Thanks to John Edstrom for a great presentation.  A video of his presentation is on our YouTube channel here.  You can view or download his slides below.  

by Bob Luck
A big thank you to everybody who attended the Earth Day Trash Pickup in Lakeville.  This year's event was "choose your own adventure" style.  My wife Sahya and I picked up along South Creek near the border with Farmington.  Lots of trash to clean!  We also did a bit of seining in the water and found some scuds, but no mayflies, caddis flies or stone flies,  Hopefully the stream restoration project we have in store will help to change that.
Earth Day is this Wednesday, April 22nd.  The weeds are low and the trash stands out.  If you get a chance, please clean up in your neighborhood, or pick up some trash the next time you are out on the stream!

by Bob Luck
“Sometimes I find it hard to pick a topic for my monthly TCTU column”, I told my wife Sahya.  “But this time is easy. I am going to write about how my fishing rods got lost in Turkey.”  “They didn’t get lost in Turkey”, she replied.  “They got lost in Minneapolis”.  She was right.
I spend most of my year either fishing or traveling, but I rarely combine the two.  I do my fishing from April to November, mostly in the Driftless Area with an occasional outing to the Mississippi, or the St. Croix, and a rare trip to the Rockies.  I do my traveling from December through March.  I leave my fishing rods at home and focus on culture, history, food and marriage maintenance.
But last Fall, when Sahya told me she wanted to visit Turkey, I started plotting.  Turkey has plenty of warm, sunny places along with great food, culture and a fascinating history, but it also has high mountains and all kinds of interesting subspecies of brown trout.  I negotiated with Sahya to give me a few days off at the beginning of April, and tracked down a local fly fishing guide who was willing to take me on a fishing/camping excursion into the Taurus mountains just north of the Mediterranean city of Antalya.  My guide, Tuncay, advised me to bring rods, waders and gear because fly fishing gear is expensive or unavailable in Turkey, and his supply is limited.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH
Kudos to TCTU member Chris O'Brien for his recent comments in the Minnesota Star Tribune Article about the Vermillion River.  Source:  Johnson, Cloe. "Health officials have new advice on what fish are safe to eat in Minnesota."  Minnesota Star Tribune, 2 May 2026. 
“I think there’s a lot of families fishing [around the Vermillion River], and a lot of kids getting excited about keeping their trout that they catch,” O’Brien said. “It’s (i.e., changes in the fish consumption rules) definitely a loss in recreational opportunity for sure.”

STREAMKEEPER NOTES
We've already recorded our first chemical monitoring readings of the spring!  Kudos to Rowe Winecoff and Keith Ketchmark for taking our first readings for 2026!  The "spring flush" of nitrate pollution is coming soon.
The spring flush of nitrate pollution is a seasonal surge in nitrogen concentration in waterways, peaking as springtime rains wash fertilizer and manure from agricultural fields into surface and groundwater before crops can absorb it. This phenomenon, worsened by climate-driven, high-intensity rain events, causes significant ecological damage, including algal blooms and fish kills, while also threatening drinking water with high nitrate levels that can cause health problems like blue baby syndrome.
Every single data point we upload helps us build a clearer picture of stream health so we can strive for clean water for generations to come.
If you want to learn more about chemical monitoring of streams, please join our event on April 18th.
 In my last fishing excursion to Wisconsin, I discovered a new fly.  A friendly angler (who turned out to be TCTU member Gene Scheffler) called it the Chuck Caddis.  Gene was very generous and gave me one in size 16 and another in size 18.  The Chuck Caddis uses woodchuck hair.  I'll have to give it a try and tie up a few!  I just need to find some woodchuck hair. ​