If you missed our chapter meeting featuring Terrestrial Insects by Jason Freund, we have you covered!  You can find his presentation on YouTube here.  (Don't forget to like and subscribe!).  And you can read or download his slides below.

by Jim Sauter
Greetings from TCTU Streamkeepers.
Welcome to the spring season.  I know spring has arrived since we can now see the pre-dawn light at 5:00 am, and I also have my first mosquito  bite of the season.
Our 2025 stream monitoring has begun, and we already have about a dozen recorded chemical observations on area streams.  You can see our results at this link by clicking TCTU Water Quality Reading- 2025 responses:    twincitiestu.org/h2o
There seems to be a lot of interest from our TCTU Chapter in helping with our Streamkeeper monitoring effort.  In the spring of 2021, we started with 9 volunteers on three streams and, now we have 45 Streamkeeper volunteers that are helping monitor eight area streams.   
Are we making a difference?  According to Kent Johnson, a retired water biologist from Wisconsin who helped us get started with the program, the answer is "yes". ​

​I hope everyone enjoyed Bill Sherck’s videos and stories at our April chapter meeting.   Also, if you have the opportunity and time, make sure you sign-up to volunteer at Tune Camp, this is a great opportunity to serve.  At our upcoming May meeting, we will discuss other opportunities to volunteer for youth activities over the summer. 
On a separate topic, I did some fishing in the Minnesota Driftless Area since our last meeting, and noticed some bank erosion problem.  This is causing problems with the trout stream filling with sediments and the farmer losing his land. That reminds me how important it is to continue our work on habitat improvement and to support other organizations that sponsor habitat work/stream restorations.

Lately, I would rather be outside enjoying the weather than listening to talking heads discussing tariffs and the plummeting stock market. On one of my recent fishing outings, I got chased by a fellow Canadian…..

by Bob Luck
My daughter decided to get married on May 3rd, and I wasn’t going to argue, even though it took nearly a week out of my fishing during the caddis hatch.  It didn’t seem worth it to pick a fight with my favorite fishing partner.  Besides, there isn’t a week between March and November when I can’t complain about missing some sort of important hatch, emergence or other important event on the stream.
The wedding was lovely and last week I was able to return to my fishing.  On Wednesday I fished a new stream in Western Wisconsin that is reputed to have big trout—both brooks and browns.