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!
0 Comments
by Bob Luck
I’m not asking for money (not today!), but I’d like to provide some thoughts on donating to TU. TU is a decentralized organization with local chapters (such as TCTU), State Councils (such as the Minnesota State Council--MNTU), and a National Headquarters (TU National). For a more detailed description of TCTU, MNTU and TU National, you can check out our website. Chapters, State Councils and TU National all make fundraising appeals, which can be confusing to members. I hope to provide some clarity, with the disclaimer that this is my opinion, and any errors are my responsibility. By Doug Moran
You may have already heard of TCTU Adventures. If you haven't, these are trips organized by our TU chapter for trout fishing. In 2023 we had two successful trips: an overnight trip to Preston, MN to fish the Root River area and a day trip to Hay Creek which was also a clean-up day. This is what's in store for 2024, dates and locations will be finalized.
So keep an eye open on the Events page of the TCTU website for more details & signups. By Doug Moran
Your opinion is needed by the Vermillion Watershed Joint Powers Organization (VRWJPO). The VRWJPO has started their planning for the Vermillion Watershed for 2026-2035, and they want to hear your opinions, concerns and ideas for how to protect and enhance this river so close to all of us. Make your voice heard, here’s how:
By Jim Sauter
Recently MNTU and TCTU were invited to the "Pho! Games! and Hunters' Extravaganza" event on Wednesday, November 1, in Maplewood by MN State Senator and Assistant Majority Leader Foung Hawj, Chair of Environment, Climate, and Legacy Committee. Senator Hawj also serves on the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council. This council was established by the legislature with the responsibility of providing annual funding recommendations to the legislature from the Outdoor Heritage Fund. Senator Hawj invited us to the event to share information about Trout Unlimited, fly fishing, and fly tying. Several outdoor organizations, such as Pheasants Forever, Ducks Unlimited, the Wild Turkey Federation, and others were present. The annual event was held at the Unison Restaurant and Banquet Hall in Maplewood. This was a great opportunity for TCTU and MNTU to connect with the Hmong Community. They are doing some amazing things with conservation and outdoor recreation. Evan Griggs, Mike Hodgens, and I demonstrated fly tying during the evening. As always, I got some excellent tips from these master fly tiers!!! Amber Taylor dropped off some additional copies of newsletters, and TU President John Lenczewski brought some DNR fish posters and trout maps. The turnout was terrific. All in all, this was a fun night! By Jim Sauter
Greetings from TCTU Streamkeepers. “Autumn teaches us the beauty of letting go. Growth requires release- it is what the trees do.” Ka’ala, @alohakaala We have just completed our third year of stream monitoring, and we expanded our WISEH2O chemical testing from three streams in 2021 to seven streams at eight sights near the metro area. There are 24 volunteers helping with this effort and several other streamkeepers that are randomly testing other streams. One question that keeps recurring with members of our group and beyond is, “What is the value of stream monitoring?” by Bob Luck
The last time I fished in Iowa was in early October of 2005. I arrived during a warm spell and had a couple of days of amazing hopper fishing. Every year since then I have told myself I need to get back to Iowa, but all of that closer water in the Minnesota Driftless got in the way. My sense of urgency increased this year after hearing John van Vliet talk about Iowa at our chapter meeting last November and reading his book. Last week, with nearly all of Minnesota closed and my wife out of town, I finally made it down for a few days. It was terrific! By Gary Wittrock Trout in the Classroom (TIC) offers students of all ages a chance to raise trout in their classrooms from eggs to fingerlings through the winter and then release them into a MN-DNR approved body of water in the spring. 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!
Written by Leland Stoe in 2013
It could serve as a dungeon if not for the bright, 8-foot, high-output ballast fluorescent lamp I installed overhead, virtually eliminating shadows. It’s the place I retreat to when life smacks me between the eyes. This place is my fly-tying shop, located two half-flights down from my front door. The room smells of old feathers and hair, bees wax and head cement, and slightly stale backpacks. The homemade 6-foot L-shaped bench sits directly under the lights. For about $60, I created a sort of Shangri La in my home. Well, $60 for the bench, that is... By Jim Sauter Greetings from TCTU Streamkeepers. "And all at once, summer collapsed into fall.” – Oscar Wilde The fall "switch" has been flipped with much cooler temperatures. We will continue to monitor our streams through the end of October or when the temperatures drop below 32 degrees, whichever comes first. The test results below freezing begin to be less reliable.
by Tony Nelson
In the Fall of 2022, folks from the DNR, Dakota County Parks and Trout Unlimited did the initial stream walks to decide if we should do the next 3500 feet of Trout Brook, just below the original section, and then to do the initial design concept. This took a couple more walks including with eligible contractors from which we hired the contractor. We were to begin in July of 2023 but because of several delays we started in early September and finished in early October. We restored about 3500 feet of Trout Brook and added additional habitat features at the top and bottom of the original project (about 600 feet). 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.
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. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2024
Categories |
Twin Cities Trout Unlimited P.O. Box 2786, Minneapolis, MN 55402
© Copyright 2024 Twin Cities Trout Unlimited. All Rights Reserved. |