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Wisconsin TroutWinter 2018

NONPROFIT ORG.U.S. POSTAGE

PAIDPERMIT NO. 1MADISON, WI

News and Views from Wisconsin Trout Unlimited

Mik

e K

uhr

By Mike Kuhr, Council Vice-Chair and 2018 Banquet Committee Chair

Do you have a little “cabin fe-ver”? Not enough open water onyour favorite trout stream? Makeplans to join your fellow coldwaterenthusiasts at the 2018 WisconsinTU Annual Meeting and StateCouncil Banquet on Saturday, Feb-ruary 3. Please save the date and bea part of the fun in Oshkosh. Wewill once again return to the BestWestern Waterfront Hotel and Con-vention Center.

This location has served us wellin past years and we’re looking for-ward to coming back in February. Alimited block of rooms has been setaside for both Friday and Saturdaynights. Call the hotel at 855-230-1900 to make your room reserva-tions today. Tell them you’re in townfor the Trout Unlimited Banquet.

The banquet is our Council’s big-gest fundraiser of the year. The ban-quet’s success will allow the Councilto continue serving local chapters,fund programs like the Youth Campand STREAM Girls, support ourVeterans Service Partnership pro-grams, and help administer ourFriends of Wisconsin and Water-shed Access grant programs.

Tickets are $35 each. For moreinformation see the ad on the backpage of this issue of WisconsinTrout. You may also purchase tick-ets online at http://wistu.bpt.me.While we do plan for a few walk-upsevery year, ordering tickets in ad-vance or making arrangements topay at the door and RSVP’ing [email protected] are highlyencouraged. This event is open tothe public, so please consider bring-ing family, friends, co-workers andneighbors. All are welcome.

Doors will open at 4:30 p.m. and

there will be plenty of time to social-ize, visit the cash bar, or simply pe-ruse the bucket raffle and silentauction prizes. Dinner seating willbegin at 6:30 p.m.

After dinner we’ll hold a liveauction for several different fishingtrips with some of the top guidesand destinations in the state. We’llalso take time to recognize some ofthe best conservationists aroundwith a short awards program. Theevening will finish with the an-nouncement of our silent auctionand bucket raffle winners.

The Council would like to thankall of the chapters and individualswho donate prizes for the event.Your generosity makes for a suc-cessful banquet and unforgettableevening for our guests. This yearwe’ve assembled more than $15,000worth of prizes, and we’re eager togive them away!

Chapter leaders should plan onattending the State Council meetingearlier in the day to discuss Councilbusiness. The meeting will startpromptly at 9 a.m. and run until 2p.m. Please RSVP to Council ChairLinn Beck if you plan on attendingthe meeting so we can prepare forlunch.

The State Council will also besponsoring a Women’s Fly FishingClinic for beginners who are curiousabout the sport during the day onSaturday, Feb. 4. This free clinic willrun from 9:30 a.m. until 3 p.m. Alunch will be provided. Space is lim-ited, so contact Heidi Oberstadt [email protected].

We’ve found that these types ofevents are a great way to introducetrout stream ecology and the impor-tance of TU’s conservation work toa new audience.

Much planning has already takenplace and the Council is indebted to

CELEBRATE OUR COLDWATER RESOURCESCome help us celebrate cold, clean, fishable water, and honor those who’ve made a difference. Consider Attending the Wisconsin State Council annual banquet on February 3 in Oshkosh.

It’s banquet time!

the work of the Banquet Commit-tee. An event of this scale wouldn’thappen without the efforts of com-mittee members Bill Heart, HeidiOberstadt, Jim Wierzba, Linn Beck,Paul Kruse and Todd Franklin.

We’re focused on planning a fun,entertaining and successful banquet.We hope you’ll join us in Oshkoshon February 3 to celebrate cold,clean, fishable water in Wisconsin.

By Matt Krueger

Back Forty MineOn December 8 the Michigan Department of

Environmental Quality (DEQ) deemed AquilaResources’ application for the Back Forty Mine“administratively complete,” representing anoth-er step closer to a massive, open-pit sulfide mineoperating within a long cast of the MenomineeRiver, the border river between Wisconsin andthe U.P. of Michigan.

A public hearing on the wetland permit, thelast of four permits required to complete Aquila'sapplication, has been scheduled by DEQ for Jan-uary 23, 2018 at 6 p.m. at the Stephenson HighSchool gym, W526 Division Street, Stephenson,Michigan. Written comments on the proposedmine can be submitted until February 2, 2018to https://miwaters.deq.state.mi.us/miwaters/#/external/publicnotice/info/3338938032851742207/comments by clicking on "add comment.” Com-

ments can also be submitted by mail to: DEQ Up-per Peninsula District Office WRD, 1507 W.Washington Street, Marquette, MI 49855, Attn:Back Forty Mine.

Though the mine is now closer to reality, so isopposition to it. The Menominee Indian Tribe ofWisconsin has filed a Notice of Intent(NOI) tosue the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineersover jurisdictional issues. The Tribe contends thatEPA/USACE jurisdictional authority should su-persede the authority of Michigan DEQ on themining permit, as the permit affects a river of in-terstate commerce.

Currently, Michigan DEQ has sole authorityon decisions related to the mining permit. A re-sponse from EPA/Army Corps on the NOI is ex-pected by early January 2018. If the federalagencies do not assume jurisdictional authority onthe permit, the Menominee Tribe is expected tofile a lawsuit. Additionally, the wetland permit isalso receiving considerable scrutiny from wetlandexperts, working with water advocates in Wiscon-

sin and Michigan.Tight Lines Fly Fishing Company is hosting a

fundraising event on Saturday, January 6 inGreen Bay to raise awareness about the dangersof the proposed Back Forty Mine, which will fea-ture advocates from the Coalition to Save theMenominee River and the River Alliance of Wis-consin, as well as a gear raffle.

“Prove It First” mining law repealedOn December 11 Governor Walker signed SB

395/AB 499, which is a full repeal of the biparti-san “Prove It First” sulfide mining law that re-quired would-be mining operations in Wisconsinto prove that they have done so in a similar cli-mate, without polluting during mine operation or10 years after closure. The bill passed after sevenamendments were added to it. The law will not beenacted for six months, to give local communitiestime to update their zoning and ordinances.

Mining updateMichigan’s Back Forty Mine moves a step closer to realty, while Wisconsin lawmakers repeal the “Prove it First” sulfide mining law.

Winter 2018

WISCONSIN TROUTVol. 30, No. 1— Winter 2018

Wisconsin Trout is the official publication of the Wisconsin Council of Trout Unlimited and is distributed to the members of Wisconsin’s 21 TU chapters. Non-member subscriptions are $12.50/year. Publication dates are the first weeks of January, April, July and October. Dead-lines for articles and advertisements are the 10th of December, March, June and September. For a current advertising rate sheet, contact the editor.

Photo/article contributions, letters to the editor and advertisements are welcomed. Submit to:

Todd Franklin, Editor2515 Bigler CircleVerona, WI 53593(608) [email protected]

Wisconsin TU chapters, presidents and contact information

Are you getting emails from TU? If you are currently not receiving news and event-related email messages from your chapter, the state council and TU National, then you are truly missing out on what’s happening at all three lev-els. TU National manages the mailing list for the council and chap-ters, so update your address by going to www.tu.org, log in, then go to “Email Preferences.” You can also call 1-800-834-2419 to make these changes, or to ask questions about making the changes via the web site.

Aldo Leopold (#375): Mike Stapleton, W8002 Whitetail Drive, Pard-eeville, WI 53954; (608) 742-3665; [email protected]; aldoleopold.tu.org

Antigo (#313): Scott Henricks, 213 Mary St., Antigo, WI 54409-2536 (715) 623-3867; [email protected]

Blackhawk (#390): Terry Vaughn; 4710 E. Creek Road, Beloit, WI 53511; (608) 362-4295; [email protected]; www.BlackhawkTU.org

Central Wisconsin (#117): Laura Tucker; N5424 Sunny Hill Rd, Sax-eville, 54976 (920) 622-5401; [email protected]; cwtu.org,

Coulee Region (#278): Curt Rees; W5190 Birchwood Lane, La-Crosse, WI 54601; [email protected]

Fox Valley (#193): Nate Ratliff, 199 Taylor Street, Little Chute, 54140 (920) 851-0502; [email protected];www.foxvalleytu.org

Frank Hornberg (#624): Matt Salchert, 1800 Minnesota Ave., Ste-vens Point, WI 54481 (715) 321-1394; [email protected];www.Hornberg-TU.org

Green Bay (#083): Staush Gruszynski, 1715 Deckner Ave., Green Bay, 54302 (920) 216-3793; [email protected];greenbaytu.org

Harry & Laura Nohr (#257): Tim Fraley, 2 Pagham Court, Madison, WI 53719; hm:(608) 271-1733; c:(608)220-0762; [email protected]; www.NohrTU.org

Kiap-TU-Wish (#168): Tom Schnadt, 2174 Commonwealth Ave., St. Paul, MN 55108; 651-245-5163; [email protected];www.kiaptuwish.org

Lakeshore (#423): Myk Hranicka, N2766 Hopeman Heights, Waldo, WI 53093; 920-627-5779; [email protected]; www.Wisconsin-TU.org/Lakeshore

Marinette (#422): Dale Lange, N2095 CTH BB, Marinette, WI; 715-582-1135; [email protected], marinettecounty.tu.org.

Northwoods (#256): Jay N. Joppa; 8570 Oak Park Circle, Minocqua, WI 54548; (715) 499-1022; [email protected]; northwoods.tu.org

Oconto River (#385): Tom Klatt; 1677 Forest Glen Drive Green Bay, WI 54304 (920) 621-9266; [email protected]; ocontorivertu.com

Shaw-Paca (#381): Nate Sipple, 931 E. Fifth St., Shawano, WI 54166; (715) 304-7581; [email protected]; Wisconsin-TU.org/ShawPaca; www.facebook.com/shawpacatu

Southeastern Wisconsin (#078): Todd Durian; 4724 W. Blue Mound Road, Milwaukee, 53186; [email protected]; 414-403-5670; SEWTU.org; facebook.com/southeastwisconsintroutunlimited

Southern Wisconsin (#061): Matt Sment; 608-218-4133; [email protected]; P.O. Box 45555, Madison, WI 53744-5555; www.swtu.org

Wild Rivers (#415): Bob Rice 74355 Kaukamo Road, Iron River, WI 54847; (715) 292-1143; [email protected]/wildrivers

Wisconsin Clear Waters (#255): Dick Duplessie, 335 Corydon Road, Eau Claire, WI 54701 (715) 577-5805; [email protected]; WisconsinTU.org/ClearWaters

Wisconsin River Valley (#395): Doug Brown, R4800 Timber Lane, Ringle, WI 54471; [email protected]; 715-899-0024; www.wrvtu.org

Wolf River (#050): Andy Killoren, N1493 Hwy 45, Fremont, WI 54940; (920) 667-5385; [email protected]; WolfriverTU.org

Linn Beck, Chair

Tom Lager, Secretary

Mike Kuhr, Vice Chair

Gary Stoychoff, Treasurer

Douglas Bayfield

Ashland

Iron

Vilas

Forest

Florence

Marinette

Oconto

Langlade

Shawano

Lincoln

Marathon

Taylor

PriceSawyer

Rusk

WashburnBurnett

Polk

Barron

St. Croix

Dunn

Chippewa

Wood

Portage

Waupaca

Outagamie

Waushara WinnebagoCalumet

Manitowoc

Kewaunee

Door

Fond du Lac

Sheboygan

Ozaukee

Washington

Dodge

MilwaukeeWaukeshaJefferson

Racine

Kenosha

WalworthRockGreenLafayette

Grant

Iowa

Dane

ColumbiaSauk

Green

Lake

Marquette

Adams

Juneau

Richland

Crawford

Vernon

MonroeLa Crosse

Jackson

Trempealeau

Buffalo

Pepin

Clark

Eau ClairePierce

Oneida

Brown

Menominee

WILD RIVERS

NORTHWOODS

FOXVALLEY

LAKESHORE

FRANK HORNBERG

WISCONSINRIVER VALLEY

SHAW-PACA

MARINETTE

GREEN BAYANTIGO

OCONTORIVER

SOUTHEASTERNWISCONSIN

BLACKHAWK

SOUTHERN WISCONSIN

HARRY &LAURA NOHR

COULEEREGION

CENTRALWISCONSIN

ALDO LEOPOLD

WI CLEARWATERS

KIAP-TU-WISH

WOLFRIVER

Wisconsin Trout

State Council LeadershipState Chair: Linn Beck, 160 W. 19th Ave., Oshkosh, WI 54902 (920) 216-7408;[email protected] Chair: Mike Kuhr, 6103 Queensway, Monona, WI 53716; (414) 588-4281;[email protected]: Tom Lager, 1700 Spring Hill Ct., Neenah, WI 54956; (920) 540-9194;[email protected]: Gary Stoychoff, 1326 14th Ave., Green Bay, WI 54304 [email protected] Trustee: Henry Koltz, 2300 N. Mayfair Rd., Ste. 1175, Milwaukee, WI 53226 (414) 331-5679 (H); [email protected] Chair, Central Region:Tom Lager, see aboveVice Chair, Northeast Region:Doug Erdmann, 2418 Woodview Lane, Marinette, WI 54143; 715-735-7407; [email protected] Chair, Southern Region: Jim Wierzba, 2817 Country Club Drive, Mequon, WI 53092 (262) 238-0282; [email protected] Chair, Western Region: Gary Horvath, 623 W. Pine Street, River Falls, WI 54806 (715)425-8489; [email protected]: Bill Heart, 29450 Verners Road, Ashland, WI 54806; (715) 209-0431;[email protected]: Open

Education: Bob Haase, W7949 Treptow Ln., Eldorado, WI 54932 (920) 922-8003 (H);[email protected] of WITU and Watershed Access Fund: Doug Brown, R4800 Timber Ln., Ringle, WI 54471 (715) 899-0024; [email protected] Counsel: OpenLegislative Chair: Henry Koltz Membership: Chair Paul Kruse, 500 Saint Jude St., Green Bay, WI 54303 (920) 494-4220); [email protected]; National Leadership Council Representative: Kim McCarthy, 736 Meadowbrook Ct., Green Bay, WI 54313 (920) 434-3659;[email protected] In the Classroom Coordina-tor: Greg Olson, 16370 Division St., Lakeland MN, 55043; [email protected] Services Partnership Co-ordinator: Mike KuhrWater Resources: Bob Obma, 12870 West Shore Drive, Moun-tain, WI 54149 (715) 276-1170 (H)[email protected]: Brandon Schmalz, 1229 Goss Ave., Menasha, WI 54952; 920-851-8129; [email protected]’s Initiatives: Heidi Oberstadt, 456 Wadleigh St., Stevens Point, WI 54481; 715-573-5104; [email protected]

State Council OfficersExecutive Committee includes officers and vice chairs

Visit the Wisconsin State Council’s web site at wicouncil.tu.org, or find us on Facebook.

Winter 2018 Wisconsin Trout

Chairman’s Column

Another great year for TU is in the books

I hope all of you had a safe andwonderful holiday season, with ev-eryone getting exactly what youwanted for Christmas. And, ofcourse, with the holiday season end-ing, it also marked the end of a verygreat year for TU.

Wisconsin Trout Unlimited chap-ters had almost 45,000 volunteerhours for the 2017 fiscal year. Thesehours were spread out over 79 con-servation projects and 96 youth edu-cation projects. It was aphenomenal year and job well doneby all of you.

I know that 2018 will be even bet-ter as we continue to develop ouryouth education and veterans pro-grams. There are a lot of opportuni-ties to give our youth and veterans achance to experience all that TroutUnlimited has to offer, and to letthem show what they can offer to us.It’s exciting to see our chapters de-

veloping these programs, reachingout and giving people the chance toexperience something new and ex-citing.

Chapters that add these types ofprograms and make an effort to pro-mote them are seeing their mem-bership rosters, and membershipinvolvement, grow.

As for the many conservationbattles we’ve endured in 2017, Iwant to thank all of you for yoursupport. And while I’m at it, thanksin advance for all we will ask of youin 2018. We will need everyone’shelp on the proposed wetlands bill,and many other important conserva-tion issues.

Thank you for a great 2017. I’mlooking forward to an even better2018.

Tight Lines,Linn STATE COUNCIL CHAIR LINN BECK

LETTERSMore debate on the Didymo-angler connection

A letter in the Fall 2017 issue of Wisconsin Trout absolved anglers andfelt boots from helping to spread didymo, known as “rock snot.” I hadpreviously written an article about some unpleasant experiences I en-countered on Rapid Creek in South Dakota with didymo blooms. At thattime I mentioned a conversation with a grad student who said the bestguess is that the didymo entered Rapid Creek from the boots of fisher-men.

The followup letter by Henry Kanemoto, mentioned above, quotedseveral studies that seem to indicate that didymo has been found in coresamples dating back many years and that it is now forming mats becauseof low phosphorus environments that have been created by eliminatingphosphorus from detergents, cleaning agents and lawn fertilizer.

The conclusion of those studies leaves me with a question. The fact isthat during human history detergents, cleaning agents and artificial lawnfertilizers containing phosphorus are all relatively new products. Thoseproducts did not exist for most of human history. So, if a suggestion ismade that the removal of the phosphorus from those products has causedthe mat forming of didymo in some creeks, I would expect that didymoshould have been rampant in the pristine early settlement times prior tothe existence of those products. It would be interesting to search historicrecords to see how much mention of didymo is contained in historic jour-nals.

The studies also conclude that iron must be present in streams withlow phosphorus to have didymo form mats. Another question I wouldhave deals with the fact that some low phosphorus streams with iron donot have didymo blooms while some others with similar conditions do.

I am not as quick as some to absolve my fellow fishermen from allblame. I will continue to be concerned that if I collect didymo or other in-vasives on my gear and then transport those species to another streamwith similar water chemistry, I could be helping unwanted species tospread.

My preference will always be to err on the safe side. I will continue toclean my gear after a day on a stream that I know harbors didymo or anyother potentially harmful species. I would still encourage my fellow an-glers to do the same.—Kim McCarthy, Green Bay

And 2018 promises to be even better, with plenty of opportunities for growth and volunteerism

This year marks the fifth anniver-sary of the WITU Youth FishingCamp. What a great ride it has beenfor all of us involved, as we’vewatched group after group of won-derful youths experience all that isgreat about fishing, conservation,comraderie and more.

It has been especially gratifyingto see the ongoing support fromchapters, which have been instru-mental in sending us and sponsoringthese many great kids. All of ourchapters have made sure that anyyouth interested in attending has re-ceived a chance to experience thecamp.

This year’s camp is July 19-22.Kids will check in at 1 p.m. onThursday, and we will wrap upshortly after lunch on Sunday. As inpast years, the camp will be held atPine Lake Bible Camp betweenWild Rose and Waupaca.

We will be accepting 20 youth forthe camp this year, and all chaptershave an opportunity to sponsor atleast one student. After February28, chapters can sponsor additionalstudents. Don’t hesitate. Nominateyour students soon.

We’ve worked hard to keep costsin line, and sponsorship is still only$250 per student.

If you know of a youth who is in-terested in attending, or you haveany questions, please contact me [email protected] or 920-216-7408,or Wayne Parmley at [email protected] or 920-540-2315.

If you are interested in being avolunteer, mentor or “guide,”please contact Wayne at the abovecontact information.

