STREAM Girls Recap

KIAP-TU-WISH, our sister chapter in Western Wisconsin, held its 5th annual STREAM Girls event on May 16th.  Sixteen enthusiastic 11-15 year-olds were joined by over a dozen equally enthusiastic volunteers for a day of learning about stream ecology and fly fishing for trout.  You can find a delightful account of the day by STREAM Girls Czar Michele Bevis below.

The Midwest Fish Map gave this year’s KiapTUWish STREAM Girls new ideas for their team names. They chose Longnose Gar and Pink Salmon to represent themselves for the 5th STREAM Girls, one-day event on May 16.
This year, 16 girls signed up to learn about cold water ecology and fly fishing. Our chapter’s outreach continues to expand. Girls came from Ellsworth, River Falls, Beldenville, and Baldwin Wisconsin; joined by girls from S. St. Paul, St. Paul, and Mendota Heights. The Ellsworth Rod & Gun Club once again provided their ever expanding, beautiful facility. The Rod & Gun Club has always been accommodating; they allowed us to share their space that day with another event in the afternoon.
After introductions and logistics, the two teams gathered their Field Notebooks and pencils and walked to the banks of the Rush River to explore nature during the Stream Walk. Immediately, we heard the burping and trills of dozens of toads and frogs conducting their annual mating routines. They were indifferent to the efforts of middle school kids trying to catch and hold them. Besides the toads and frogs, girls recorded seeing 2 muskrats, 1 Baltimore Oriole, small snails, aquatic striders (also known as boatmen), minnows, cottonwood seeds, an eagle, several risers and rock cliffs.
At mid-morning, the Longnose Gar team received casting instruction in the open field next to the lodge. The young anglers displayed varying interpretations and efforts for the “ten-to-two”clock casting analogy. After the basic casting instruction, they went to the river’s edge to learn the roll cast and get the feel of water tension on their lines.
At the same time in the lodge, the Pink Salmon team watched and listened patiently as an experienced fly tyer demonstrated the full sequence of tying a woolly bugger fly. Several girls had sufficient focus and dexterity to tie 2 woolly buggers in the 50-minute time slot.
Lunch, as always, was a boisterous moment of getting to know new friends and chattering with old friends. After lunch, it was time for the chaos of fitting waders and boots to a multitude of heights and shoe size exhibited by 11–15-year-old healthy girls.
Again, the teams split up. The Pink Salmons carried tools upstream for Go with the Flow. Eager to get into the water, they set up flags to monitor the floating tennis balls as they floated a 30 foot riffle. We tried a new analogy to imagine a cfs (cubic foot per second): If the cfs at this point was 100 cfs, one cfs would be equal to 100 basketballs crossing one point in the river from edge to edge. Finally, one participant rightly called out “enough about basketballs! Let’s talk about water!” And like every other year, each team was fascinated and ecstatic with the new sensation of sitting in water as they remained dry.
Simultaneously, the Longnose Gars, also in their waders and downriver, were kicking up macro invertebrates from a pool. Everyone, girls and volunteers, were bent over looking at bugs in the river or identifying the found insects through magnifying glasses that were in trays.
“When can we fish!??” was a continuous question throughout the day. Finally, it was time to match each girl with their personal guides. Half  of the dozen guides, waded, with their mentees, upriver to the riffles and runs past the fallen willow tree; the other half waded downstream to the afternoon shade to fish runs and riffles almost to the bridge over highway 72.
Not everyone wanted to fish at the end of the day. Two girls opted out, explaining they didn’t like fishing, but their moms had signed them up to expose them to something new. Another girl had been shy and uncertain the moment she was dropped off by her parents. Her confidence and smiles grew after each new technique she tried, from casting to fly tying. She tied her first woolly bugger and took leadership with cfs calculations during Go with the Flow. While fishing with her guide at the day’s end, she caught not one, but two brown trout on the fly! Her first!
Each girl left with their woolly buggers, ‘stream’ key chains, their individual photo taken and a STREAM Girls patch. Whether these 6-8 grade girls had come because their parents had signed them up, or because they were excited to learn about fly fishing, they rewarded the angler volunteers with their exuberance and willingness to try something new.
Year after year, more than a dozen experienced and devoted volunteers show up to share their love and expertise of fly fishing with new STREAM Girls. Thank you to all the volunteers, whether you managed lunch and snacks, lead and taught one of the 6 programs throughout the day and/or came at the end of the day specifically to guide one of the girls. This would not happen without you!!


Tight lines and Fish on!