by Harold Slawik
This is the fourth year that Ike’s Creek (aka Mall of America Creek) has been part of the TCTU Streamkeepers Program. You will find its headwaters southeast of the intersection of Killibrew Drive and Old Shakopee Road, just a few hundred feet from the Mega Mall. This beautiful little stream flows in a narrow valley for less than a mile into Long Meadow Lake in the Minnesota River Valley. It flows clear and steady throughout the year and has a population of naturally-reproducing brook trout.
The creek is primarily on Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge property and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is overseeing a major habitat improvement project this summer. USF&WL biologist Vicki Sherri has been overseeing Ike’s Creek conservation efforts since brook trout were reintroduced to the creek in 2007, and the current project is a crowning effort with major funding from the Minnesota Valley Trust.
In April and May TCTU volunteers participated in two efforts to protect the creek’s trout by moving them out of the 400 to 500 foot improvement zone. Minnesota DNR trout specialist Mark Nemeth walked the creek with electro shocking equipment while volunteers netted the fish and put them in a holding tank for later movement upstream.

by Jim Sauter
Greetings from TCTU Streamkeepers.
To date our Streamkeeper volunteer monitors have conducted 37 chemical observations on 10 streams and two macroinvertebrate samplings on the South Branch of the Whitewater River.  Our thirty plus Streamkeeper volunteers, along with the over 2,000 of our TCTU members who are fishing and hiking in the area, are providing a small army of "eyes and ears" on streams in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and beyond.  
Our stream chemistry numbers are looking good so far this spring.  We still have elevated chloride numbers on the Mall of America/ Ike's Creek, and the nitrate level on Hay Creek was "fair".  Little Cannon River was experiencing some erosion from our spring rains.
BUGS AND BUFFERS, THE REPEATER PROJECT
I believe there is a rare breed of people that get really excited about bugs.  Some folks hate bugs, some are indifferent, and then there are those of us that love them and get excited to see them.  

by Bob Luck
Two weeks ago, I tore myself away from the Driftless Area to spend a few days with some friends in the Boundary Waters.  I did manage to smuggle my new 8-weight into the canoe—the Ant Bullet that I won at the Oktoberfish silent auction last fall.  I must admit that catching smallmouths and northerns on poppers is a pretty fun way to fish, as well as providing some fresh meat to go along with those freeze-dried meal kits. 
Inspired by my BWCA adventure, I went to my friend Mike Miller’s farm last week, borrowed his ATV, and drove down to the Kinnickinnic River to fish at dusk.  Mike is far too sensible to fish at night.  He stayed in his house with his dog Ernie and a beer and told me to give him my report when I returned.  Figuring an 8-weight was overkill, I cast poppers into a large, slow-moving pool against the bluffs with my 5-weight.  Nothing.  Just in case, I tried a large hopper pattern.  A few casts later, the line started screaming off the reel.  After a few seconds, the line went slack, and I reeled in a straightened-out hopper with a few tufts of beaver fur attached. Time to go home.

by Yves Charron
Dear fellow Twin Cities Trout Unlimited members,  I hope you all had a chance to go fishing.   This has been an unusually cold and wet June so far, but the trout don’t care--they are already wet. ; - )
This month’s edition of the President’s angle will be slightly different.   It will be about safety. 
As some of you know, I like to fish in streams for trout, but since we are in the land of 10,000 lakes, I have a  kayak and fish lakes around the Twin Cities and the great state of Minnesota.   One Saturday in May, I did just that.  After a successful outing on a lake just north of the Twin Cities catching largemouth bass, I pulled my kayak off the lake and strapped it to the top of my car as usual.  Below is what it looks like on top of my car.

As usual, I checked everything to make sure it was well secured and before driving.  Then through my sun roof, I monitor to ensure the kayak is still well secured.   I exited the parking lot, took a few side streets, and merged through traffic to get on the highway.   After a few minutes of driving, I heard a big bang on top of my car.  When I looked-up, the kayak was no longer there.  ​

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.  

by Bob Luck
A few years ago, I read "This Is Your Mind On Plants", Michael Pollen's book about plants that can alter human consciousness.  As part of his research, he quit caffeine, cold turkey.  After a couple of months of withdrawal, he stopped thinking about it when he woke up in the morning.  In part 2 of his self-experiment, he stopped by a coffee shop in a mall one morning and ordered a coffee.  It was the best thing he ever tasted, and the after-effects were even better: he found himself in a perfect state of alertness, optimism and enthusiasm--name an adjective for a positive emotion and that's how he felt.  "This is the trick", he thought.  "If I just drink a couple of cups a week I can have all these positive feelings without any of the side effects".  His resolution lasted until early afternoon, when he started coming up with reasons he needed to go back to the same mall to go shopping...