Thanks for your support. Wehope to see you in camp this sum-mer.—Linn Beck

WITU Youth Fishing Camp marking fifth year


By Taylor Ridderbusch

Great Lakes Restoration Initiative

In November the Senate Appro-priations Committee released theFY 2018 Interior and Environmentfunding bill, which includes $300million for the Great Lakes Resto-ration Initiative (GLRI). TU willcontinue to work with Congress toensure that the GLRI receives fullfunding annually. For an in-depthlook at GLRI dollars at work in theGreat Lakes region, check out thefeature in the Winter 2018 editionof TROUT Magazine.

Public LandsIn early December the Trump

administration announced it wouldbe cutting two national monumentsin Utah, Bears Ears and the Grand-Staircase Escalante, by 85 percentand by more than 50 percent, re-spectively. This jeopardizes the 112-year-old Antiquities Act, a conser-vation tool that has been used to

protect public lands revered byhunters and anglers, such as the Ar-kansas River in Colorado and RioGrande del Norte in New Mexico.

This law has been used equallyby Republicans and Democratsalike, often when other stakeholder-driven efforts to conserve importanthabitat and sporting opportunitieshave stalled in Congress. For moreinformation, and to contact yourrepresentatives visit http://stand-up.tu.org/protect-our-public-lands/.

Asian carpThe U.S. Army Corps of Engi-

neers concluded its public commentperiod in December regarding thereport which outlined various plansfor addressing the spread of AsianCarp at the Brandon Road Lockand Dam. TU is hopeful that theCorps will move forward with theTentatively Selected Plan (Technol-ogy Alternative: Electric Barrierwith Complex Noise) and will con-tinue to urge the Corps to expeditethe completion of the project.

Legislative update

News on the GLRI, public lands and Asian Carp

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By Matt Krueger and Mike Kuhr

Wisconsin legislators have re-cently introduced legislation thatseeks to significantly roll backstatewide wetlands protections,which could potentially harm cold-water habitat and trout streamsaround the state. The WisconsinState Council of Trout Unlimitedis opposed to this legislation,which is currently being consid-ered in the Legislature.

Authored by Republican Sena-tor Roger Roth and RepublicanRepresentatives Jim Steineke andRob Stafsholt, the legislationseeks to remove protections for“non-federal” wetlands, whichmake up an estimated 20 percentof Wisconsin’s total wetland acre-age, or approximately one millionacres.

Non-federal wetlands lack apermanent surface water connec-tion to waterbodies like lakes andrivers that are protected by theClean Water Act. However, thesewetlands provide a host of otherbenefits, such as critical supply ofgroundwater to coldwaterstreams, particularly in headwa-ters sections, as well as protectionagainst flooding, erosion, and nu-trient pollution. These wetlandsalso provide habitat for diverseplant, animal and bird species.

For more information on iso-lated wetlands, see the articles onpages 14 and 15 of this issue ofWisconsin Trout.

If this legislation moves for-ward, development of these wet-lands could occur without a permitor DNR oversight, provided thedeveloper pays into a mitigationfund to create artificial wetlandselsewhere.

Our members value the recre-ational opportunities that thewoods and waters of Wisconsin of-fer.

We also recognize the econom-ic impacts that trout fishing in par-

ticular, and angling in general,provide to our state. A 2013 studyby the American Sportfishing As-sociation (ASA) found that Wis-consin was the third-highest-ranked state in the number ofnon-resident anglers.

We know the fishing’s goodhere, and apparently so does therest of the country. According tothe ASA report, angling results inmore than $1.4 billion in retailsales each year in our state.

All told, recreational anglingcreates more than $2.2 billion inannual economic impact for Wis-consin’s economy.

The Wisconsin State Councilof Trout Unlimited recognizes thatwetlands, even if “isolated” or“ephemeral” (another term fornon-federal wetlands), have a vitalconnection to trout streams. Forthis reason, the council joins fel-low sporting organizations in op-posing this legislation.

Other opponents of the bill in-clude the Wisconsin Wetlands As-sociation, Ducks Unlimited, theSierra Club, the Nature Conser-vancy and the Wisconsin WildlifeFederation

Supporters of the bill includeWisconsin Manufacturers & Com-merce, the Wisconsin Farm Bu-reau Federation, the DairyBusiness Association, as well ascranberry growers and the statebuilders association.

TU members are encouragedto contact their legislators andvoice their opposition to this legis-lation. Watch your email for StateCouncil alerts, which include allthe necessary information for con-tacting your own representatives,as well as those on the committeeswhich will determine whether thebills go to the full legislature.

If you haven’t been receivingemails from the State Council,contact TU National and makesure they have your current emailaddress.

Isolated wetlands legislationRepublican bill would remove protections for 20 percent, or 1 million acres, of Wisconsin’s remaining wetlands.

Two recent discoveries of the in-vasive New Zealand mudsnail(Potamopyrgus antipodarum) insouthern Wisconsin trout streamsindicate not only are the invasivesnails spreading, but anglers arelikely spreading them.

With Wisconsin DNR’s an-nouncement this week of mud-snails in Rowan and Mount Vernoncreeks, the number of trout streamsin the region infested with the snailsgrows to four (Black Earth Creeksnails were discovered in October2013, and Badger Mill Creek in De-cember 2016). There are no otherknown infestations of the snail ininland Wisconsin streams.

“The recent discoveries of NewZealand mudsnails in two moresouthern Wisconsin streams are tru-ly a call to action to those who rec-reate on rivers and streams,particularly, wading anglers,” saidMatt Krueger, River RestorationProgram Director of the River Alli-ance of Wisconsin. “It’s alarminghow quickly these snails are spread-ing. If we are to protect otherstreams from their negative im-pacts, anglers need to make ‘cleanangling’ disinfection practices acommon part of their pre-and post-fishing routine.”

The New Zealand mudsnail ishighly invasive in western states andis known to reach high abundances,outcompete native stream insectsthat serve as food for fish such astrout, and can alter the naturalfunctions of streams.

It remains to be seen what im-pacts the snail will have on streamsin Wisconsin, but there is concern isthat they will affect the health oftrout. Research on the Black EarthCreek mudsnail infestation showsthat the in-stream population israpidly expanding.

While it’s hard to know defini-tively how aquatic invasive speciesget transported, in all probabilitywading anglers are spreading NewZealand mudsnails. “Here’s a veryreal scenario that is likely spreading

mudsnails,” said Krueger. “An an-gler fishes in an infested stream likeBlack Earth Creek, picks up mudand mudsnails on his or her boots,and doesn’t disinfect the muddyboots or waders after fishing. Thenext week, the same angler enters anew stream, the mud containing thestill-live snail drops off, and a newinfestation has begun.”

It is essential that wading an-glers, as well as other stream userssuch as paddlers and water qualitymonitors, prevent the spread ofmudsnails and other invasive spe-cies by inspecting equipment andremoving all plants, animals, mudand debris, prior to leaving astream. Then, drain all water fromgear and equipment prior to leavingstream, allowing to fully dry for atleast 26 days before next use. Final-ly, in the case of New Zealand mud-snails, we can all take additionalsteps, such as scrubbing gear (espe-cially boots) with a brush, freezinggear, or soaking it in 120°F water.

Anglers should avoid the use offelt-soled wading boots to decreasethe likelihood of spreading invasivespecies to other streams, or use adifferent pair of wading boots whileallowing the other pair to dry for 26days.

Response efforts to the recentinfestations of New Zealand mud-snails are being initiated by a coali-tion including the River Alliance ofWisconsin, Wisconsin Departmentof Natural Resources, local TroutUnlimited chapters, Upper SugarRiver Watershed Association, Low-er Sugar River Watershed Associa-tion and Southwest BadgerResource Conservation & Develop-ment Council.—River Alliance of Wisconsin

New Zealand mudsnails found in two new streams

If you are a TU member and have investments with Thrivent Lutheran Financial, you may have the ability to make chari-table donations to groups of your choosing through Thrivent Financial’s Thrivent Choice pro-gram.

The Wisconsin Council of TU is now a listed entity within the Thrivent Choice program.

If you are a Thrivent member and have the ability to make Thrivent Choice donations, we would be honored if you’d con-sider including the Wisconsin Council of TU within your chari-table planning, and making a donation to our cause.

Donate to TU via Thrivent Lutheran


The first hayride in Driftless Project Bus Tour history helped a busload of folks get to the streamside along Mill Creek near Chatfield, Minnesota. The mid-October tour focused on several innovative Minnesota projects on Mill, Pine and Rush Creek and Garvin Brook west of Winona. Stream designers and equipment operators viewed projects and questioned those who’d produced them. The goal of these TUDARE-sponsored tours is to encourage exchange of information and techniques across the entire Driftless Area.

Den

nis

Bar

th

TOUR BY BUS...AND BY TRACTOR Northeast Region pledges $49K for habitat projectsBy Laura MacFarland, TU Great Lakes Stream Restoration Manager and Doug

Erdmann, Northeast Region Vice Chair

In early December seven chapters from the northeast region met at theTimberhaven Bar & Grill in Polar and pledged $49,500 for habitat projects in2018. Those chapters were the Wild Rivers, Northwoods, Green Bay, Mari-nette, Oconto, Wolf River and Antigo.

The funding included:• $15,500 to help fund the Lakewood habitat crew.• $15,000 to help fund the Antigo habitat crew.• $5,000 for beaver control on Hauer Creek in Sawyer County• $5,000 for the North Branch Oconto River restoration.• $4,000 for Spring Meadow dam removal in Vilas County.• $3,000 for fuel to dredge Mayking Flowage in Langlade County• $2,000 for a fisheries technician for the U.S. Forest Service.

TU Great Lakes Stream Restoration Manager Laura MacFarland also re-ceived a grant earlier this year for $36,000 from the National Fish and Wild-life Foundation Five Star and Urban Waters Restoration Program 2017, toimprove the North Branch of the Oconto River. This grant will provide anadditional $13,000 for the Lakewood habitat crew and $5,000 for U.S. ForestService fisheries technicians who will partner with Trout Unlimited to im-prove instream habitat and fishability through the Town of Wabeno.

We are grateful to everyone who help make these projects a reality.

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”

William Shakespeare

Remember TU as Part of Your Legacy

Have you considered making Trout Unlimited part of your legacy? For loyal TU members, making a bequest to TU in your will or trust is a wonderful way to continue supporting clean water and healthy trout populations. Help assure that TU is able to continue its good work now and into the future.

Should you decide that TU is worthy of a legacy bequest, be sure to specify in your will or trust if the bequest is intended to benefit National TU, the State Council or your local chapter.

Thank you for considering Trout Unlimited in your estate planning.

Driftless SymposiumDuring the past decade,

TUDARE’s Driftless Symposium inLa Crosse has become one of thego-to events where scientists, re-searchers and volunteers interestedin Driftless Area watershed restora-tion gather to exchange informa-tion. Speakers report on theirresearch on coldwater streams andtheir denizens. Technicians talkabout techniques they are develop-ing in the numerous stream projectscarried out in this region each year.

On February 5 and 6 they’ll meetat the La Crosse Convention Cen-ter for a day and a half of informa-tive sessions, idea exchange andsocial opportunities. Costs are ex-pected to be about $90 for the en-tire event, including materials,symposium events, meals and aMonday evening social at theFreighthouse Restaurant.

“We’ve got a great lineup com-ing together for the Symposium,”said TUDARE Project ManagerJeff Hastings. “We’ll have keynotespeakers, talks on brook trout ge-netics research and riparian resto-ration by the pros who are doing itin the streams, and a whole serieshighlighting the research that’sbeen done on the impacts of therestoration that TUDARE and itspartners are doing. It should be astimulating two days.”

An in-depth look at conservationin the Tainter Creek watershed inCrawford and Vernon counties willinclude talks on grazing, prairiestrips and how to evaluate impactsof restoration. University of Minne-sota Professor Mary Marczak willdiscuss how project planning can

benefit from a widely diverse groupof planners.

For registration, agenda and oth-er information, check out DAresto-ration.com.

Westby Project Planning Workshop

A wide range of aspects of orga-nizing good watershed restorationprojects will be the focus of theWestby Project Planning WorkshopApril 7-8 at Living Waters BibleCamp, in the headwaters of theWest Fork of the Kickapoo River.This biennial workshop has trainedmore than 500 people from acrossthe Midwest how to organize, fundand carry out quality stream resto-ration projects. Past workshopshave had sessions on fund-raising,building partnerships, carrying outquality work days, media outreachand inviting a wide range of com-munity groups to participate.

The Westby workshop includesnotable speakers from across theregion, entertaining speakers in-cluding authors and poets, and oc-casional surprises. You’ll comeaway with a handy manual for yourchapter or council’s future projects.Not only that, but it takes place astrout fishing on area streams reallystarts to heat up.

More information on agenda,costs, and lodging will be providedon the TU Driftless Area Restora-tion Effort Facebook page and atDArestoration.com. Low-cost lodg-ing can be arranged at the BibleCamp and numerous motels serveanglers in the Westby, Viroqua andCoon Valley areas.—Duke Welter

Two TUDARE events coming soon

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By David Vetrano, Retired DNR Fisheries Biologist for

the LaCrosse Area.

I thought it might be time for meto clear up any misconceptionsthere are about my statement onthe so-called “Wisconsin TroutWars” by those who know me andthink I may have “drank the Kool-Aid.” Most of my comments aremeant for theDriftless Area,and especially theLa Crosse Area.

When I startedin La Crosse in1980, most areastreams weremuch differentthan they are to-day. There was al-most no naturalreproduction.

The streamswere wide, shal-low with littleoverhead coverand significantly warmer. Streamslike Timber Coulee were full ofcarp, redhorse suckers and creekchubs.

The only real trout fishery wassupplied by the tens of thousands ofdomestic strain brook, brown andrainbow trout that were stocked inthe same streams and in the samenumbers that they had been for de-cades.

Although there was an early“kill” season, most of the fishingpressure occurred with the tradi-tional May opener when most an-glers fished for the recently stockedhatchery trout that had not movedfar from the bridge holes they werestocked in days before.

Car counts and creel surveysshowed heavy fishing pressure thefirst weekend. After the secondweekend only the most dedicatedanglers were fishing for the fewtrout that had survived the openingweekend onslaught.

For those anglers, fishing couldbe good. The survivors had anabundant food supply in the morethan 20 species of forage fish avail-able so growth rates were good.When brown trout reach 12-13

inches in length they become almosttotal “piscivores.” They want to eatmeat. Although there were not ma-ny fish in the streams, trout over 20inches were caught each year.

By the mid 1980’s things startedto change. A serious downturn inthe farm economy left many pro-ducers unable to compete. Highmortgage interest rates and lowcommodity prices forced many

farmers out,idling thou-sands of acresof land. Somerelief camewith the 1985Farm Bill thatpaid landown-ers with highlyerodible landsto plant themwith covercrops.

As perennialvegetation in-creased on for-mer cropland,

we started to see more groundwaterpercolation of rainwater and snow-melt. This resulted in more baseflow (water seeping into the streamfrom the land on both sides), morespring flow and colder water tem-peratures.

In 1984, I changed the way wedid trout habitat restoration by add-ing a 4:1 slope to the stream banks,reconnecting them to their flood-plain. We also developed LUNK-ERS structures that were easy toconstruct on site and reduced in-stallation costs by 30 percent andmaintenance costs by more than 90percent. After habitat restoration,we saw trout numbers in manystreams increase by 1,500 percent.

Carryover of stocked trout in-creased as stream conditions im-proved, allowing fish to occupystream segments formerly too warmfor most of the season. By the endof the decade we began to find (forthe first time) natural reproductionof brown trout in a number ofstreams.

This phenomenon was also ob-served by my peers in other parts ofthe Driftless Area in Wisconsin, aswell as Minnesota and Iowa.

Not surprisingly, anglers beganto discover the Driftless Area asword of the improving fishery madeit through angling circles. Anglersfrom more than 50 miles away be-gan to fish streams the local anglershad called their own for many years.

Many of these new anglers werenot as interested in filling the creelas they were in perfecting their fish-ing techniques and enjoying the“Zen” qualities that come fromDriftless streamfishing.

In the late1980’s, I became amember of theDNR Trout Com-mittee. Our chargewas to use scienceto come up with anew set of regula-tions to managetrout in Wisconsin.

In my naiveté, Ithought one couldput 8 or 9 fisheriesbiologists in thesame room to talktrout and wewould be out in afew hours with afinished product.It took us twoyears to come upwith a regulation package that wehoped would address the changingattitudes of anglers as well as maxi-mizing all of the state’s complex anddynamic water bodies’ ability to pro-duce trout.

The rule package was nevermeant to be the final effort on man-aging trout. Many of the rule pro-posals had not been tried before.But we would never learn to man-age trout better if we didn’t trysome new concepts. Any good sci-entist knows failures are successes.

With that in mind, we also imple-mented a process to monitor theserules with theintent to simpli-fy overlappingregulations, andget rid of thosethat did notmeet their origi-nal intentions.

As expect-ed, the rulechanges werenot totally ac-cepted by theentire anglingcommunity. A few streams that hadbeen open to harvest were now“catch and release and artificiallures” only. We were accused of ca-tering to an elite few, especially flyanglers at the expense of those whopreferred spinners or live bait, eventhough 96 percent of state streamshad no bait restrictions.

At the same time as the TroutCommittee meetings, several of usbiologists toyed with the idea ofstocking our streams with more“wild” trout strains. Hatchery fishwere designed to grow big and fast,but lacked some basic survival char-acteristics.

In their defense, the hatcherieswere only responding to the fisher-ies biologists’ requests. When wefilled out our trout quotas eachyear, we demanded legal size fish

(7-9 inches) be available when thestreams were stocked in late Aprilbefore the May opener.

The only way for the hatcheriesto accomplish this was to take moreeggs from early spawners and holdthe subsequent fingerlings over fora whole year. Even if these fish sur-vived to spawn after stocking, theiryoung would emerge from the reddsin the middle of winter. Not the eas-iest time to survive when stream

temperatures arecold and foodavailability is low.

Because of thehigh numbers oftrout that biolo-gists were de-manding, thehatcheries wereforced to crowdraceways and feedin the easiestmanner possible.

This usuallymeant feeding byhand. This trainedfish to feed whenthey saw a silhou-ette or shadow onthe raceway,which is not agood survivaltechnique when

they are stocked in a stream full ofanglers, kingfishers, otters and blueherons.

To get around this, some of usstarted to transfer wild trout fromone stream to another. This workeduntil diseases such as viral hemor-rhagic septicemia (VHS) arrived. Sowe looked at developing a statewidewild trout program that would pro-vide feral strains of both brook andbrown trout to stock into streamswhere conditions were improvingand natural reproduction was al-most a certainty.

In La Crosse, using some hatch-ing trays that weborrowed fromthe Wild Rosehatchery, we con-verted an oldspringhouse,which was onceused to cool milk,into a small co-vert hatchery onstate land.

Using what Ilearned spawningsuckers for musky

feed, we stripped eggs and milt fromferal spawning brook and browntrout. The eggs were hatched andeventually transferred to an outsideraceway where they were held untilthe following spring and stocked aswhat are called “holdovers.”

To reduce human contact, thefish were fed using timed, automaticfeeders that only dispensed duringthe daytime. We also placed coversalong the raceways to acclimate theyoung fish to overhead cover. Be-tween 1990 and 1994, three to eightthousand feral trout were raisedeach year and stocked in La Crosse-area streams. Most streams were re-classified to Class I as better surviv-al and more natural reproductionoccurred.

