State Fair, without the crowds and crazy prices. TCTU will have a booth at the fair; if you do visit, stop by!
Even better, volunteer to work at the TCTU booth.! The Dakota County Fair attracts over 250,000 visitors, and we need your help to talk with them about trout fishing and coldwater conservation. Our booth will be open from Monday, August 7th through Sunday, August 13th from 10 am to 9 pm. We are looking for volunteers to work one or more shifts, plus a couple of volunteers to help set up the booth on the afternoon of Sunday, August 6th. Shifts will be 10 am to 2 pm, 2-6 pm, and 6-9 pm for the night owls. If you sign up for a shift, you will receive free parking and free entrance to the fair that day! Please sign up to volunteer here. MNTU has just completed a massive 8000 foot habitat improvement project on Hay Creek off 320th Avenue. The prairie grass is growing in nicely, and the section will be ready to fish from August 1st. Please stay off until then to give the grass a little time to grow! For a map, click here. For a photo slideshow of the project, click "read more"
By Jim Sauter
According to Paul Douglas’s weather report in the Star Tribune, the recent high temperature of 95 degrees in the metro area was the warmest day in 2023 so far. We typically see an average of 14 days in the 90-degree range. Already in 2023, we have tallied thirteen 90-degree days. This is shaping up to be a very warm summer. Let’s hope for more moderate temperatures and rain in the coming weeks and months! Our stream water temperatures have stayed remarkably cool so far this summer in most streams.
In April of 2023, Minnesota Trout Unlimited joined ten other local, state, and national environmental groups to ask the EPA to use its emergency authority under the Safe Drinking Water Act to mandate a moratorium on new concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in Minnesota’s karst region until nitrate levels decline.
TCTU, in conjunction with Cabela's Rogers location, is offering free summer sessions to introduce people to the sport of fly fishing. Students will be exposed to four areas of fly fishing:
 Just over 100 years ago, Charles Adams and his son Lon were out fishing in northern Michigan. From what I have read, they were somewhat frustrated by not having the right flies to match a hatch. So they visited a local friend and fly tyer Leonard Halladay in Mayfield, Michigan. Mr. Halladay tried to come up with a pattern that would meet Mr. Adams’ needs and the Adams dry fly was created.
 TCTU hosted its first Fishing Adventures trip June 23-25 in Preston, Minnesota’s Trout Capital. Twelve members joined the event, a few of whom are pictured below. Some missing individuals not in the picture got a head start on the water!
A new edition is out from our friends in SE MN and Iowa, including everything new about Habitat, Conservation, Advocacy, and, of course, a fishing report!
By Jim Sauter
In morse code, “SOS” is a signal sequence of three dits, three dots, and another three dits spelling “S-O-S”. The expression “Save Our Ship” was used by sailors to signal for help for a vessel in distress. Much in the same way, the Izaak Walton League has adopted the expression “SOS” to mean “Saving Our Streams”. What percent of our streams are currently being monitored in the United States? Best estimates are that about 30% are being monitored, and of those, over 50% are considered impaired in some way. That means that over 70% of the streams in our country are not being actively monitored. Many of those are also impaired with no data to determine trends and needs. We have made substantial progress in cleaning up our streams and lakes, but there is still a lot of work to do! Recently, several of our TCTU Streamkeepers attended the Save Our Stream Training in Winona that was sponsored by the Izaak Walton League. The SOS water testing protocol contains many of the same chemical tests that we are currently doing plus the testing of macro invertebrates. The advantage of bio monitoring is that it may show trends from pollution that do not show up with chemical testing. Adding the bio testing component is something we may want to consider as we monitor the seven trout streams in our TCTU area. Every summer, Trout Unlimited conducts a Teen Summit and Leadership Conference for teen leaders for the purpose of exchanging ideas, learning about conservation and leadership, and shaping the continually evolving TU Teen program. This is an application/interview program with only 25 teens accepted from applicants across the country each year.
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