Thanks to the Friends of the Mississippi River, Mark Nemeth (DNR) and Matt Doth (Mahigan Outdoors) for the fabulous presentation on our home water, the Vermillion River.  If you missed the meeting, you can see it on our YouTube channel here.  Don't forget to subscribe! You can also download copies of the presentations below.

A new edition of the Hotline is available with lots of great news, including a special feature on a proposed hiking trail in the Minnesota Driftless.

by Bob Luck
According to my fishing log, I spent 323 days trout fishing in the last three years, with three streams accounting for over half the days: the Kinnickinnic at 87, the Rush at 56, and Hay Creek at 28.  In case you think I have a problem with overfishing, let me clarify that the number would have been higher if I hadn't mistakenly deleted three months of 2024.  My real problem is Driftless Derangement Syndrome.  I am one of those guys that zips right over the Vermillion river on the Highway 52 Bridge en route to the Bluff Country.  I have fished it only five times in the last three years. It is getting tougher to ignore it, though.  

by Kevin Wier
Like many of you, some of my favorite moments in fly fishing haven’t involved me catching a fish, but rather helping family and friends to catch a fish on a fly rod.  One of my favorite memories is the day I helped both of my daughters get their first trout on a fly rod.  However, a close second has been getting other young people their first fish on a fly through my involvement with the Foster the Outdoors Mentor Program with Minnesota Trout Unlimited.  There’s an undeniable thrill and sense of accomplishment here that you can’t really get anywhere else.
In the most recent MNTU newsletter I chronicled the great season I had last year mentoring a young man named Beckett and his father Chad.  I won’t repeat everything here, but suffice it to say that they were both an absolute pleasure to be with and I consider myself lucky to have spent some quality time with them on the water.  You can see the full article on page 21 here

Thanks to the 290 members and supporters who participated in our survey!  You can see the results here:

by Jim Sauter
Greetings from the TCTU Streamkeepers.  
During the winter months I have been practicing my best imitations of the Green Heron and Esmeralda, the Sloth.  I plan to use both strategies when trout fishing this year.  I plan to use the Heron approach when on riffles and the Sloth approach at pools.  I have known some trout anglers that have even been known to get down their hands and knees on the ground and crawl to a pool or by a bank.  I confess, I have done this too.  Sometimes it is a bit crazy about the lengths we go to catch trout.
Our TCTU Streamkeeper group is almost ready to begin our 2025 monitoring season.  We currently have 38 Streamkeeper water monitoring volunteers on nine streams.    The streams we will be monitoring this summer include Belle Creek, Brown's Creek, Eagle Creek, Hay Creek, Little Cannon River, Mall of America/ Ike's Creek, South Branch of the Vermillion, Trout Brook, and the South Branch of the Whitewater River.  The "season" for monitoring will begin in April and conclude at the end of October.  We hope to have at least 10 chemical test readings on each stream over the course of the season.  Thank you to our many volunteers for their efforts in being our "eyes and ears" on these cold water fisheries.  

Thanks to Lance Prado of the Root River Rod Company, who gave a great presentation on Spring Hatches in Southeast Minnesota and How to Fish them.  You can find a video of Lance's presentation on our YouTube channel here, and a copy of Lance's presentation below.

by Jim Sauter
"Esmeralda Lives!"  thedadchats on Instagram
Greetings from the TCTU Streamkeepers. 
February is a unique month. It’s the shortest month of the year.  We celebrate a lot. This year is the year of the snake for the lunar new year.  February has two president’s birthdays – Lincoln & Washington, plus we celebrate Black History month.  Also, catch and release season is open for trout in many Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa streams!
I managed to catch my first Brown Trout for 2025.  I ventured across the border to Wisconsin on a warm 50 degree day in January.  This was my first time fishing in a stream since last October.
​There were at least two other anglers trying their luck on this clear, calm, and warm winter day.  The water was very clear, and the fish were extra skittish.  One of the anglers reported catching a couple trout using Copper Johns.  Another one did not follow good etiquette and walked right across the riffle that I was fishing.  I decided to be " Minnesota nice" and not make a big deal of this and moved on to the next riffle and pool. After watching trout refuse a multitude of wet nymphs, I finally had some bites and landed my first Brown of the season with one of my favorites, the Bloody Mary nymph.

by Sara Strassman, Driftless Area Program Manager
Good day friends of the Driftless Area Restoration Effort,
    You are invited to join us for an in person Driftless Area Symposium in La Crosse!  Our 2025 event will be hosted at the La Crosse Center in collaboration with Wisconsin Wetlands Association.  The main TU symposium will occur on Tuesday, February 25.  Registration for the TU Symposium  on February 25 is here.  We will have a joint networking session with WWA and TU from 6-9 on February 25 including desserts and a cash bar at the La Crosse Center overlooking Riverside Park and the Mississippi River.  We hope you will join us to catch up with old friends and build new relationships!