Understandably, leaders at theDNR’s central office in Madison

Commentary

A personal history of the Driftless Area’s amazing trout recoveryRetired DNR Fisheries Biologist Dave Vetrano experienced — and played a huge role in — the amazing transformation of southwest Wisconsin into a world-class trout fishery.

If more liberal regulations are the

answer to reversing the “serious decline in trout fishing,” why am I not seeing an increase in

bait anglers?

“I was witness to an amazing trout recovery in my career with the DNR. I hope the next

generation will not see it disappear.”

DAVID VETRANO

NATIONAL TU LEADERS TOUR DRIFTLESS STREAMSThe success of trout stream restoration and wild stocking efforts in southwest Wisconsin convinced Trout Unlimited to hold its national meeting in Middleton in 2013. On this day two tour buses filled with TU leaders from throughout the country witness a shocking demonstration on Iowa County’s Blue River.

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was reluctant to make a majorchange in hatchery production with-out more study. Subsequent re-search proved that wild-strain troutout-survived domestic-stain fish bya factor of 6:1 after one year. Astatewide wild trout program beganin 1995 and continues today.

By this time most Driftless Areawaters were going through a majorchange in temperature and speciescomposition. Streams that less thantwo decades ago were populated bymany warm-water minnow specieswere changing to a coldwater spe-cies assemblage.

The shift to colder water alsomeant a surge in the aquatic insects.Caddisflies, mayflies and scuds be-came abundant as conditions im-proved.

Streams like Bohemian Valleyand Timber Coulee went from 100-200 trout per mile in the early1980’s to numbers that exceeded3,000 trout per mile. While num-bers increased, the size structurebegan to decline in some streams.

Brown trout grow the largest andfastest when they have largeamounts of protein such as min-nows or crayfish and in water tempsthat are a little warmer than whatbrook trout prefer. Lower stretchesof larger streams and rivers became(and still are) the areas to catch bigbrown trout.

While the number of naturallyreproducing streams increased, sodid the number of non-local an-glers. More and more anglers fishedstreams that less than 20 years agohad few trout.

As angler numbers increased, sodid the opportunities for entrepre-neurs. Sports clubs developedstrong relationships with city folksas TU chapters from urban areasbegan funding and volunteering forhabitat restoration projects thatwere hours away from their homes.

Other people built or renovatedcabins to rent to anglers. Restau-rants saw an increase in out-of-towncustomers.

As word got out about the ever-improving trout fishery, NationalTU initiated a large project on theKickapoo watershed. This was onlythe second time they funded aHome Waters Initiative program.Their goal was to provide fundingfor stream surveys, habitat restora-tion and an economic study of theever-improving fishery.

Through this effort, we wereable to survey tributaries of theKickapoo River that had neverbeen surveyed. We kept findingmore and more trout.

My peers in Minnesota and Iowa

were seeing the same things. A 2008 economic study found

that trout fishing in the DriftlessArea was a $1.1-billion dollar indus-try and growing. By the time I re-tired in 2010, we had reclassifiedmore than 395 miles of new troutwater. There were now more than1,000 miles of classified trout waterjust in the four counties of the LaCrosse Area.

Do a Google search today for“Driftless Area Trout Fishing,” andyou’ll get more than 50,000 results.That’s not bad for a fishery thatbarely existed 30 years ago.

I once estimated how long itwould take an angler to fish all ofthe classified waters in my four-county area (La Crosse, Vernon,Crawford and Monroe) and not fishthe same water twice. I used creeldata that estimated average triplength at about 2.5 hours. I also on-ly considered the statewide troutopener and the former September30 closure date. I estimated it wouldtake an angler 23 years to fish all ofthe trout streams in my area andnot fish the same water twice.

Currently, we have a trout fish-ery that rivals any of the westernand northeastern sections of thecountry in sheer numbers of fishand easy access. There are moretrout in area streams now than anytime since European settlement.Stocking trout is a thing of the pastfor almost all waters in the LaCrosse Area, as there is sufficientnatural reproduction to maintainthe fishery.

In 2016 TU updated its earliereconomic study on the Driftless Ar-ea. Trout stream fishing is now a$1.6-billion industry, and there isevery reason to think this trend willcontinue.

Unfortunately, there are a verysmall number of vocal anglers whoinsist that the trout resource insouthwest Wisconsin is being mis-managed by the DNR. To quotetheir leader, “the micro-manage-ment program that began in 1990has been an unmitigated disaster.”

Webster defines “disaster” as “asudden or great misfortune.” Howone can describe having more than3,000 trout per mile as a “disaster”is puzzling.

They would also have you be-lieve that the complexity of “specialregulations” is driving anglers awayfrom the sport. They are especiallyinsistent that there is a “war” on an-glers who use live bait and keeptrout.

One of the most important les-sons I learned in more than 33 yearsworking for DNR was to stick with

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THEY COME FROM HOURS AWAY TO FISH AND TO HELPTU members from near and far, such as volunteers like Stan Zarnowecki (left) travel often from hours away to help with stream restoration projects and provide financial support for restoration efforts. This was a LUNKER-building day on Bear Creek in Sauk County, which drew TU members from numerous chapters in Wisconsin and Illinois.

FEWER ANGLERS KEEPING LARGE TROUTOver the decades, as wild trout in Driftless Area’s streams replaced stocked trout, many anglers turned from harvesting large trout to harvesting fewer, smaller trout.

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the biology. Because every anglerwho fishes for trout in Wisconsinbuys a trout stamp, my job was toprovide as many different anglingopportunities as possible to all ofthe different user groups.

A live bait angler had just asmuch “say” as did a dry fly angler. IfI stepped into the world of “social”fisheries management, I would putmyself in a position I could not de-fend biologically.

While I did say there could be nosize limit and no bag limit on thewaters I once managed, that is notthe same as saying that current man-agement is a disaster. I have ob-served, and recent creel surveysconfirm, that on most streams in myarea, anglers do not keep fish, re-gardless of the regulation, period.

One of my favorite streams has a10-fish bag limit with no size limit. Irecommended this regulation be-fore I retired. This is my go-tostream to catch some trout to eat. Ithrow back anything over 12 inchesand will keep nine fish, if I can catchthem. Nine fish is three meals ofthree for my wife and I. For the lastseveral years, the only time I seepeople fishing with live bait andkeeping fish is on opening day andthe other anglers are all friends ofmine on our annual outing.

All of the other times I fish it,most others anglers I encounter onthe stream are using flies and releas-ing fish. If more liberal regulationsare the answer to reversing the “se-rious decline in trout fishing”, whyam I not seeing an increase in baitanglers?

Almost all of the streams I usedto manage now have more liberalregulations than before I retired in2010. Rarely do I see someone car-rying a creel.

Another “quest” by the vocal mi-nority is to open the early season toharvest. While I do not think an ear-ly harvest season will make a differ-ence from a population standpoint,I do think it will affect the size struc-ture of many streams.

In the 1980’s I did a tagging studyon several streams in the CoonCreek system. We tagged every fishover 10 inches. I wanted to get a bet-ter idea of fish movement, growthand angler harvest. On one stream,Spring Coulee, I had tagged ninefish over 20 inches. On one weekendin April when stream conditionswere perfect, four of those big fishwere caught and killed.

It was common knowledge bymost anglers that the early seasonback then was the time to catchthose bigger trout. They were hun-gry, concentrated in a few pools andbecause of the colder temperatures,not the “tackle busters” they are inthe warmer, regular season. I haveno doubt larger brown trout wouldagain be more vulnerable to earlyseason harvest.

I wish the small group of vocalanglers would be more concernedabout the true “war on trout” thatcomes in the form of the current po-litical interference in resource man-agement. High-capacity wellproliferation, concentrated animalfeeding operations (CAFO’s), thecontinued erosion of the PublicTrust Doctrine, sulfide mining andthe absolute denial that climatechange could exist are far strongerthreats to our coldwater resourcethan a 3- or 5-fish bag limit is. Itwon’t matter what regulations areon streams if there are no trout tocatch.

We need to recognize that ourstate streams will never be like theywere before European settlement.There’s not a lake, river or stream inthe state that has not been per-turbed by agriculture, logging or de-velopment. Our goal should be toprotect what we currently have andgive our waters the chance to be allthey can be.

I was witness to an amazing troutrecovery in my career with DNR. Ihope the next generation will notsee it disappear.

David Vetrano worked as a fisher-ies biologist for the Wisconsin Depart-ment of Natural Resources for morethan 33 years. Almost all of his timewas spent managing the coldwaterprogram in streams of the DriftlessArea in southwest Wisconsin. Whilethere he witnessed the streams changefrom “put and take” heavily stockedwaters to self- sustaining streams withvery little stocking.

Since his retirement in 2010, Vetra-no has served on several agriculturalboards promoting managed grazingsystems. He currently lives on a farmwhere he pastures Jersey steers. Hiswife, Linda, is a trained culinary chef,has a specialty dessert business.

Vetrano has a Bachelor of Sciencedegree in fisheries from the Universityof Wisconsin — Stevens Point.

Check out our Facebook pagesWe’re getting social. The Council now has an official

Wisconsin Trout Unlimited Facebook page at face-book.com/WisconsinTU. So go ahead and give us a“Like!” We’ve also set up a Wisconsin Trout UnlimitedState Council “group” on Facebook for people to shareupcoming event info and conservation-related news.


By Topf Wells

Dane County has recentlyachieved a rare and maybe uniquefeat: discovering, restoring and se-curing public access on a big andmostly unknown trout stream. Thestream is the Sugar River as it flowsalong Highway 69, south of Veronaand north of Belleville. The storygoes back about 10 years.

For decades Dane County hadbeen a wonderful partner with theSouthern Wisconsin Chapter ofTrout Unlimited (SWTU), the DaneCounty Conservation League, Bad-ger Flyfishers and other local con-servation organizations in workingwith landowners to protect troutstreams.

About 10 years ago, the countycombined that effort with a pro-gram to purchase permanent ease-ments permitting public fishingaccess to and restoration of suchstreams. The effort succeeded be-yond expectations,and more than 20miles of stream havebeen restored andopened to public fish-ing.

A busy anglerwould take severalseasons to fish all thewater on such excel-lent Dane Countystreams such as BlackEarth Creek, Ver-mont Creek, PleasantValley Creek, German Valley Creek,Syfestad Creek, Kittleson Creek,Gordon Creek, Token Creek, FryeFeeder, Deer Creek and the WestBranch of the Sugar River.

Some of these are well-knownblue ribbon streams; many of theothers are vital headwaters of thoseblue ribbon systems. While thecounty focused on easements, it alsobought larger parcels of land onthese creeks whenever possible for awider variety of outdoor recreation.

Languishing in obscurityFour years ago the county turned

its attention to the Sugar River, ariver with some noteworthy fea-tures. The Sugar is probably theeasternmost trout stream in the

Driftless Area, and is one of the big-gest. It exists on the edge of thestate’s most rapidly growing metro-politan area.

Nevertheless, the river lan-guished in obscurity. When theDNR noted it was a cold/cool waterfishery several years ago, that desig-nation received almost noattention. A few locals fished theriver and enjoyed the trophy troutthey found there. Many years ago,the county and TU had worked witha landowner in the upper part of theriver, but that was largelyforgotten. Most folks, including TUmembers, drove by the river with lit-tle thought of what it might hold orwhat its future could be.

Thankfully, Sara Rigelman andLaura Hicklin, respectively theDane County Stream Easement Co-ordinator and Director of the Ac-quisition Program, knew better andseized opportunities as they oc-curred.

The first was thechance to buy 400 acresof land with more thana mile of Sugar Riverfrontage from theBruce Company. It isnow known as the Falk/Wells Wildlife Area.

Then the Neperuds,a conservation-mindedfamily, sold the countya lovely 100-acre farmwith another mile ofthe river. That is now

the Basco Wildlife Area. A monthago, the county purchased an ease-ment for a half mile of stream fromthe Sarbacher family.

With these purchases, trout an-glers took notice and discovered atreasure. To the surprise of many,the river contains great habitat: rif-fles, meanders, deep holes, graveland rock stream bottom, shadedstretches with fish-holding woodydebris.

With such habitat comes a richdiversity of trout food: mayflies,caddis, craneflies, crayfish andschools of minnows, shiners, andchubs. And, oh yes, trout. Besidesthe occasional big trout one wouldexpect in such water, the biggestsurprises were the number and age

range of trout. Young of the yeartrout, and trout of all sizes from 6inches to 14 inches call the Sugarhome and all are wild browntrout. DNR records show that theriver has not been stocked since themid-1990s.

Like most Driftless Area troutstreams, as good as the Sugar was, ithas some problems. Past land usehad left some areas that were toowide and shallow and some badlyeroding stream banks. The result isthat the river has some of its greathabitat broken up by segments thatneeded help.

Rigelman enabled the county tofind partners for some much-need-ed restorations. Last August sawthe completion of a two-year proj-ect on about 2/3 of a mile of streamon the Neperud farm. SWTU do-nated funds and volunteer labor tohelp, and rallied our State Council,National TU, the Southeast Wis-consin TU Chapter and many localorganizations such as Badger FlyFishers, Dane County ConservationLeague, Madison Fishing Expo, theDNR, Madison Orvis, and SitkaSalmon to contribute funds andmore volunteers. By the way, neverpass up a joint work day with theSoutheast Wisconsin TU crew, es-pecially if they provide the brats.

The DNR saw the project as anopportunity to use some techniquesthat have been quite successful oncentral Wisconsin trout streams, inparticular the latest versions ofbank covers. With Rigelman’s coor-dination, the stream benefittedfrom an all-star DNR team includ-ing the operations crews from WildRose, Fitchburg and Eagle and fishbiologists Shawn Sullivan, BraddSims, David Rowe, Kurt Welke,Tim Simonson and Dan Oele.

The county, DNR and SWTUsponsored an event to demonstratebank cover construction and theirapplicability to Driftless streams.County and federal conservationagencies and local landowners andcontractors were invited.

Beyond in-stream workThe restorations go beyond in-

stream work. In order to have morestable stream banks and better hab-itat for birds, pollinators and otherwildlife, SWTU has been restoringprairies on county properties, andthe county is taking invasives out of

an oak ridge at the Neperud site.To provide cooling shade and

richer near-stream habitat, SWTUis planting native hardwoods andshrubs. The chapter has had andwill continue to schedule work daysto improve angler accessibility andremove yet more invasive veg-etation. This fall and winter’s effortincludes controlled burns and moreplanting.

Next year the county will under-take a two-year restoration of themost problematic segment of theriver. It is a wide, warm, shallow,silty stretch of several hundredyards in the Falk/Wells Sugar RiverWildlife Area. Rigelman’s researchhas confirmed that channelizationand impoundment of the riverwhich occurred at least 80 years agoare the source of the problems.

Variety of river usersTrout anglers are not the only

folks happy about the SugarRiver. Kayakers and paddlers en-joy the river in ever-increasingnumbers. They have become thedominant hatch on the river duringmid-summer weekends. Many otherpeople have found the joy of walk-ing both parcels. The scenery al-ways includes the lovely river andwildlife, including a pair of bald ea-gles that regularly patrol the river.The county has just constructed ahiking trail on Falk/Wells to encour-age this activity.

Rigelman and Hicklin are work-ing with nearby landowners to im-prove access to and habitat in thestream. It’s work that is receivingsupport from Paoli, a small commu-nity of shops, galleries, an artisanbrewer, and restaurants right in themiddle of the Sugar's fishingwaters. One of Wisconsin's best newcheesemakers is about to makePaoli home. Paoli makes the SugarRiver one of the nicest streams tofish when the fish aren’t biting.

One might wonder: well, this isall well and good, but why not keepyour mouth shut about all this won-derful fishing and let people discov-er it on their own? Here’s why:because the Madison metropolitanarea is expanding so rapidly, withmuch of that growth heading to-ward the Sugar River.

The world famous and ever-ex-panding Epic company and campusare about eight minutes from Paoli.

Dane County’s big “new” trout streamThanks to the efforts of many partners, a former “drive-by” river just minutes from the state capitol is being discovered by hikers, paddlers and trout anglers.

BEAUTIFUL TROUT RIVER JUST SOUTH OF MADISONThis photo shows a section of Sugar River on the Neperud property prior to restoration efforts. It is now the Basco Wildlife Area.

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TOPF WELLS AT HIS NAMESAKE WILDLIFE AREANamed after Topf Wells and former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, the Falk Wells Sugar River Wildlife area features trails, wildlife and trout fishing.

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cher

“Young of the year trout, and trout of all sizes from 6

inches to 14 inches call the

Sugar home and all are wild brown

trout.”


The county also purchased 30 acreswith half a mile of frontage on theSugar River next to Epic. A keyspring complex is on that parcel.

The river needs champions nowand even more so in the future. Thebest champions will be those folkswho love it because they have expe-rienced it.

Dane County’s conservation program

Back to Dane County. SeveralWisconsin counties have wonderfulconservation programs with an em-phasis on coldwater resources andprobably others elsewhere in thecountry do, too. But I doubt thatmany do as much as Dane Countyin the face of such rapid, persistentgrowth. That a fairly unknown, ex-cellent wild trout fishery exis-ted within 25 minutes of a state cap-itol is pretty extraordinary. That alocal government has spent so muchtime and money to preserve, im-prove, and make it available to thepublic before it is degraded is per-haps even more noteworthy.

Obviously and thankfully, thecounty has many individuals and or-ganizations as partners in thiseffort. Special mention is due the

Upper Sugar River Watershed As-sociation. The association has im-proved paddler safety and access onthe river and led the fight againstthe New Zealand Mud Snail, re-cently discovered in a tributary. Ithas secured grants to help farmersalong the river improve water quali-ty. In another first for the river andDane County, the association justbrought the DNR and volunteerstogether to re-introduce nativemussels. Take that, mud snails!

While Rigelman and Hicklin,now the Director of the County’sLand and Water Conservation De-partment, are among the key countystaff to have planned and imple-mented the county’s preservation ofthe Sugar River, the county’s elect-ed leaders, county executives Kath-leen Falk and now Joe Parisi, andthe Dane County Board of Supervi-sors have enthusiastically led andreliably funded that effort.

County Executive Parisi andDane County Board Chair SharonCorrigan have made the Sugar Riv-er a key focal point. Kevin Connors,recently retired director of theCounty’s Land and Water Conser-vation Department, had been achampion of the Sugar River Water-shed throughout his tenure.

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ALL-STAR DNR CREW WORKS ON SUGAR RIVERThe Sugar River benefitted from an all-star DNR team including the operations crews from Wild Rose, Fitchburg and Eagle and fish biologists Shawn Sullivan, Bradd Sims, David Rowe, Kurt Welke, Tim Simonson and Dan Oele.

Stop by the Sugar River the nexttime you’re near. Fish it, walk it,paddle it. You’ll have a blast. Andtake an optimistic lesson from theSugar. When you get home, lookaround at some of those rivers andcreeks that everyone just seems todrive over in route to somewhereelse. You might find a really cool re-source and some folks who’ll helpmake it better.

Topf Wells is a long-time member

of the Southern Wisconsin Chapter ofTrout Unlimited and currently serveson its board. He worked for DaneCounty for 15 years and was one ofthe Dane County staff who createdthe county trout stream restorationand easement programs. He has beenone of the most active SWTU volun-teers on the Neperud project.

CANOE RAFFLE!

GRAND PRIZE: Beautiful 15’ Cedar Strip Canoe* SECOND PRIZE: Hardy Jet 8’4 4wt 4-piece Rod

THIRD PRIZE: $200 Gift Certificate to Mel’s Trading Post

Buy Your Tickets Today | 1 for $5.00 OR 5 for $20.00

Tickets available at Mel’s Trading Post in Rhinelander (Canoe on Display) or by contacting Terry Cummings at

(715) 362-2187 or [email protected]. Drawing to be held on April 28th.

You do not have to be present to win the canoe raffle. *paddles are not included

Northwoods Trout Unlimited 42nd Conservation Banquet Quality Inn (668 West Kemp Street, Rhinelander)

April 28, 2018 | 5:00 – 9:00 PM

For tickets or more information contact Terry Cummings (see above) prior to April 21st. No tickets purchase at the door.

Discount hotel rooms available.

By Kim McCarthy, WITU NLC Representative

Ever since I became Wisconsin’sTU National Leadership CouncilRepresentative, I have been struckby how many of our members don’tfully understand what the NLC is.NLC stands for National Leader-ship Council. The NLC is part ofNational TU’s leadership structureand is made up of one representa-tive from each state council. Its pri-mary function is to help establishthe national organization’s conser-vation agenda.

Various areas of concern in theconservation area are looked at bythe NLC, considered for national at-tention, and focus areas are chosenfor attention by the NLC. Some ar-eas currently on the NLC’s list of fo-cus areas are climate change, access,Great Lakes, mining, diversity,Driftless Area, and youth education.A complete list can be found on theNational TU website at tu.org.

Once a topic has been selected asa focal point, the NLC forms a workgroup around that topic. Each NLCrepresentative is expected to serveon at least two work groups. Thegroups discuss how to assist the na-tional organization in its efforts.

As an example, I am currentlyserving as the vice chair of theYouth Education Work Group andas the chair of the Mining WorkGroup. The Youth Education WorkGroup has been working to placeYouth Education Coordinators ineach chapter and council as a way toget more kids involved in outdooreducation activities.

The Mining Work Group is au-thoring a handbook to assist chap-ters and councils who are forced todeal with extraction activities in

their home areas. Each work groupgoes about its business in a way thatthey feel will work best for that par-ticular group.

The second area of responsibilityfor the NLC involves serving as a li-aison between National TU staffand chapters and councils. Becausethe NLC has a representative fromeach council, areas of concern canbe communicated from NationalTU to state councils or from statecouncils to National TU.

A good communication examplewould be the Youth EducationWork Group helping National staffspread the word about an effort thatis underway to help fund National’sEducation Program. The Guada-lupe River chapter in Texas hasmade a pool of money available asmatching funds to help raise moneyfor such efforts as the TU TeenSummit summer camp. The YouthEducation Work Group has been in-volved in communicating informa-tion about that effort to the states.

A second example of communi-cation took place in October whenthe Mining Work Group spread in-formation about the proposed Bris-tol Bay Mine from Alaska staff tochapters and councils around thecountry.

The term of an NLC member islimited to five years. I have about ayear remaining on my time with theNLC. In Wisconsin it has often beenthe case that past State Councilchairs have filled the NLC position.That has worked well because pastchairs are very familiar with boththeir state’s and National TU’s or-ganizations.

If you have additional questionsabout the NLC, contact me [email protected].

What exactly is the NLC?

Support Wisconsin TU and get your Wisconsin TU license plate now. Go to www.dot.state.wi.us/drivers/vehicles/personal/special/trout.htm

SUPPORT WISCONSIN TU WITH A TU LICENSE PLATE

AND FOR A LITTLE BIT MORE EACH YEAR, YOU CAN PERSONALIZE YOUR PLATES


Words and photos by Laura MacFarland, TU Great Lakes

Restoration Manager

In 2017, Trout Unlimited staffand volunteers helped to reconnect42 miles of coldwater habitat withinthe Peshtigo River watershed inNorthern Wisconsin.

In collaboration with the U.S.Forest Service and the WisconsinDNR, 10 inadequate culverts werereplaced with fish-friendly struc-tures. An additional road crossinglocated on private industrial forestwas abandoned. In all, the projectseliminated 11 aquatic organism pas-sage barriers and improved instreamhabitat.

Thanks to a grant from the Na-tional Fish and Wildlife Foundationand ongoing support for the GreatLakes Restoration Initiative (GL-RI), we will be continuing our ef-forts here in northern Wisconsinthrough 2019. Our objective for2018 is to reconnect an additional 25miles within the Peshtigo systemthrough the replacement of fivemore culverts.

In addition to our culvert work,we are very excited to be a part ofthe North Branch Oconto Restora-tion Partnership. In 2018, we will beassisting to restore 2.6 miles of wildbrook trout habitat through the

heart of Wabeno. This will entail theremoval of mill dams, a culvert re-placement and instream habitat im-provements.

I am eternally grateful to theWisconsin Council and chapters fortheir ongoing support of the pro-gram. Thanks to your generous fi-nancial contributions and letters ofsupport, we have been able to lever-age the necessary grants. Thankyou!

Project spotlight:Spencer Creek

Spencer Creek is a very impor-tant coldwater tributary to the RatRiver. The limited trout populationof the Rat River, a larger tributaryto the Peshtigo River, depends oncool-cold water tributaries such asSpencer Creek. It is likely that RatRiver trout historically used SpencerCreek for spawning, nursery andrearing habitat and also as a refugefrom warm water temperatures thatroutinely occur in the Rat River.

However, in recent decades troutwithin the Rat River have been un-able to access Spencer Creek due toa culvert that, like a water cannon,blasted water at high speeds fromabove the water’s surface.

Tom Moris, a local biologist atthe U.S.F.S. had long recognizedthis culvert as a priority for replace-

ment. Opening up the entire Spen-cer Creek system to troutmigrations and movements wouldonce again allow the seasonal andlife history movements of trout andother species.

In 2017 the Wild Rivers Chapterand TU National collaborated to se-cure a $50,000 Wisconsin DNR Riv-er Management grant, which helpedfund the replacement of a culvertlocated on Spencer Creek in theForest County Town of Blackwell.The project was completed in Sep-tember 2017 in partnership with theU.S.F.S. and the Town of Blackwell,with additional funding from theNational Fish and Wildlife Founda-tion.

Entire Spencer Creek system reconnected

Removal of this barrier recon-nected the entire Spencer Creekcoldwater system to trout and otheraquatic organisms, including fivemiles of the mainstem SpencerCreek and an additional 1.56 milesof Swan Creek.

While fish passage was the pri-mary objective at this site, we saw agreat improvement in the instreamhabitat upstream and downstreamof the site. By replacing the under-sized and perched culvert, we elimi-nated the former impoundingcondition upstream of the road andrestored natural river velocities andflow characteristics.

The replacement was imple-mented per the design and specifi-cations developed by TU’s streamrestoration specialist. The formerfour-foot, round, corrugated metalpipe was replaced with a 31.5-footaluminum box culvert with a 14-footspan and a rise of more than six feet.

The elevation of the culvert waslowered below the existing channelbottom and a two-inch toe wall wasplaced to prevent scour.

Amazingly quick resultsPreliminary post-construction

monitoring was conducted in Octo-ber to document immediate changesin current velocity, water depth, siltdepth and substrate type followingthe project.

Upstream of the culvert, we ob-served a dramatic reduction in theamount of silt, revealing sand, grav-el and cobble; virtually no silt wasobserved within the channel. Theaverage silt depth was reduced from10 inches to 0.004 inches. The aver-age width and depth of the channelwere both reduced to natural condi-tions mimicking the upstream anddown-stream reference reaches.

Prior to the restoration, the ve-locity of water at the outlet of theculvert served as a barrier to aquaticorganisms flowing at a rate of 1.61meters/second (5.28 feet/second).Following the replacement, the ve-locity at the outlet of the culvert was.2 meters/second (.65 feet/second)which is more consistent with thevelocities found upstream anddownstream of the crossing allowingfish to move through the structureeasily.

Special thanks to Bob Rice andthe Wild Rivers Chapter for helpingto secure the necessary funds forthis project and to our partners atthe DNR and U.S.F.S. For more ex-amples of our projects, please likeand follow “Trout Unlimited –Great Lakes Restoration” on Face-book. Here you will find additionalphotos, project updates and howyou can get involved on the ground.

Update on TU’s Great Lakes Restoration Program

UPSTREAM ON SPENCER CREEK PRIOR TO RECONNECTIONPrior to the replacement of the culvert there was an average silt depth of 13 inches with a maximum of 17 inches due to impounding. Increased velocities revealed sand, gravel and cobble after the restoration.

UPSTREAM ON SPENCER CREEK AFTER RECONNECTION

DOWNSTREAM AFTER RECONNECTIONThe former four-foot, round, corrugated metal pipe was replaced with a 31.5-foot aluminum box culvert with a 14-foot span and a rise of more than six feet. The elevation of the culvert was lowered below the existing channel bottom and a two-inch toe wall was placed to prevent scour.

DOWNSTREAM PRIOR TO RECONNECTIONPrior to the restoration, the velocity of water at the outlet of the culvert served as a barrier to aquatic organisms flowing at a rate of 1.61 meters/second (5.28 feet/second). Following the replacement, the velocity at the outlet of the culvert was .2 meters/second (.65 feet/second) which is more consistent with the velocities found upstream and downstream of the crossing, allowing fish to move through the structure easily.


Words and photos by Matthew Mitro, Wisconsin DNR

The Wild Trout Symposium, heldevery three years in the heart ofwestern wild trout country, is per-haps the best conference to learnabout what’s new in the science andmanagement of wild trout. About150 fisheries scientists, managers,conservationists and anglers fromacross the United States, Canadaand Europe gathered in West Yel-lowstone, Montana for four days inSeptember. This year’s theme was“Science, Politics and Wild TroutManagement: Who’s Driving andWhere Are We Going?”

Wisconsin well represented • Dave Vetrano, retired Wisconsin

DNR fisheries manager, gave aplenary presentation on “Search-ing for sustainability: A legacy ofland use, managed grazing andwild trout in southwestern Wis-consin.”

• Duke Welter, TUDARE, pre-sented on the economic impactof trout angling in the DriftlessArea.

• Kent Johnson, Kiap-TU-WishChapter of TU, presented anevaluation of stream restorationbenefits using Pine Creek as acase study.

• Joanna Griffin, Wisconsin DNRtrout coordinator, presented aposter on using new brook troutgenetics research to improveWisconsin’s trout stocking pro-gram and to protect wild brooktrout populations.

• Justin Haglund, Wisconsin DNRfisheries biologist, presented aposter on age val idat ion ofbrown trout in Driftless Areastreams using otoliths.

• I presented on parasites and thehealth of wild trout, addressingthe question, should we be con-cerned about gill lice infecting

brook trout? (I’ll answer thatquestion later in this article.)

I was very excited to recruit DaveVetrano as a plenary speaker. Dave,in his 33-year career at the DNR,oversaw a remarkable recovery incoldwater stream habitat and troutfisheries in the Driftless Area andhas a great story to tell about it. Itwas very well received.

Overgrazing has been detrimen-tal to many western trout rivers, butwhen managed properly along Mid-western streams, it has been a highlybeneficial use of agricultural landthat has helped improve streamsand their trout fisheries.

With presentations like Dave’son our successes in trout conserva-tion, and Duke’s update on the eco-nomic benefits of our improvedDriftless Area fisheries, trout enthu-siasts from other parts of the coun-try are starting to pay moreattention to the trout fishing oppor-tunities we have here in Wisconsin.

Johnson provideds a view from the chapter level

Kent Johnson’s presentation onPine Creek, speaking from the TUchapter level, provided a welcomecomplement to the great work doneat the national level. The PineCreek restoration was successful inmany ways, by reducing erosion po-tential and decreasing stream tem-perature.

But there were also unanticipat-ed outcomes: no improvement inaquatic insect metrics and an in-crease in brown trout to the detri-ment of brook trout. These storiesabout local projects are importantto tell, and I hope we see more pre-sentations like Kent’s at future in-ternational symposia.

Disease, parasites and trout

I presented in a session on dis-

ease, parasites and the health ofwild trout. Jacob Rash of the NorthCarolina Wildlife Resources Com-mission began the session with anaccount of three parasites recentlydiscovered in North Carolina: gilllice Salmincola edwardsii infectingbrook trout and S. californiensis in-fecting rainbow trout, andMyxobolus cerebralis, the causativeagent of whirling disease.

I followed with the latest on gilllice research from here in Wiscon-sin, which shows concern is warrant-ed in heavily-infested populations inwhich young-of-year brook trout be-come infected. Fortunately, ourstate-wide surveys show such heavyinfestations of young-of-year brooktrout to be uncommon, but more re-search is needed on long-term gilllice-brook trout dynamics to betterunderstand the genesis and durationof heavy outbreaks.

The next presentation was by To-by Landeryou, a Ph.D. student atMiddlesex University in London.He is doing research on brown troutgenetic variation in the major histo-compatibility complex, a part of theimmune system that recognizes par-asites infecting the host, and theirability to adapt in response to infec-tion.

An interesting thing I learnedfrom Toby in a conversation afterhis talk was the development of a la-ser-wielding robot used to kill sealice on Atlantic salmon being raisedin aquaculture pens in Scotland.Yes, there are online videos of lasersshooting fish (you must see them!);no, I don’t think they will work inour trout streams!

The final presentations in thefish health session were by LucianoChiaramonte of the Idaho Depart-ment of Fish & Game and CurtisRoth of the University of Idaho onthe effects of air exposure on Yel-lowstone cutthroat trout.

There has been concern, origi-nally based on a Canadian study,that prolonged air exposure of an-gler-caught trout (say 30 to 60 sec-onds) may lead to increases inmortality or decreases in reproduc-tive success following release.

The Idaho studies on air expo-sure did not find any effects on troutsurvival for trout caught by anglingand exposed to air for 0, 30, or 60seconds prior to release. And astudy of angler behavior in Idahoshowed that average air exposure

duration was about 20 seconds.These studies indicate that regula-tions on air exposure time in catch-and-release fisheries are not war-ranted.

Method for eradicating non-native trout

Perhaps the most innovative andpotentially groundbreaking re-search, presented by Patrick Kenne-dy of Idaho F&G, was on the use ofYY male brook trout for eradicatingnon-native brook trout where theythreaten native cutthroat trout. Ateam led by Dan Schill from IdahoF&G developed hatchery-producedmale brook trout that have two Ychromosomes. When released intoan undesired population and al-lowed to reproduce, over time thesex ratio skews to 100 percent male,leading to extirpation.

The process can be aided by me-chanical removal of the target spe-cies prior to the release of the YYmales. Mechanical removal sup-presses population abundance buttypically cannot eliminate the popu-lation. Modeling studies and initialfield trials so far support the use ofYY males as a viable approach toeradicating undesirable fish popula-tions.

Next Symposium in 2020The Wild Trout Symposium will

reconvene again in September,2020. Visit wildtroutsymposium.comto read more from the many pre-senters at the 2017 symposium.

Matthew Mitro is a fisheries re-search scientist with the WisconsinDepartment of Natural Resources.Based in Madison, Matt has beenworking with the DNR on statewidefisheries issues since 2003. Matt’swork focuses on trout in Wisconsin’sinland streams, including stream hab-itat restoration, trout stocking andpropagation issues, angling regula-tions, fish ageing, population model-ing, parasites and environmentalchange. Matt previously worked as apopulation ecologist with the EPA, asa stock assessment biologist with theAtlantic States Marine FisheriesCommission, and did his doctoralwork on rainbow trout in the HenrysFork, Idaho. Matt graduated fromMontana State University (PhD, MS),University of Vermont (MS), and Col-gate University (BA).

Highlights of the 2017 Wild Trout Symposium

WISCONSIN’S DAVE VETRANO DISCUSSED MANAGED GRAZINGOvergrazing has been detrimental to many western trout rivers, but when managed properly along Midwestern streams, it has been a highly beneficial use of agricultural land that has helped improve streams and their trout fisheries.

DNR’S MATT MITRO DISCUSSED GILL LICE AT SYMPOSIUMAlthough researchers have found some heavily-infested populations in which young-of-year brook trout become infected, state-wide surveys show such heavy infestations of young-of-year brook trout to be uncommon. More research is needed on long-term gill lice-brook trout dynamics to better understand the genesis and duration of heavy outbreaks.


By Tom Lager

Trout Unlimited - Central AreaRestoration Effort for Sustainabili-ty, initiated in 2016, continues toachieve its goals. The inauguralproject on the West Branch of theWhite River (WBWR), to assessand implement improvements to theWBWR representing the possibili-ties achievable across the CentralRegion streams, had a great 2017field season.

Through the collaborative effortsof the TU CARES Core Teamworking with multiple TU Chapters,DNR Habitat Crew, DNR Fisher-ies electro-shocking team, DNR En-vironmental Analysis personnel andWater Action Volunteers (WAV)the biological and physical featuresof the WBWR watershed were doc-umented and assessed.

Six sampling sites along the 8.7miles of stream were established formonitoring and several additionalsites were investigated due to theirunique features, including an un-named tributary, riffle run sectionsand road crossings. WAV monitor-ing data verified the WBWR’s char-acter as a high-quality trout stream;the macroinvertebrate survey sup-ported this contention and provideddata for development of a hatchchart to guide fishing excursions.

A review of trout surveys re-vealed healthy populations of brookand brown trout; however, the rain-bow trout numbers are declining.No stocking is occurring in thisstream. Investigation of an un-named tributary that contributessubstantial cold water flow from thenorthern section of the watersheddocumented well established popu-lations of brook and brown trout.Several roads cross the tributary;one consists of a perched culvertthat obstructs up-stream trout mi-gration, essentially dissecting thetrout populations during moststream flow regimes.

A total of nine stream crossingsin the watershed were evaluated forpotential obstruction. Trout habitatimprovement work was conducted

in the recently acquired section nearCounty Highway Y and further upin the watershed, extensive fishabili-ty clearing was completed.

Evaluation of the 2017 field sea-son’s work and collected data led toa series of next steps for the WB-WR. WAV data reviewed by MikeSan Dretto and Nate Ratliff willhelp define the 2018 monitoringprogram and will potentially includelevel two monitoring.

John Tucker engaged DNR Fish-eries staff, while Ray White initiat-ing next steps to understand thecauses of rainbow trout populationdecline and plan for corrective mea-sures to assure a self-sustaining fish-able population.

The plan for old habitat structurerepair is on-going with Shawn Sulli-van’s DNR Habitat Crew. Thestream crossing assessments com-pleted by Dennis Drazkowski, AlJohnson, John Tucker and I weretransferred to Bobbi Jo Fisher forprioritization modeling and plan de-velopment for removal of obstruc-tions to trout migration.

Continuation of the WBWRproject across the Central Regionrequires additional resources andinvolvement of stakeholders, sopublicity and fundraising efforts areunderway for 2018. Laura Tuckerhas been generating ideas for pub-licity. TU CARES presentations,booths and literature are being de-veloped and will be presented at re-gional conferences, TU events andother forums. Al Johnson is com-pleting grant writing training andwill lead our fundraising effort.

TU CARES is reaching out to allwho have an interest in this under-taking, and we welcome your in-volvement.

Tom Lager has supported TU for29 years in a range of positions; cur-rently as State Council Secretary, ViceChair of the TU’s Central Region andFox Valley TU Board of Directors.The TU CARES project arose fromleading a collaborate effort amongCentral Region TU Chapters andDNR within the region.

TU CARES EFFORTS ON THE WEST BRANCH OF THE WHITE RIVER(Above) Al Johnson, Mike San Dretto, Dennis Drazkowski and John Tucker assessing stream obstruction.(Below) Nate Ratliff water monitoring on the West Branch of the White River. Six sampling sites were established for monitoring.

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TU CARES update


By Dan Holland

When John Meachen and I hatched “At the Con-vergence,” it was borne out of a shared sense ofoutrage about our state’s and nation’s intolerableenvironmental policies.

The galvanizing moment occurred when I askedJohn: “And what are we going to do about it?” Thestartled look on John’s face caused me to quicklyrespond with legendary anthropologist MargaretMead’s immortal words: “Never doubt that a fewthoughtful, concerned people can change theworld. Indeed, that is the only thing that ever has.”At that moment we both committed ourselves to dowhatever we could to be a positive force for good ina world much in need of good.

That led to our approaching Curator of Educa-tion Catie Anderson at the award-winning LeighYawkey Woodson Art Museum. When we discussedour intent to “fight ugly with beauty,” she startledus both by saying, “Your idea would fit perfectlywith Birds in Art, and we are in the planning stagesof that now.”

John and I stared at each other, before chorus-ing, “This year?”

Catie simply responded, “Yes.”

So that is how some of the luminaries of writing,visual art and environmental science came togetherin Wausau in early October to celebrate the thingthat unites us all — a love of beauty.

Admittedly, it got a little scary. We asked our-selves, “Where do we go from here.” Because ofour friendship with celebrated artist Bob White, weasked him what he thought. His reply was, “I’m in.”He paused an instant, then added, “I’ll get Gierachand Dvorak.” Then we were able, again with Catie’shelp, to add eminent environmental scientists AlanHaney and Eric Anderson to the distinguished indi-viduals who made the event such a success. Whocould have foreseen the evolution of a wild idea in-to the celebration that became “At the Conver-gence?”

In the aftermath of the event, sponsored jointlyby Wisconsin Trout Unlimited and the museum, ahost of memorable images remain: Bob White cre-ating a masterpiece of Alaskan landscape beforethe adoring eyes of numerous onlookers, the gallerytour of Birds in Art identifying and talking aboutimperiled species of birds around the world…end-ing with John Gierach’s capstone comment, “Ourenvironmental policy is wrong, it just is.”

We have briefly been introduced to the factof Thurlow and Maybelle’s little boy, Skeezix,but to date have not encountered the critterhimself nor his nemesis, the family cat, Moloch.

When Skeezix was going on three, Maybellefound a tiny black tomcat kitten on the backporch. Naturally, she took it in, and, naturally,Maybelle decided that kitty would be the per-fect pet for Skeezix. Finagle’s Corollary to Mur-phy’s Law, also known as The Law of DynamicPerversity, ruled otherwise. When introducedand about to be petted/grabbed [the recollec-tions differ] the kitten hissed and swiped Skeez-ix across the back of his hand with his claws,drawing blood and a piercing howl from theboy.

Thus was born a deep and abiding relation-ship firmly rooted in mutual hatred. Maybelle,unwilling to chuck the kitten out, but also insist-ing over Skeezix’ protests that he’d tried to grabthe cat by the neck, had her revenge on bothby naming the cat after the ancient Canaaniteidol known as “devourer of children.” Child sac-rifice was part of the Molochian liturgy. Eightyears pass, and cat and child each survive theother, due, primarily, to each one’s respect forthe other’s potential lethality. “Mutually AssuredDestruction” kept the peace, until, that is, theevent that herein unfolds.

Skeezix was sometimes invited to fish withus, and paid for the privilege by coming with us

on Saturday mornings to Elmer’s Hair Empori-um, reading the outdoor sports magazineswhile his dad indulged his second-favorite hob-by besides fishing: watching haircuts.

He was usually quiet and as patient as a kidhis age could be, but on one day, while readinga “Bass Masters” issue, he became very excit-ed and asked Elmer if he could borrow themagazine to take home to read. Elmer agreed,and Skeezix actually excused himself from fish-ing in order to go home and read! We shouldhave heard the warning bells, but we didn’t: Dy-namic Perversity again.

Instead of taking the boat out, due to astorm brewing, Thurlow and I rigged six-weightflyrods and fished from shore, starting and fin-ishing about a half-mile south of the docks.Coming home past Elmer’s towards my housefor supper, we met Elmer outside the Empori-um, very agitated. “Thurlow”, he said, “you’dbetter get yourself back down to the dock.Skeezix came by here about five minutes ago,and he had that cat of yours in a cage withleather straps all over him, and a heavy bait-casting rig over his shoulder. I first thoughtthere was a bagpipe band coming down thestreet!”

We hopped in my car, which was still parkedin Elmer’s lot, and raced to the dock. Sureenough, there was Skeezix, struggling with avery angry tomcat that was encased in a leather

harness with a huge steel hook riding point-upon the cat’s back. The hook was near the termi-nal end of some very heavy braided line, whichitself was threaded through the rod guides toThurlow’s large bait-casting reel. Fortunately,the cat’s struggles had made it impossible forSkeezix to complete the rig by attaching hookto line. While I freed Moloch (who, strangely,had always seemed to like and trust me), Thur-low interrogated Skeezix about whathehellwas-goingon.

The trembling waif explained that the maga-zine had an article about using live frogs held ina harness for largemouth bass, and figured thatas they were called “catfish,” the huge shovel-heads that lived in the river would consider a12-pound feline just the thing for dinner. He’dspent the day rigging a harness from belts he’dbought at Goodwill, and capturing Moloch inThurlow’s landing net and hitching him to theharness.

Hizzoner, the outraged father, did not con-sider relevant the fact that an 11-year-old kidwas not likely to be able to lift and cast a 12-pound cat off the dock and into the water with abait-casting rod. The principle of the thing re-sulted in Skeezix getting his backside walloped.(Political correctness had no place in thathousehold.) Moloch survived, and the armedtruce resumed. To this day, Skeezix will not eatcatfish.

“At the Convergence”They come here

From as far away

As Colorado,

From as near

As Minnesota;

Drawn by a shared

Willingness

To celebrate their art,

Affirming a truth:

A love of Beauty

Unites us all.

By Dan Holland, 2017

Fighting ugly with beautyAt the Convergence event displays, art, literature, photography, conservation and more.

CONVERGENCE DISCUSSIONS MIX ART AND CONSERVATION As the crowd followed them through galleries showcasing the world’s best wildlife art, Alan Haney discussed environmental issues related to the various species. John Gierach (left) sprinkled in some of his thoughtful thoughts.

MASTERPIECE CREATED BEFORE THEIR EYES...INCLUDING INSTRUCTIONSIn a cozy room filled to capacity with adoring onlookers and wanna-be artists, Bob White created a masterpiece of Alaskan landscape before their eyes. And he patiently and humorously explained every step, and answered all questions.

Fiction: Fishing tales from the desk of Benbow Cheseman The Thurlow Chronicles::SKEEZIX AND THE CATFISH RIG


January 13th 2018American Family Insurance 6000 American Parkway, Madison, WI 53783

Local Speaker: Tim Landwehr Tim is the owner of Tight Lines Fly Fishing Company in DePere, WI and the author of one of the hottest books out right now, Smallmouth: Modern Fly-Fishing Methods, Tactics, and Techniques.

Join Us For:

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Tucker and Jacquie Nelson are hus-band/wife guides for Nelson’s Spring Creek Ranch in Livingston, MT.

-ing that goes beyond the sport and is

expressed in stewardship for the land. Both specialize in spring

creek techniques but will also share their expertise while drifting the Yellowstone River.

By Erin O’Brien,Wisconsin Wetlands Association

What are “isolated” wetlandsand why are they important?

“Geographically isolated wet-lands” are wetlands with no director permanent surface water con-nection to navigable lakes or riv-ers. “Non-federal wetlands” isanother common label, since thefederal government no longer pro-tects these wetlands. Whateveryou call them, these wetlandsmake up 20 percent, or approxi-mately one million acres, of Wis-consin’s remaining wetlands.

Nature creates wetlands to han-dle water. Sometimes this is in ob-vious places like along the banksof rivers, where rivers come to-gether or where rivers empty intolarger water bodies.

But wetlands also form in moresubtle places, like where the landis flat and water runs off the sur-face very slowly, in shallow depres-sions where rain and snowmeltpond or where groundwater bub-bles up from a seep or spring.

Often isolated wetlands aresmall in size or are only wet forshort periods of time, usually inthe spring and summer. Becauseof their small size and short-termnature, these wetlands can beoverlooked on the landscape.

In Wisconsin, wetland typesthat can be “isolated” includeephemeral ponds, kettle bogs, raretypes of fens, prairie potholes,ridge and swale wetlands andmore. All of these isolated wet-lands are very important for waterquality, flood storage, wildlife hab-itat and more.

Are “isolated” wetlands reallyisolated?

Isolated wetlands may not havean obvious surface water connec-tion to our lakes and rivers, but inmany ways all of our waters areconnected, including these wet-lands.

Small and isolated wetlands of-ten connect to groundwater in im-portant ways. Groundwater can bea water source for isolated wet-lands via upwelling at springs andseeps. In turn, snowmelt and sea-sonal rain stored in isolated wet-lands can slowly infiltrate down

Isolated wetlandsWhat are they and why are they so important...especially to trout streams.

into the ground, recharginggroundwater. They connect withdownstream communities by con-trolling water quantity and pro-tecting water quality, and theyconnect with other wetlands anduplands through the movements ofwildlife (for example, salaman-ders moving from breeding habitatto uplands, or birds flying fromwetland to wetland).

Why do we protect “isolated”wetlands?

Wetlands, even the small andseemingly isolated ones, are someof the most important features onour landscape when it comes toproviding flood protection andclean water for communities.

Small and isolated wetlandsprotect against flooding by absorb-ing and storing snowmelt and sea-

sonal rain. These wetlands alsohelp improve water quality. Byslowing the flow of water, they al-low sediments to settle to the wet-land floor instead of traveling intoour lakes and rivers.

Isolated wetlands provide criti-cal and abundant wildlife habitat.Waterfowl depend on these wet-lands for breeding, amphibiansprefer these fishless waters, andtrout rely on them to supply coldsummer stream flow.

Without these small and isolat-ed wetlands, fish and wildlifewould lose critical habitat. Lesssurface runoff, snowmelt and sea-sonal rainwater would be absorbedand stored. Larger, flashier floodsin our streams and rivers wouldcause erosion, promote channeldown-cutting, and increase sedi-ment deposition. Protecting isolat-ed wetlands maintains the

important natural benefits theyprovide.

Small, seemingly isolated wet-lands are important individually,and are especially important whenthey work together as a team. Thebenefits provided by many isolatedwetlands spread across the land-scape, really add up. When itcomes to isolated wetlands, the oldadage rings true: the whole isgreater than the sum of its parts.

Next time you see a place onthe landscape where water collectsin the springtime, take a closerlook. Not every puddle is a wet-land, but even small, seeminglyisolated wetlands are helping keepfish and wildlife healthy, ensuringthat the water you drink is clean,and protecting your communityfrom flood impacts.

CEDARBURG BOG, ISOLATED WETLANDSIn Wisconsin, diverse wetland types that can be “isolated” include prairie potholes, ridge and swale wetlands, ephemeral ponds, and more. They make up 20 percent of the wetlands in Wisconsin, and are some of the most important features on our landscape for clean water and flood control.

MANY ISOLATED WETLANDS IN WISCONSIN’S GLACIAL LANDSCAPEThis dramatic glacial landscape northeast of Bloomer contains a segment of the Chippewa Moraine that includes many “isolated” wetlands. The glaciers left behind depressions and ridges that are now a mosaic of habitats including lakes, ponds, and wetlands of many kinds. Many of these wetlands have no connection to surface water, and therefore are “isolated” wetlands.

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$10 at the door, spouses and under 18 free

Lunch will be availableVisit foxvalleytu.org for more information

Fox Valley Trout UnlimitedAnnual Cabin Fever Day . . . expoOpen To Everyone Who Likes To Fish

17th

Saturday, January 20, 20189 am-4 pm, The Grand Meridian, Appleton

Events include an Expert Speaker Program

“ Trout Fishing Adventures within a Day’s Drive”

Ray Rivard, Red Rock, Ontario

By Erin O’Brien,Wisconsin Wetlands Association

When a bill dropped this fallproposing to eliminate state protec-tions for “isolated wetlands,” the re-action from Wisconsin’s sportsmenand conservation community wasfast and stern.

Why? Because the proposal ren-dered at least one million acres ofwetland habitat vulnerable to devel-opment.

As expected, organizations likeDucks Unlimited, Wisconsin Water-fowl Association and WisconsinWetlands Association led thecharge. These organizations allhave wetland-conservation-focusedmissions, and the proposed roll-backs would cause great harm tothe resources they work so hard toprotect and restore. Other organi-zations followed suit.

To the surprise of some policymakers, the Wisconsin Council ofTrout Unlimited also issued astrong statement opposing the bill.

“What do isolated wetlands haveto do with trout habitat?” policymakers asked.

The answer: a lot!The term “isolated wetlands” is

a misnomer. It was created to de-scribe a subset of wetlands that lacka direct or permanent surface waterconnection to a navigable lake orriver. But these wetlands are physi-cally and hydrologically connectedto other waters, particularly troutstreams, in two important ways.

Springs and seeps feed headwaterstreams.

Springs and seeps develop wherecold groundwater discharges to the

surface, creating wetlands andforming flow paths and small chan-nels. These wetlands deliver a con-tinuous supply of cold, clean waterto small streams and downstreamwaters. In hot summer months, thishelps maintain the base flow andlow temperatures needed to sup-port trout and other aquatic life.

Ephemeral ponds “slow the flow”Ephemeral ponds develop in de-

pressions on the landscape. Theyreceive water through overland flowfollowing spring snow melt and sea-sonal rain events and often dry upby late summer/early fall. Ephemer-al ponds tend to be small but re-gionally abundant, particularly inthe upper portions or headwaters ofour watersheds. Combined, theycapture and store immense quanti-ties of water. From there, two thingscan happen:

Detention & infiltration – Mostephemeral ponds have permeablesoils. The water is stored temporari-ly, infiltrates, and slowly migratesdownslope beneath the surface.This water discharges later in theseason to other wetlands such assprings or seeps or directly to astream. The ground acts like a re-frigerator, discharging a cold sourceof base flow during the hot summermonths.

Retention & evaporation – Inponds with impervious soils such asclay, water is permanently retaineduntil it is lost through evaporation.

In both cases, the storage pro-vided slows the flow of runoff thatwould otherwise rush downstream,harming trout habitat. By reducingthe erosive energy of storms, thesewetlands help prevent bank scour-

ing and help keep sediments and nu-trients out of our streams.

The majority of Wisconsin’s mil-lion acres of “isolated wetlands” arein the upper portions of our water-sheds at or near the headwaters of

streams, and these wetlands arethere for a reason. “Isolated” wet-lands support the flows, tempera-ture, bank stability and water qualityof Wisconsin’s coldwater troutstreams.

Healthy trout streams need healthy wetlands

1 MILLION ACRES OF WETLANDS NOW THREATENED“Isolated” wetlands, shown here in green, are found throughout Wisconsin, totaling at least one million acres.


By Maria Manion

For a time in Kiap-TU-Wishchapter history, our membershipseemed awash in Gregs, Bobs andToms. If one was uncertain of aname, trying any of those three gaveyou a good shot at getting it right.But it also caused confusion. WhichGreg? Which Bob? Which Tom?And if that was the question in re-gard to Tom Schnadt, the answerwas always “the tall one.”

Height is an easy distinguisherfor Tom Schnadt, the Kiap-TU-Wishchapter president, but it’s certainlynot the overriding one. What distin-guishes Tom is his thoughtful, ear-nest approach to people and hisknack for engaging volunteers. Tomrecognizes the skills and interests ofchapter members and actively sup-ports them. The chapter’s increasinginvolvement in youth education andmembership outreach reflect thenew and varied activities that havedeveloped under his leadership.

Exposed to the outdoors as a child

Originally from Illinois, Tom’spath to Kiap-TU-Wish president be-gan a long time ago with familycamping trips and holidays spentwith his grandmother, a naturalist inWhite Pines Forest State Park.

The family would load up theirNimrod tent trailer and head towardthe Tetons and Yellowstone. On hol-idays they’d visit his grandmotherwho lived in the park. “I was prettyfortunate as a kid to have a statepark to ram around in, particularlyon Thanksgiving or Christmas whenit was vacant.”

He recalled the story of a hairy,high-water crossing in her ChevroletCorvair when the park was floodedin the spring. On a deep ford, thecar turned and slid through at an an-gle. With total control, she deliveredthem on the opposite side, notingthat the others would be much easi-er.

When a bit older, Tom’s outdoorjaunts took him to places furtherfrom home. He made numerous wil-derness trips to places north in On-tario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan,adventuresome journeys in the spiritof that high-water crossing with hisgrandmother. On one such expedi-tion in his 40’s, while lining a canoearound rapids on the Asheweig Riv-er in Ontario, he thought maybe thistype of activity was out for him, thathe had to step back from such taxingphysical expeditions.

Thus began his transition into flyfishing and the new places closer tohome that he would explore. “It wasironic, because a lot of those placesthat we had been – the Kazan inNunavut, the Clearwater in Sas-katchewan, and others – would havebeen phenomenal fly fishing, but Iwas a spincast fisherman at thatpoint.”

He did, however, recall an “aha”moment when fishing for graylingwith small Mepps spinners on theClearwater. “I had a little fly boxfrom L.L.Bean that I had when Iwas in middle school. I rigged up thespinning rod with the flies and astrike indicator, not a bobber, andimmediately started to have tentimes the success with the flies thanthe others had with the Mepps. Itwas kind of eye opening. ‘Oh, okay.This is why people do this.’”

His definitive step into fly fishingand the new rivers to which it wouldlead him happened when he took afly-fishing class hosted by BobMitchell’s Fly Shop, a local retailer.Tom learned how to tie knots andleaders, where to go, what equip-ment he needed and more. He hungout at the shop, learning thingsgradually. Tom got into fly fishinglate, relatively, but it’s been 20 yearsnow. To the chapter’s good fortune,10 of those have been spent as a Ki-ap-TU-Wish volunteer and boardmember.

In his professional life, Tomworked in the building products in-dustry—plywood and particle boardand the like. He had studied forestresearch development at the Uni-versity of Minnesota and beganwork in that industry after gradua-tion and a short stint with the WD-NR. He spent 33 years in buildingproducts before retiring, and as hewalked away from a role as salesmanager, he walked into his role aschapter president.

“Somewhere in my first year aspresident, it dawned on me thatwhat I was doing on the board wasbasically the same thing I did as asales manager: setting up meetings,putting people in their best placeand figuring out how to get thingsdone. Looking back, I probablywasn’t ready for retirement, so thiswas a good opportunity.”

As Tom’s life in fishing was anevolution, so was his involvement incoldwater conservation. He beganvolunteering with TU by brushingalong streambanks on project work-days. He enjoyed the work and thepeople and was soon asked to runfor a board position. Since joiningthe board, he’s acted as chair of theconservation banquet committee,worked on stream restoration proj-ects, supported the chapter’s fund-raising efforts and more.

He thinks that perhaps his Achil-les heel, when he started as presi-dent, was that he didn’t have thehistorical knowledge and strongbackground about coldwater con-servation that others had. But, hesays that he’s learned a lot and hasenjoyed delving into the topic at adeeper level.

A considerate, steady voiceAs Kiap-TU-Wish president, Tom

has been a considerate, steady voice,one that has fostered the interests ofother volunteers. For the chapter,the results are new and renewed ap-proaches to engaging the member-ship, such as Kiap-ON-Tap, a casualchapter meeting held at a localbrewery; supplemental chaptermeetings in Amery for members liv-ing in that area; and a return of theRiver Falls Fly Fishing Clinic, alongtime chapter event that intro-duced new people to fishing andconservation.

Results also include new oppor-tunities for engaging youth. Kiap’sTrout In the Classroom program be-gan in 2015 with one classroom inNorth Hudson and has now grownto include four classrooms fromNorth Hudson to River Falls. Teach-ers at other schools interested instarting programs of their own havecontacted the chapter as well.

For two consecutive years chap-ter volunteers have provided fly-fishing instruction at the PheasantsForever Game Fair event, and for

the past three years Kiap-TU-Wishhas sponsored participants to theWisconsin TU Youth Fishing Camp.In conjunction with volunteers fromMinnesota Women's Fly Fishing, Ki-ap-TU-Wish volunteers developedthe stream game Run-Riffle-Pool aspart of a fly fishing event for GirlScouts.

For all these successes and more,Tom is quick to credit the boardmembers and volunteers who spear-headed the efforts. “I look at myrole as trying to help people withwhatever they want to accomplish.”

When asked what has been themost satisfying aspect of his tenure,Tom replied that the satisfactioncomes whenever the chapter has anevent that turns out well and meetsexpectations – no matter what theactivity.

At the Pheasants Forever GameFair, for example, chapter volun-teers were taking the kids fishing forthe afternoon. Tom was a bit ner-vous as the chapter had never donethis before, but the volunteers weregreat.”The mentors went out andweren’t anxious about it and made ithappen and it was a good event.”

The Wisconsin TU Youth Campparticipation is something Tom isparticularly interested in. “We’vehad three kids participate and each

shows promise of being a futureleader in TU. I’m kind of excited tosee how that plays out.”

Tom is stepping down as Kiap-TU-Wish president this year, butnot stepping away from the board orchapter activities. Kiap-TU-Wish isgrateful for his time and efforts aspresident, and his enthusiastic sup-port of the volunteers who workwith him. He’s left a lasting impres-sion that shows us what can be ac-complished by pooling together ourcollective interests and skills. TheKiap-TU-Wish board and member-ship thank Tom for his dedication tothe chapter and look forward to see-ing him streamside, either brushingon a project workday or nettingbrookies on the Trimbelle.

Maria Manion is a Kiap-TU-Wishboard member and editor of the chap-ter’s newsletter, RipRap. She works for292 Design Group, an architecturefirm in Minneapolis, where she orga-nized the first annual Ladies TroutOuting. Maria is originally from Min-nesota’s Iron Range and while shegrew up amongst northern lakes andforests, she’s come to love the trout-filled rivers of Wisconsin’s Driftless re-gion.

TU Leader Profile: Tom SchnadtConsiderate, steady, supportiveLatecomer to TU has amazing impact on his chapter and his fellow members.

A MINNESOTA BRULE RIVER TROPHYTom Schnadt began volunteering with TU by brushing along streambanks on project workdays. He enjoyed the work and the people and was soon asked to run for a board position. Since joining the board, he’s acted as chair of the conservation banquet committee, worked on stream restoration projects, supported the chapter’s fundraising efforts and more.

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Jason Anderson Mukwonago WIEdwin Barnes MiddletonWICharles Barnhill MadisonWIJim Bayorgeon AppletonWIJolene Berg Chippewa Falls WIJohn and Susan Bleimehl VeronaWIStephen Born MadisonWIAllon Bostwick Port Washington WIMaxwell Burgert Neenah WIRick Christopherson NorwalkWIAndrew Cook II Sister BayWIBruce Davidson WauwatosaWIMike Duren Mazomanie WIEd Eggers Genoa WIJim Flesch Fox Point, WIJerome Fox Two Rivers WID. James Fruit Jr. Hartland WIScott Geboy Fox Point WIDan Geddes Appleton WIJohn Gribb Mount Horeb WIGordon Grieshaber Mineral Point WIDean Hagness MD Custer WIAshton & Stephen Hawk Madison WIWilliam Heart Ashland WIBrian Hegge Rhinelander WIWally Heil De PereWIBob Hellyer Boulder JunctionWIWalter Hellyer Egg Harbor WICharles Hodulik Madison WIJeff Jackson Oconto FallsWICharles Jorgenson Oconomowoc WIJohn Kenealy III Waukesha WILane Kistler MilwaukeeWIRalph Klassy Phillips WIMark Kraft Madison WIBarb and Joe Kruse LaCrosse WIJoseph Kubale Dane WIThomas Lukas Manitowoc WIThomas and Larissa Lyon Janesville WIDouglas MacFarland DousmanWIBrian Madsen Ellsworth WIAnna Magnin MarshfieldWIKevin Mahaney Middleton WIKim McCarthy Green Bay WIAustin McGuan Green Bay WI

David Menke Bristol WICris Meyer Middleton WISteven Miller Sun Prairie WISteve Musser Middleton WIHerb Oechler Wauwatosa WICheryl and Winston Ostrow De PereWIDonald Persons Janesville WIRandall Rake Helena MTRon Rellatz MertonWIThomas Rogers Princeton WITom Ryan Whitefish Bay WIMichael San Dretto Neenah WILisa and Todd Scheel St. Germain WIJeff and Mary Schmoeger Cot. GroveWIJames Schommer Lodi WIJames School KaukaunaWIJim and Marie Seder New Berlin WIRobert Selk Madison WIJohn Shillinglaw MadisonWIGeorge Shinners Antigo WIBrent Sittlow HudsonWIMichael Staggs Poynette WIMike Stary New Richmond WIGary Stoychoff Green Bay WIRick Szymialis Waupaca WIJulie & Todd Templen Dubuque IADonald Thompson Cumberland WIChuck Urban Wauwatosa WIDennis, Becky Vanden Bloomen E.Claire Eric Van Vugt Milwaukee WIGreg Vodak Stoughton WI

Ken Voight Sugar Grove ILDon Wagner GillettWIDenis Wandtke Ogdensburg WIStephen Wilke MarinetteWIPaul Williams Madison WIDan Wisniewski Middleton WINancy and Roland Woodruff OshkoshWINorb Wozniak Stevens Point WIRobert Wyman Beaver Dam WIFrederic Young RoscoeIL

TROUT UNLIMITED CHAPTERSKiap-TU-Wish TU ChapterAntigo ChapterSEWTU Chapter

In Memory of Mike Rands.Donation from Tom and Nan Siebert

Special Thanks to Todd Hanson for the donation from the sale of his books.

Name

Address

City, State Zip Phone #

MAIL TO: Friends of Wisconsin TU% Doug BrownR4800 Timber Lane

Yes, I want to join the “Friends” of Wisconsin TU.

Ringle, WI 54471

Enclosed is my check, payable to Wisconsin Trout Unlimited.

Providing habitat improvement grants since 1991. The latest projects are...

$2,000 to Wis. Clearwaters Chapter for Waumandee Creek in 2015

$2,000 to Wild Rivers for White River in Ashland County in 2015

$2,000 to SEWTU for Little Willow Creek in Richland County in 2016

$2,000 to Harry & Laura Nohr Chapter for Pompey Pillar, 2016

$2,000 to the Northwoods Chapter for habitat crews in 2015

$2,000 to Marinette and $1,500 to Wolf River for NE Region work in 2015$2,000 to Wisconsin River Val-

ley for Prairie River Project in Lincoln County in 2015

Here are ourFriends of Wisconsin TU

The 2017 fundraising campaign is nearing itsend and once again the continued support forthis program is wonderful. Through your gener-ation donations, we have raised more than$18,000. An enormous amount of in-streamwork will be accomplished because of this. Ahuge thank you goes to the Southeast WisconsinChapter for its generous $5,000 contribution tothis fund.

I would like to highlight the Harry & LauraNohr Chapter. This impressive chapter has hadan annual goal to rehab nearly 8,000 feet a yearat a cost of nearly $175,000. The Friends pro-gram has been a source of funding for them overthe years, and this is just one chapter in need of

your support. It’s amazing to think that roughly1.5 miles of stream was restored by a singlechapter.

I hope you got out this year and enjoyed thebounty of our healthy, productive trout streams.All across the state, so many of these streamshave directly benefited from the Friends of Wis-consin TU program. I hope you all had a won-derful Christmas and holiday season.

Best of luck in the upcoming 2018 fishing sea-son.

Doug Brown, ChairmanFriends of Wisconsin TU

Final 2017 Update: Friends of Wisconsin Trout Unlimited

$2,000 to the Kiap-TU-Wish Chapter for the Upper Kinni in 2014 $2,000 to Green Bay Chapter for a

habitat crew 2015

Friends grants support DNR LTE crews like this one with Doug Weber, Kyle Siebers, DJ Loken.

Winter 2018

Chapter News

Wisconsin Trout

EAGLE SCOUT LEADS PROJECT ON BEAR CREEKPortage Eagle Scout candidate Carl Wagner recently completed the reconstruction of the Bear Creek information kiosk (left) and construction of a new access stile (above) at a walk-in easement on the Fargen property.

Aldo Leopold Chapter

Carl Wagner, an Eagle Scoutcandidate from Portage, recentlycompleted a project on our BearCreek improvement project areainvolving the redesign, reconstruc-tion and relocation of the informa-tion kiosk, which is now locatedadjacent to the new widened shoul-der parking area along State High-way 130.

The scouts also built an accessstile where one of the walk-in ac-cess easements across the Fargenproperty abuts the highway, a shortdistance from the parking area.

While they were at it, the scoutsalso trimmed back a willow thicketlocated adjacent to the creek on theupper pasture of the Fargen prop-erty.

With financial support from thechapter, Carl planned, designedand carried out this work with thelabor being supplied by his scouttroop and adult volunteers. ScottAllen provided guidance on behalfof the chapter and attended theconstruction day.

In November Mike Stapleton at-tended an event at the MerrimacConservation Club to speak to agroup of young sportsmen and their

parents about TU and the work thechapter has done in the area. Ournumerous workdays at nearbyManley Creek and the ongoingwork of the Riverland Conservan-cy on the same property were high-lighted, as well as the WITU YouthSummer Fishing Camp.

In November we received a re-quest for financial support for afundraising raffle planned by theWisconsin Chapter of the Ameri-can Fisheries Society at their annu-al conference being held inJanuary. The chapter sent a $50 do-nation to them in the interest ofsupporting sound science in fisher-ies management.

Plans are being made for the an-nual Free Beginner Fly Tying Class,which will be held in Baraboo thisyear. The class begins on Wednes-day, January 31 and runs for fiveconsecutive Wednesdays. Mike Sta-pleton can be contacted for detailsat [email protected].

The ALTU quarterly boardmeeting will be on Wednesday, Jan-uary 10, 2018 at Suzy’s Steakhousein Portage.—Mike Stapleton

Antigo Chapter

Happy New Year to all from An-tigo TU. The weather in Wisconsinnow looks like winter.

We recently attended the WITUNortheast Region winter meeting.The area fish mangers and repre-sentatives from the U.S. NationalForest Service were also in atten-dance.

It was another great meetingand a job well done by the chaptersin this region, as they continuedsupport of our coldwater resources.The Antigo Chapter donated$3,000 for fuel for the DNR dredgethat will be in the Mayking Flowageagain this summer. We donated$4,000 for a two-man brushing crewin the Antigo area, $500 for beavercontrol in the Bayfield area and$500 to the N. Branch Oconto Riv-er Restoration.

We have applied for a $2,000grant from the Friends of Wiscon-sin TU program to help completefunding for the two-man brushingcrew in Antigo.

In the middle of November wegot the brook trout eggs from SilverMoon hatchery in Elton for our twoTrout In the Classroom sites thatwe started in Antigo high schooland Wittenberg-Birnamwood highschool. Mike Werdo at AHS saidthat the eggs in his tank hatched inearly December.

After the holidays we will startputting together our spring fund-raising banquet, which will be heldSaturday, March 24, 2018 at North-star Banquet Center. We are alsolooking forward to attending theState Council banquet in February.

Late this fall our chapter placed$300 worth of brook trout in Rem-ington Lake, here in town, for thekids to fish for this winter.

Our chapter is again planningour annual Kids Fishing Day onSaturday, June 9, 2018 on the eastside of the city park.—Scott Henricks

ANTIGO CHAPTER’S ANNUAL KIDS FISHING DAYAntigo member Carl helping with casting contest last June. The chapter is again planning its annual Kids Fishing Day on Saturday, June 9, 2018 on the east side of the city park.

Tim

G.

Blackhawk Chapter

For our September meeting, Da-rin Sakas, who has been successfullyfly fishing Wisconsin tributaries toLake Michigan for more than 20years, using both single and double-handled rods, presented an enlight-ening program covering the use ofspey and switch-rod tactics, in con-junction with contact and indicatornymphing. He showed us pictures ofenormous lake-run brown trout, andprovided techniques to find and

land them.In October, we featured Rich Os-

thoff, well-known guide and fly-fish-ing author of several books, whocame down from Mauston to in-struct and encourage us about theuse of light rods and short casts inthe smaller streams of the DriftlessArea in southwestern Wisconsin.

Both programs were well re-ceived.—Dave Hinde

Central Wisconsin Chapter

Mike SanDretto, CWTU’s pastpresident, was a hard act to follow.The chapter flourished under hisleadership, and Mike has been agreat mentor to me. He continues tobe active with membership and be-hind-the-scene activities.

I am in awe at the dedication andmany talents of our members andvolunteers. The following is a reviewof the many activities that make ourchapter successful. Many thanks toyou all for your contributions.

Wayne Parmley and his wife willbe managing our Facebook page inthe near future. This will be a greatupgrade, with more content, greatstories and a new look.

Our Brookie newsletter has agreat new look. Jeff Wegand has puta lot of effort into this, and it shows.Mark Allen has been instrumentalin making the Brookie possible. AThank you to all who’ve providedstory ideas or have written articleswhen Jeff asks you. Many thanks al-so to Wayne Parmley for his assis-tance with the Brookie. He will betaking on the new role as editor ofthe Brookie, replacing Jeff. Thanksgo out to Jeff for his great work.

A thank you to Bob Haase andJeff Treu for their work on our web-site and with news agencies.

Our programs remain popularand well attended. They follow our

Winter 2018

Chapter News

Wisconsin Trout

business meetings on the secondTuesday of each month. Tried andtrue themes continue, but new ideasand opportunities are always con-sidered. Jeff Treu coordinates greatprograms with the help of our mem-bers.

Dennis Drazkowski coordinatedanother great year with work on theWest Branch White River, and mul-tiple days on the Pine River. Thanksto all volunteers who made the workdays successful, resulting in thebest-kept secret for successful Cen-tral Wisconsin trout fishing. Thanksalso to the Elliott Donnelley Chap-ter for their continued generoussupport and to the Fox Valley Chap-ter volunteers for their physical sup-port.

Many Thanks to Dennis Draz-kowski for his leadership and to Na-te Ratliff for his photographscapturing the work done and thegreat fishing stories at lunch.

The River Keepers are keepingtabs on our local streams, surveying37 stream/river locations with 25teams made up of 70 volunteers.Bob Jozwowski coordinates thisvery important work. Central Wis-consin Trout Unlimited has been ac-tively involved in water monitoringsince 2004, working in partnershipwith the DNR’s Water Action Vol-unteers. The program has been inexistence for 10 years with the sup-port of the University of WisconsinExtension and the DNR.

CWTU River Keepers are look-ing for volunteers who would like tojoin their Central Wisconsin RiverKeepers group. Volunteers do nothave to be TU members. RiverKeepers are advocates for areastreams. They monitor their streamsonce a month, and are watchdogsfor invasive species and environ-mental problems. They are orga-nized into small teams that areresponsible for specific streams. Athank-you dinner was well attendedin November 2017. Attendees re-ceived a River Keepers cap and din-ner.

CWTU funds our projects withmoney we raise at the Annual Con-servation Banquet. Other fundingcomes from grants, generous dona-tions such as memorial fund dona-tions. CWTU is grateful for thememorial donations. The generosityof others allows CWTU to be suc-cessful in our mission of stream res-toration and education. These fundsallow us to obtain matching grants

for our projects. We participate withother Central Region chapters tofund DNR LTE employees, whichhelps get more restoration andstream brushing done faster. TheEDTU chapter from Chicago hasbeen very helpful. Thank you all.

Scott Bahn is a master at grantwriting and has obtained manygrants to help fund our river resto-ration work. These have includedgrants from the Trout and SalmonFoundation, TU National’s Em-brace-a-Stream program and WI-TU’s grant programs. We areblessed to have his dedication andexpertise!

Much gratitude goes to our trea-surer, Joe Peikert. His guidance anddedication keeps us on target.

Education is extremely impor-tant to CWTU as evidenced by ournumerous successful programs.Troutfest is coordinated by BobSmaglick, who has done a wonder-ful job of organizing this free publicevent. Jeff Treu is the educationalchairman coordinating the monthlyeducational meetings at the Fin andFeather, Winneconne. Ray Whitepresented a great lecture on thehealth of the Central Wisconsin riv-ers. Our Casting Clinic was held inJune at Marble Park.

The Masters Fly Tying Series2018 will be coordinated by TomMeyer. Thanks to Dave Pables forhis great work with last year’s pro-gram. Beginning Fly Tying classeswill again be offered, thanks toDave Pables.

Dan Harmon has continued toorchestrate CWTU’s successful 41stAnnual Fly Fishing School. Theschool receives great reviews. All ofour educational programs are veryimportant to the chapter. They arecommonly a source of new mem-bers who become active in chapteractivities and work.

A number of CWTU summergatherings occurred this year, in-cluding Fly Casting and Rigging atMarble Park and Picnic on the Pine,hosted by Laura & John Tucker andthe CWTU BBQ Cookout hostedby Ira and Karen Giese and Peter.Many thanks to Karen and IraGiese for sharing their home andtheir son with CWTU. Peter Gieseput on a spectacular barbeque ofroast chicken, pulled pork and beefbrisket with all the fixin’s. What fun!

Our 46th Annual ConservationBanquet was held in October in Os-hkosh. Many thanks to our volun-

teers for all their contributions.They make the chapter successful.Special thanks to the banquet com-mittee for putting together this won-derful event. We want to thankthose who have been around formost or all of the 46 years. Thanksalso to all our sponsors and to Scottand Carolyn Grady for their contin-ued support. 114 people attended.Jerry Strom entertained the attend-ees with great tunes on the babygrand piano provided by Heid Mu-sic of Appleton. Nancy Loehrke wasthe photographer for the event and

captured the fun. Shan Moran cre-ated the t-shirts, which were en-joyed.

CWTU has a lot of fun. Comejoin in. We need all types of skill andinterests to keep things fresh. Com-munications, website, social media,the banquet, workdays. If you canspare a little time, please join us inany way you can. You will meetgreat people, have some fun andmake a difference.—Laura Tucker

Coulee Region Chapter

With the close of the Wisconsintrout season, there hasn’t been anytrout fishing action here on our sideof the Mississippi River, but thank-fully there is still plenty of in-seasonwater in Iowa and Minnesota. Myson and I had a great day on thestream in one of the MinnesotaState Parks after Thanksgiving. Weare also seeing a lot of Driftless Ar-

ea anglers chasing muskies on thefly. I still haven’t hooked one, butam enjoying slinging some big fliestied by David Holmes and NormYackle.

We have had great attendance atour fall chapter meetings and havelearned a ton from our presenters.Tom Starmack gave us plenty of in-sight on using a two-nymph system

CWTU WORK DAY ON THE PINE RIVERAll hands were busy at CWTU’s September work day on the Pine River (right). When the work was done, the waders were cleaned of potential invasives (above). From left is Laura Tucker, Nate Ratliff and Mike San Dretto. Photos by Dennis Drazkowski.

KROPP RECEIVES CWTU’S RIVER KEEPER 2018 AWARDBob Jozwowski presents Eric Kropp the River Keeper 2018 award during its 46th Annual Conservation Banquet in October.

Winter 2018

Chapter News

Wisconsin Trout

for fishing Driftless waters. JohnNoble and Bob Micheel were ourpresenters when we met in Spartaand they discussed all of the excel-lent fishing opportunities in MonroeCounty, especially at Fort McCoy.

Our November meeting in WestSalem was a real treat as Dave Ve-trano presented on the history ofthe wild trout stocking program. It isincredible to think that many of ourarea streams had very few trout inthem just 40 years ago. Thanks toDave, other DNR folks, TU chap-ters, and local rod and gun clubgroups, we are now truly living thegolden age of trout fishing when youlook at water quality and number offish in the streams.

There are still plenty of debatesabout fish numbers and fish size inour waters, but we have water tempswhere they need to be in order tokeep the stream inhabitants healthy.

Our December meeting was inViroqua and we were fortunate tohear from Geri Meyer of the Drift-less Angler fly shop. She’s veryknowledgeable about all thingstrout fishing and we learned aboutnew gear, fishing techniques and allthe work Geri is doing to bring morefemale anglers to the stream.

Trapfest is a get-together orga-nized by our friend and memberTrapper Voldahl, and this event getsgoing on January 6 at the WestbyRod and Gun Club. It’s a fun and in-formal event to bring anglers to-

gether for the 2018 opener. Indoorcamping is available at the club, butfind all the necessary details in theTrapfest discussion thread atwww.driftlesstroutanglers.com.

Jason Freund will be our present-er on January 17 at the West ViewInn in West Salem. His topic is cad-dis flies and larva, definitely keyfood sources in our waters.

We have no chapter meeting/pre-sentation in February, as we focuson our banquet on February 23.Tickets will be for sale soon on ourFacebook page and website at cou-leeregiontu.org.

Our March 21 meeting will be atthe Legion in Viroqua, and we willhear from local DNR officers andprepare for the upcoming Conserva-tion Congress spring hearings.

The 4th Cozad Driftless 1Flycontest is March 31, headquarteredout of the Viroqua Legion. Thisevent is a fun time, no matter if youare a participant, stream judge, vol-unteer, or just want to hang out atthe awards ceremony and auction atthe end of the day. The money thatis raised is used for youth fishing ac-tivities. To find out more informa-tion, find the Cozad Driftless 1Flypage on Facebook.

There is a lot of good stuff goingon with CRTU, so keep your eye onour Facebook page and website atcouleeregiontu.org for more infor-mation.—Curt Rees

Fox Valley Chapter

Our October meeting was an ex-cellent presentation by Shawn Sulli-van from the DNR office in WildRose. Shawn’s presentation dealtwith the habitat work on the streamsand rivers in the east-central por-tions of the state, including Wausha-ra, Waupaca, Portage and Shawanocounties.

His PowerPoint presentation in-cluded many slides highlighting thework during the last several years.TU chapters in these counties havecontributed significant funding tohelp promote the Limited TermEmployee program that Shawn di-rects each summer.

TU chapters have also contribut-ed many hours of volunteer work onthe streams and rivers in thesecounties.

Taylor Ridderbusch was one ofthe presenters at our Novemberchapter meeting. Taylor works forNational TU dealing with water is-sues in the Great Lakes region. Theother presenter that evening wasBob Hasse from CWTU, who dis-cussed fly tying. Our Decemberchapter meeting was our annual Tieand Lie Night. Members and friendstied flies and told stories/fibs/liesabout the past fishing season. Therewere two competitions, including

one to see who can tell the biggest/best lie and the other to see whocould tie the most original fly.

Our chapter meetings for themonths of September through De-cember and the March meeting areheld at the Capitol Centre on thenorth side of Appleton. Pleasecheck our website for specific datesand times of the meetings at foxval-leytu.org.

We are also preparing for our an-nual Cabin Fever Day fundraiserJanuary 20 at the Grand Meridianin Appleton, which will have manynew and interesting presentationsand vendors. The bucket raffle andsilent auction items are some of thebest offerings that we have ever as-sembled. This event provides an op-portunity for our chapter to helpfund the DNR LTE crews. Pleasecheck our website at foxvalleytu.orgfor additional information on Cab-in Fever Day and our other activi-ties.

Happy New Year. We’ll see youon a trout stream in 2018.—Rich Erickson

FOX VALLEY CHAPTER’S CABIN FEVER DAY COMING SOONFox Valley Trout Unlimited is preparing for the Cabin Fever Day fundraiser and is offering more $10,000 in raffle and auction items at the January 20 event.

Tom

Lag

er

Frank Hornberg Chapter

The Hornberg Chapter had awork evening in late September. Wecut trees and cleared the channel ofStedman Creek where it dischargesinto the Tomorrow River south ofAmherst. When the job was com-pleted, Bob and Louise Juracka gra-ciously invited the crew to theirhouse nearby for a hot meal. Theywere assisted by Mary Duecker andDonna Mary Literski. Backgroundentertainment for the meal was pro-vided by the delightful sounds of therapids in the adjacent TomorrowRiver.

We wish to thank chapter mem-ber Dan Holland for his assistancein bringing John Gierach, BobWhite and Mike Dvorak togetherfor their presentation on art andconservation at the Leigh YawkeyWoodson Art Museum in Wausau inOctober. It was a worthy addition tothe WITU meeting in the museumon the same day.

Our chapter was working on theriver again on a Thursday evening inOctober. Matt Salchert and WyattBohm directed a crew of workersfrom the UW-Stevens Point FlyFishing Club. They were successfulin removing a large willow treeblocking the Tomorrow River at theformer highway 10 wayside on Bu-chholz Road east of Amherst. En-

thusiasm was plentiful as thestudents dismembered the tree andremoved the remains from the river.

In late October Stu Grimstad leda group of local citizens on an after-noon kayak tour of the TomorrowRiver upstream from Amherst. Thegoal was to see how the repair workon the dam in Amherst in 2016 hasaffected that section of the river. Inparticular, they were looking to seethe effect on water temperature andsiltation in the former river channel.So far both effects appear to be pos-itive for trout in the millpond.

Our annual holiday dinner was inearly December at Shooters SupperClub in Plover. About 25 members,spouses, friends and family enjoyedfood and pleasant conversation. Ourthanks to Gene Schulfer for prepar-ing his trademark holiday buffet.

We are coordinating activitieswith the fly fishing club at UW-SP.Our immediate goal is to offer somejoint public activities in comingmonths, such as fly-tying workshops.Such connections are vital for thefuture of TU. Chapter member Hei-di Oberstadt deserves credit forhelping to establish and promotethis relationship.—John Vollrath

Green Bay Chapter

Green Bay Trout Unlimited hasbeen busy in the last quarter of2017. Our first fall membershipmeeting in October featured HeidiOberstadt, who talked about herwestern adventures and “Flyathlon”race in Colorado.

In November, Bob Haase joinedthe chapter for a fly-tying demon-stration and also talked about hisnew book “Bob’s Fly Tying Tips andTechniques.” We held our annualholiday party and awards dinner inDecember with 50 members, friendsand family in attendance. Lee Mey-ers and Adrian Meseberg receiveddistinguished service awards for thetime, money and talent given freely

to the chapter. Both held officer andboard positions for many years withthe chapter.

Dave Ostanek received the“Member of the Year” award. Hecurrently is a member of the boardof directors, education chair, youtheducation coordinator, organizescommunity and kids events with thechapter, and serves on the banquetcommittee. The Green Bay Chapteris also planning its annual fundrais-ing banquet on February 15 at Stadi-um View in Green Bay. Tickets willbe $35 and all are welcome.—Stausch Gruszyinski

Harry & Laura Nohr Chapter

We got a grant from TU Nation-al’s Embrace-A-Stream (EAS) forthis year’s work on Borah Creeknear Lancaster and the Blue Rivernorth of Montfort. We then partici-pated in the EAS Challenge. We re-ceived more than $1,500 in thechallenge and $100 of the challengefunds. Thank you to all those whodonated.

Kurt Meyer helped the NorthCrawford School get the Trout In aClassroom program started.

We are also preparing for theGrant County Outdoor Skills Dayand the State Council Banquet inFebruary. These take place the same

weekend. The Skills Day is put on bythe Grant County Sports Alliance, agroup of representatives from thevarious sports groups in the county.Skills Day is presented for all inter-ested people with a focus on youth.Almost everything is represented,from falconry to trapping. We willbe doing fly casting and fly tyingwith about eight members. It takesplace at the technical college in Fen-nimore.

We are also busy developing ourchapter’s CAFO policy.—Brian Larson

Kiap-TU-Wish Chapter

The Kiap-TU-Wish Chapter re-mains busy this winter. Volunteersare training for and working onstream habitat projects, hostingtours of completed projects, raisingfunds at our annual conservationbanquet and monitoring the statusof the dams on the KinnickinnicRiver. We’re also anxious to workwith our region’s new fisheries biol-ogist.

DNR Fisheries Supervisor Heath

Benike announced that Kasey Seib-ert has been hired to fill Marty En-gel’s fish biologist position. Kaseyhas a degree from Southeast Mis-souri State University and a gradu-ate degree from Southern IllinoisUniversity-Carbondale. Her workhistory includes research on large-river fish populations in the Missis-sippi and Missouri rivers, as well asa stint in fisheries management forthe Idaho Department of Fish and

Winter 2018

Chapter News

Wisconsin Trout

PRACTICING AND LEARNING FIRST AIDJoe Knight from the Wisconsin Clearwaters Chapter and Sarah Sanford from the Kiap-TU-Wish Chapter take part in a First Aid Training Course.

Tom

Sch

nadt

Game. Kasey starts this month.The recently completed Trim-

belle/Holst project has proven to bea good site for University of RiverFalls students to learn about streamand habitat restoration. ProfessorKevin Juneau’s Aquatic Restorationclass toured the site in Septemberand Eric Sanden’s Foundations ofEcological Restoration class touredthe site on October.

After Kiap-TU-Wish memberDan Wilcox wrote an article aboutthe tours for the River Falls Jour-nal, the Natural Resources Founda-tion (NRF) of Wisconsin contactedKiap-TU-Wish about hosting a fieldtrip. Chapter board member PerryPalin worked with the NRF to setup a Pierce County stream restora-tion tour this summer.

The DNR added a new require-ment that chainsaw operators onbrushing projects need both achainsaw certification and first aidcertificate.

Randy Arnold, the Kiap-TU-Wish volunteer coordinator, set upa first aid certification class with thehelp of the DNR’s Nate Anderson.In October, 15 Kiap-TU-Wish andClearwater members, and one stu-dent from UW-River Falls, attend-ed a full-day class in Baldwin.Shannon Griebe was the instructorand covered all aspects of first aidand CPR training.

Winter brushing is under way.Both the Kiap-TU-Wish and Clear-water chapters started work on Wil-son Creek. Kiap-TU-Wish is waitingfor final NRCS approval in anticipa-tion of starting on next year’s Trim-belle/Gutting project.

Kiap-TU-Wish held its annualconservation banquet in Decemberat the Lake Elmo Inn Event Centerand was a sellout, with 120 attend-ees.

The food and atmosphere were

great, as was guest speaker DeanHansen, who talked about insectlife in a stream. Dean teaches the“Bugs in the Classroom” course,which has been a key component ofTrout In the Classroom. Dean re-ceived the Silver Trout award for hisefforts and commitment.

Thanks to the banquet commit-tee of Deb Alwin, Mike Alwin,Scott Wagner, Allison Jacobs, GregDietl and Bob Diesch for organizingthis important fundraiser. A bigthanks to all of the Kiap folks whoworked at the banquet, and to ourgenerous membership for donatingbucket raffle and silent auctionitems.

In December the Kinni Corri-dor Planning Committee began se-rious deliberations about the statusof the dams on the KinnickinnicRiver. Their final recommendationis due January 25. Chapter mem-bers Kent Johnson, Dan Wilcox andGary Horvath are preparing a posi-tion paper for consideration by theKiap-TU-Wish Board of Directors.This position paper will be present-ed to the Kinni Corridor PlanningCommittee before their January 25deadline.

The River Falls City Council istentatively scheduled to take up theissue at their regular meeting onFebruary 13. The dates for publichearings on the dam are not knownat this time. The public hearing(s)are critically important and thechapter will be working diligently toget people turned out for thesehearings.

More details will be found in theJanuary issue of RipRap and onlineon our website at kiaptuwish.org, orour Facebook page. Sign up for ouremail alerts by contacting RandyArnold at [email protected].—Tom Schnadt, Gary Horvath, Ma-ria Manion

Northwoods Chapter

At our November meeting BobHaase from CWTU gave a presen-tation on “Is It The Fly or Is It ThePresentation?”

We had our annual ChristmasDinner at the Blue Heron restau-rant in Eagle River on December12.

Our next Conservation Banquethas been scheduled at the QualityInn in Rhinelander on April 28. Wewill have a grand prize raffle for abeautiful cedar strip canoe donatedby Laura and David

MacFarland. The canoe was cus-tom built at the Wooden CanoeHeritage Museum in Spooner. Thiscedar strip canoe is based on theBob’s Special Model of canoe builtby the Chestnut Canoe Company ofNew Brunswick, Canada. It is 15feet long and weighs about 45-50pounds. Tickets for this great prizeare now available. See the ad onpage 9 of this issue of WisconsinTrout for information on the raffleand banquet.—Terry Cummings

Oconto River Chapter

In mid-September our chapterhosted our annual special needsfishing day at Brunner’s Pond in Un-derhill. We treated guests to a picniclunch of burgers and hotdogs.About 50 people attended, includ-ing anglers, caregivers, volunteersand chapter members. Great weath-er made for an enjoyable day. Thefish bit like crazy.

Cane poles were rigged up forthose who didn’t have their ownequipment. Garden worms, cornand secret baits were used to foolthe trout. The fishing went instreaks after a flurry of early activity.The fish that were caught werecleaned and sent home with the par-ticipants.

There are always some new facesat this event, alongside the veterans.They support one another and helpeach other, even cheering whensomeone catches a fish. It’s a fun-filled and heartwarming event, withsmiles all around.

The chapter kicked off its TroutIn the Classroom project by deliver-ing eyed eggs to the students at Sur-ing, Oconto, Oconto Falls, Lena,Marion, Gillett, Pulaski, WhiteLake and Wabeno School Districts.

Keshena School was added to thelist this year. Dale Halla is coordi-nating the effort. Eggs began tohatch in early December and willprovide a wonderful project for theclasses involved. Special thanks toTim Winkle at Silver Moon SpringsTrout Ranch for supplying the eggsto the classes.

Our board met in November andwill propose a 2018 activity scheduleat the upcoming meeting and willprepare a budget accordingly.Awards will be presented at the Jan-uary meeting.

We picked our banquet commit-tee leaders and set a tentative dateof April 26. Our banquet is our larg-est fundraising event of the year.

Also, our members attended theWITU Northeast Regional meetingin Langlade in December. We allo-cated $3,500 to regional projects.

Our membership meetings areheld monthly (excluding May & No-vember) on the first Wednesday ofeach month. Meetings are held atthe Lone Oak Gun club just Northof Gillett starting at 7 p.m.—Tom Klatt

Shaw-Paca Chapter

The ShawPaca Chapter will re-sume its winter meetings in January.Check out our Facebook page for anupdate on meeting times and places.

We are sponsoring a scholarshipfor two UW-SP students who aregoing into fisheries management.

We have renewed subscriptionsfor a dozen local schools forTROUT magazine.

Our annual banquet is April 5 atNorthwinds Banquet Hall in Mari-on. Tickets will be mailed out soon.They will also be available at the

door the night of the banquet or byemailing the chapter at [email protected]. We need dona-tions and items for the banquet. Ifyou have anything in mind or knowof someone who could help, pleaseemail us. In the meantime, it’s timeto restock the fly boxes, strip andclean lines and prepare for the Jan-uary opener. Happy Holidays to all.We’ll see you on April 5.—Nate Sipple

Southeastern Wisconsin Chapter

It has been a busy and productivefall for the Southeast WisconsinChapter (SEWTU). Our membershave been busy planning and partic-ipating in education and outreachprograms, improving habitat atworkdays and attending chaptermeetings.

The largest event, though, wasour Fall Habitat Fundraiser in Octo-ber at the New Berlin Hills GolfClub. Stan Strelka and Rosie Ma-rotz did an outstanding job organiz-ing this event. We had a goodturnout, and everyone enjoyed deli-cious hors d'oeuvres, socializing andbeing generous with their participa-tion in a silent auction and bucketraffles.

This event would not have beensuccessful without generous dona-tions from our members, friendsand local organizations. The num-ber and quality of the items donatedis always impressive, and we want tothank everyone who contributeditems or purchased tickets to attend.

The funds raised from this eventwill be used to improve coldwaterhabitat. Other members who helpedmake our Fall Habitat Fundraisersuccessful were Jim Wierzba, whohelped organize prizes, Ivan No-havica, who collected funds and dis-tributed tickets, and Rich Vetrano,who printed the tickets and mailers.

We’ve had some great speakersat our chapter meetings this fall.Our special guest speaker in Sep-

tember was Dave Barron, who alongwith his wife, Nancy, are the ownersof Jacquish Hollow Angler and An-gler’s Inn in Richland Center. Jac-quish Hollow Angler provides guideservices for trout angling on thespring creeks of southwestern Wis-consin, as well as Montana. In addi-tion, they offer several castingclinics.

The topic of Dave’s presentationwas casting. He is a Federation ofFly Fishers (FFF) certified castinginstructor and teaches classes de-signed for beginners, masters andother FFF certified instructors.Dave is an Orvis certified guide anda recipient of the Mel KreigerAward for casting instruction excel-lence presented by the InternationalFederation of Fly Fishers. Dave pro-vided a well-liked and informativecasting demonstration.

Our speaker in October was RichOsthoff, a well-known fly tier, guideand author. Rich discussed troutfishing on his home waters, the doz-ens of excellent spring creeks ofwestern Wisconsin. Rich has fishedthe Driftless Area for nearly five de-cades and offered many valuable in-sights into fly-fishing the region.

Our December meeting will con-tinue with our longtime SEWTUholiday tradition of collectingcanned goods for the Hunger TaskForce of Milwaukee, an optional giftexchange, entertaining screenings offishing and conservation efforts and

Winter 2018

Chapter News

Wisconsin Trout

great comeraderie. Workdays have also kept us busy.

In September we worked at BluffCreek, near Whitewater. LukeRoffler, the DNR Fisheries biolo-gist for Walworth County, has beendoing a great job identifying habitatprojects and improving streams fortrout.

We installed habitat featureswithin the re-meander project sitewe helped out with last year. Thiswork included placement of coarsewoody material (tree tops, largebraches, etc.), and half logs wherenecessary to direct stream energy,increase water velocities or provideoverhead cover.

Other activities included in-stream weed pulling and cutting anddragging of small brush. This workwill help enhance the next two phas-es of the recently completed re-me-ander project and build on thepremier fishing produced by otherrestoration projects upstream anddownstream of the project site.

On this same day we had mem-bers helping clean up Pike Creek insponsorship with the Kenosha Sportfishing and Conservation Associa-tion. The clean-up went very welland we received a big thanks fromthe Kenosha group for our sponsor-ship.

The habitat committee plannedanother successful work day in Oc-tober, continuing to improve trouthabitat on Bluff Creek near theheadwaters of the stream.

The chainsaws and operators,loppers, work gloves, waders, steelrakes, etc. came out in force to re-move in-stream woody debris andnuisance plant growth, as well asshrub and tree removal along the

streambank. These activities willhelp restore the function and usabil-ity of the first Bluff Creek habitatrestoration site, which has a provenhistory of high brown trout abun-dance and excellent size structure.

Also in October, Ken Rizzohelped to coordinate a work daywith students and educators onRosenow Creek described as a“stimulating field experience.” Hatsoff and a big thank you to all of ourHabitat Committee members whohelped plan and lead these efforts,and to all of our members whoshowed up to help get the workcompleted.

SEWTU members continue toprovide educational and outreachopportunities, and there have beenseveral events this fall. In October,SEWTU members set up at the 9thannual Salmon Spectacular at theDNR Root River Steelhead Facility.

The facility hosted an openhouse to showcase the facilities andpromote Lake Michigan fishing op-portunities. The open house includ-ed guided tours, hands-ondemonstrations of fish spawning,fish and fishing information sta-tions, interactive fishing, rod castinglessons, knot tying, fly tying, and anonsite fishing boat used on LakeMichigan for trout and salmon fish-ing.

SEWTU members provided fly-casting lessons and had an informa-tional table explaining what we do.We signed up several new members.Also in October, SEWTU had aninformation table and demonstrat-ed fly tying and casting at the Shore-wood Fish and Feathers Event atHubbard Park in Shorewood. SEW-TU Education Committee Chair

Rick Frye did a wonderful job work-ing with member John Rennpferdorganizing both of these events.

The fall season also means thatthe Oak Creek Fly tying events havestarted. This group, organized byGreg Schick, meets two times eachmonth at the Oak Creek Communi-ty Center to tie flies. The group iscurrently focusing on midge pat-terns for winter fishing. This is agreat opportunity to learn some newpatterns and tying techniques, whileenjoying a pleasant evening socializ-ing.

SEWTU is a strong supporter ofprograms that connect veterans withfishing and fly-tying opportunities.Our chapter is very active in TU vet-eran's programs. Last fall, SEWTUmember John Graba and many oth-er members continued to organizefishing trips for veterans and con-ducted weekly fly tying. This is anoutstanding opportunity SEWTUmembers provide the veterans.

Visit our website at sewtu.tu.organd Facebook page to learn moreabout SEWTU and our events.—Todd Durian

Southern Wisconsin Chapter

SWTU hopes you will join us forour annual Icebreaker event on Sat-urday, January 13.

We are excited to welcome Tuck-er and Jacquie Nelson from NelsonSpring Creek Ranch in Livingston,Montana, as our keynote speakers.A web search and visit to their Face-book page will quickly show youthat we’re in for a real treat. Jacquieand Tucker will give two keynotepresentations, and will be generallyavailable for conversation and com-ment throughout the day!

Variety is the spice of life … andfishing! That’s why we asked TimLandwehr of Tight Lines Fly Shopto share tips and tricks about theoutstanding smallmouth fishing op-portunities available to us. Whenthe summer gets hot and the troutgo down, the smallies heat up!

The Icebreaker is for everyone.Whether you can cast a fly 40 yardsor never picked up a fly rod, thisevent is for you. It will again be heldat the headquarters of AmericanFamily Insurance. It’s right off theInterstate on the east side of Madi-

son. (6000 American Parkway, Mad-ison, Wis. 53783)

Be sure to see the ad on page 14of this edition of Wisconsin Trout.The day-long event will also featuresome of the region’s most innova-tive fly tyers and a legendary arrayof bucket raffle items.

Kids are welcome, and those un-der 12 get in free when accompa-nied by an adult. We again inviteretired and active military personnelto our event. They will receive freeadmission with their military ID.

We’ll see you on Saturday, Janu-ary 13 in a friendly, roomy, profes-sional and relaxed atmosphere. Visitswtu.org for more information.

A new tradition continues! AWomen & Fly Fishing Happy Hourwill again be held the evening be-fore the Icebreaker. It will begin at 6p.m. at the Ale Asylum, 2002 Pan-kratz Street, Madison 53704.

Learn more about us, our eventsand activities at swtu.org or by find-ing us on Facebook.—Drew Kasel

SEWTU WORKS ON BLUFF CREEK AND RECEIVES NEW SIGNThe SEWTU Bluff Creek habitat work crew shows off their "esprit de corps" Adopt a State Wildlife Area sign. The sign was presented to them by Luke Roffler, the DNR fisheries biologist for Walworth County.

John

Ren

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SWTU’S ICEBREAKER EVENT COMING SOONA scene from last year’s SWTU Icebreaker. With entomology, fly tying, conservation, keynotes and more, this annual event has something for everyone. See the ad on page 14 for more information on the 2018 Icebreaker.

Ric

Gen

the

SWTU CLEARS BRUSH ON MOUNT VERNON CREEKThe SWTU Stream Team was busy hacking, stacking and burning brush along a terrific stretch of Mount Vernon Creek that looks like it’ll be a great place to drift a fly next spring.

Jim

Bee

cher

Winter 2018

Chapter News

Wisconsin Trout

WOLF RIVER TROUT CAN’T RESIST THIS BEASTThis wool-head fly is called the Beast of Burgert Lane, and is a triple-articulated version of Buchanan’s Wolf Hound. Learn about this and other favorite Wolf River patterns at the Wolf River Chapter’s Fly Tying Consortium on Saturday, January 27.

Zac

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Wild Rivers Chapter

Winter was slow getting here thisyear, but it has finally settled uponus, and the woodstove is back to be-ing my best friend. Fall has beenplanning time for Wild Rivers. Weare mapping out dates for our 2018meeting schedule and habitat sup-port work for the year.

Our annual expo in Ashland isSaturday, April 7 at Northland Col-lege. This is a fun event with liveauction and presentations. Staytuned for more details, as this expois our major fundraising event forthe year, and proceeds enable us tocontribute money to the habitatprojects that we support all year.

We extend a warm invitation tomembers from other chapters todrive north for a fun day with WildRivers members at this expo. Oneunique and really impressive thingabout this expo is that all our part-ners who help us to protect and re-store coldwater fisheries and theirwatersheds have display tables andinformation booths at the expo. It’simpressive to see, in one largeroom, all the work that is being do-ne in the seven counties that fit intothe Wild Rivers Chapter.

We will be hosting the Fly Fish-ing Film Tour again. Show dateshave not been set yet, but if you’dlike to travel north to see the films,we will soon have the show datesand ticket prices on our Facebookpage and TU.org website.

Several chapter leaders attend-ed the WITU Northeast Regionmeeting, where all regional chaptersget together to pool resources andcommit money for next year’s habi-tat projects.

Wild Rivers is partnering withother chapters in the region to funda dam-removal project in theChequamegon Nicolet NationalForest, provide support for the sala-ry of TU’s Laura McFarland, con-tinue habitat efforts in theChequamegon Nicolet NationalForest, and partner with other chap-ters to fund beaver abatement andstream restoration in Sawyer Coun-ty, supporting DNR fisheries biolo-gist Max Wolter.

In my last chapter report I men-tioned having had a couple mem-bers from Arkansas TU come northfor a fishing outing and a presenta-tion on their efforts to introduceBonneville Cutthroat into theWhite River system.

This winter, chapter member Ja-son Stewart has been invited tospeak to the Arkansas chapter onsome of his adventures as a fishingguide in the Northwoods. We arehoping to put together a crew of acouple other chapter members tomake the trip with him, and do a lit-tle winter fishing in the White Riversystem.—Bob Rice

Wisconsin Clear Waters

WCWTU began the new yearwith the election of new officers anddirectors. They are: Dick Duplessie,president; Jim Erickson, vice presi-dent; Greg Lynch, secretary; andDave Zoellick, treasurer. Newboard members are Tom Sather andGreg Lynch.

Jim Erickson has set up greatprograms for the coming year. InOctober we heard from Tom Satherfrom Reel Recovery. In NovemberBob Haase discussed fly-tying meth-ods and tips. In December Ira Giesediscussed trout fishing the WhiteRiver in Arkansas.

In January DNR staff will discusslocal streams including stream res-toration, trout surveys and results ofthe trout transfer. In February we’lllook at Speed Fly Tying, with threeguides demonstrating their favorite“20 Minute” flies. March 8 is ourannual banquet. The March meet-

ing is our ClearWaters Master TyersNight. In April Todd Mau will dis-cuss Trempealeau and BuffaloCounty stream projects. May is ourchapter Driftless Area camping trip.

In February we will review proj-ect grant requests for projects in thearea. The intent is that the grants bespent on projects in the year of thegrant. We supported eight differentprojects last season.

We are examining future proj-ects, in conjunction with the DNR.We hope the Sand Creek projectwill be completed this year. Addi-tionally, many old projects onstreams such as Elk, McCaan andDuncan are in need of brushing.The board will decide on the creeksand order brushing days. We hopefor a good turnout from membersand nonmembers.—Dick Duplessie

Wisconsin River Valley Chapter

Happy Holidays, fellow TUmembers. On October 5 JohnMeachen, Bob Pils, Al Hauber, Per-ry Nikolai, Megan Radtke and my-self were out wading in the PloverRiver with the Wausau East Biolo-gy, Chemistry and Physics kids lend-ing a hand in the Annual PloverRiver Stream study. This is always alittle bitter/sweet for me because itusually is the last event of the sea-son and the beautiful fall leavesmeans that winter is soon to follow.

Retired DNR fisheries biologistAl Hauber gave the group the histo-ry of this section of the Plover.There were rock wingdams installedin the 50's and the many Christmastrees that were used in the 80's tonarrow the stream south of thebridge. Al used to do fish surveys onthe Plover, and the largest fish theyfound was a 28-inch brown trout.

The kids broke into groups andgrabbed the tools that they neededfor their area of study. Becausethere are deeper pools south of thebridge and riffles north of thebridge, the students spent about anhour in both areas so they couldlearn the preferred environments ofthe aquatic animals they found.They found huge mottled sculpinsand a couple young brook lamprey.

They bring their critter samplesback to the parking area and, afterlunch, the aquatic critters are divid-ed into groups and put into plasticbags so they can be passed aroundthe group for a closer look. As theseare being passed around, biologyteacher Dave Coenen and Al Haub-er talked about the different speciesand their importance to the ecosys-tem.

When the insect discussion has

been completed, a few folks fromthe DNR did a boom-shocking dem-onstration to show some of the oth-er fish that call the river home, suchas darters, stone rollers, hornedchubs, red-belly dace, white suckersand brown and brook trout. Thisyear we were fortunate to see abeautiful 14-inch male brook troutdecked out in all his color.

A big thanks to Dan Holland,John Meachen and the LeighYawkey Woodson Art Museum forall their work putting together the“Convergence” event. It was a greatopportunity to meet and listen toJohn Gierach, Bob White, MikeDvorak, Victoria Houston, AlanHaney and Eric Anderson.

My favorite moment of thatweekend was when a group of girl

scouts came into a room where art-ist Bob White was demonstratingpainting. Bob invited a few of theBrownies to add some brush strokesto his painting. Three of themstepped up and each had an oppor-tunity to add their expression to apainting that Bob had started.There were a few audible gaspsfrom the adults, but the youngpainters seemed to be very proud oftheir additions to this masterpiece.It was very cool. Thank you so muchto all of you who came to the event.

For news on upcoming eventswatch the WRVTU.org website andFacebook page. We will have anevent set up for Jan 23 at Sconniesin Wausau. Have a Merry Christmas& Happy New Year.—Linda Lehman

Wolf River Chapter

The Wolf River Chapter’s Fly Ty-ing Consortium is Saturday, January27 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Bring yourown vise and materials, or come forthe fish tales and camaraderie. Tieyour favorite patterns for the WolfRiver Chapter or learn to tie WolfRiver Chapter members’ favoritepatterns at The Bear Paw OutdoorAdventure Resort, N3494 Highway

55, near White Lake. For more in-formation contact Zach Buchananat [email protected].

The date for the Wolf RiverMeet’n’Greet has been set for May19. Look for more information onour Facebook page or our website atwolfrivertu.org.—Laurie Zen Netzow

4,500That’s how many trout enthusiasts receive a copy of Wisconsin Trout.

Plus, copies are distributed at various TU events, fly shops, sporting goods stores and beyond.

Advertise in Wisconsin Trout:Four issues a year.

1/8-page ad for an entire year, as little as $180.1/4-page ad for an entire year, as little as $3601/2-page ad for an entire year, as little as $633.50Full-page ad for an entire year, as little as $1,188

Contact Todd Franklin at [email protected].


By Bob Haase

Russ Bouck is one of the bestsoft hackle and wet fly tyers in Wis-consin. He has researched this styleof fly and has a nice library of bookstracing the history, characteristicsand tying methods. Soft hackles andwets are very effective and yet theyare not tied or fished as often asthey should be. Russ and his wife,Sue, reside in Amherst, Wisconsinand are very active in Trout Unlim-ited.

Russ… How did you get startedin fly tying?

I have been tying for more than50 years. My dad was a fly tyer andtied professionally, supplying fliesfor fly shops in Northern Wisconsinand the UP. When he would be ty-ing, I would sit there and watch.When he finished, there would befeathers and tying materials layingaround. I would pick up the materi-als and tie them onto the hook.

I know you tie a lot of trout flies.What are some of your favoritestyles or patterns of flies?

It’s not so much about patternsas it is style of fly. I like to fish dryflies to a rising hatch but that doesnot happen often, so I fish a lot ofwet flies, both soft hackles andwinged wet flies, and a lot of Wool-ey Buggers. As far as specific pat-terns, I go more by color. I like theGrouse & Green, Gold-ribbedHares Ear and the Orange FishHawk. The Orange Fish Hawk is anold English pattern that I thinkoriginally came from an Atlanticsalmon fly.

The other thing that makes fish-ing wet flies so successful is tomatch the weight of the fly to thewater you are fishing. Most peopledon’t do this. I tie three differentweights: unweighted soft hackles,regular soft hackles which are tiedon heavier hooks and maybe has awire ribbed body, and what I call in-dustrial strength and they are allweighted with wire or beads.

Where you fish them will deter-mine how you weight them and howyou fish them.

How did you get started tyingsoft hackles?

A guide from West Yellowstone,Montana introduced them to me. Iwas about 22 years old and we wereon the Madison River and thisguide came along and it was his dayoff. He was catching quite a few fishso I asked him what he was using.He showed me and explained whatthey were and how to fish them. I

started tying them and have beenfishing them ever since. I have beenlucky enough to fish from Maine toBritish Columbia and from Canadadown to Arkansas and Tennesseeand wherever I have gone they hitsoft hackles. The catch is to matchhow you fish them to the waters youare fishing and what the trout aredoing. That is something that a lotof people don’t fully understand.

Can you tell us a little about thehistory of soft hackles and wherethey originated from?

Soft hackles originated in theBritish Isles and they call themNorth Country flies there. If youread the old English books, it is akinto sinning to put weight on the flies.The rivers in that part England arenot very fast or deep so you reallydon’t need weight on the fly. If youfish the faster and deeper watershere in the United States, you oftenhave to add some weight to the softhackles to get them down. Wet-flyfishing predates dry-fly fishing andis mentioned in books dating backto 1496. Anyone wanting to knowmore about soft hackles and wetflies should read David Hughe’sbook entitled “Wet Flies.” Anothergood book to read would be “TheSoft Hackled Fly” by SylvesterNemes.

Soft hackles are very effective.Why do you think more peopledon’t fish them?

I think part of the reason is thatsome people do not think it is instyle. They used to fish wet flies 50years ago. People like fishing dryflies, which is the ultimate in flyfishing. But hatches do not happenas often as people think it does. Ijust enjoy fishing them.

You tie your own flies and havebeen doing this for a long time.What are some of the advantages ofbeing able to tie your own flies?

I think in some of these fly shopsthey make the flies that are morelike model insect building than theyare in to making flies that fish willtake. You don’t have to get superfancy. You just need to give a fewthings like size, movement andsheen to it, and then fish them theway the bugs act.

You can get the added satisfac-tion of catching fish on somethingyou tied yourself and you can alsomodify the flies to match specificsituations.

Do you have any tips for fishingsoft hackles?

If you are fishing soft hackles up

Wisconsin’s Fly Tyers is a new series that will highlight some of Wisconsin’sgreat fly tyers. Most people do not realize how many great fly tyers we have in Wis-consin. Some are well known and others are less known, but some of the best ty-ers in the United States. Bob Haase will interview a different tyer for each issue ofWisconsin Trout and they will talk about their favorite flies, how they tie them,and how they fish them. It will provide an opportunity for us to learn about them,along with tying tips and information to make us better tyers and fly fishers. It willbe done in a question & answer format, followed by step-by-step instructions onhow to tie one of their favorite flies.

Wisconsin’s Fly Tyers

Russ Bouck: soft hackles and wet flies

stream and letting them drift down,you want a rod that is fairly stiff be-cause when you see that swirl youwant to set the hook.

When you are fishing down andacross stream you want a softer rod.You will get the same amount ofhits, but the softer rod will give youmore hookups because it almost actslike a shock absorber and doesn’tpull the fly out of the fish’s mouth. Ilearned that from Davy Wolten, aguide on the White River in Arkan-sas. Learn how to mend the line andpresent the flies so that flies act likethe real insects in the water. Youshould also become familiar with atechnique called the “LeisenringLift”.

A key to fishing wet flies is to getthem to the right depth. It also helpsto get some movement on the flyand that is where the soft hackle is atits best. A third thing is having a lit-tle bit of glitter because a lot ofthose insects under water have airbubbles attached to them. Caddislarvae when they come up to the sur-face expel air just like a vapor trail.

If you are going to fish the softhackle against the current it helps ifyou put a dubbed thorax to keep thehackle from going back around thebody of the fly.

Another thing you can do withsoft hackles is to use them to fish toa hatch. If you can see the fish comeup to the surface they are often tak-ing something on the surface. If theyswirl below the surface they are tak-ing emergers below the surface. Youcan fish the wet fly upstream. If yousee a swirl just cast above it and let itcome down naturally and when yousee a swirl you set the hook.

If you tie a soft hackle with apheasant tail body and a yellow tho-rax it looks like a Sulphur comingout of its nympho shuck. You can ac-tually tie this on a size #14 ratherthan a #16 because it represents the

insect and the shuck which is largerthan just the insect

What are some of the changesyou have seen in fly tying over theyears?

Rotary vises. The variety of bob-bins. We never used bobbins when Ifirst started… we just waxed thethread and held in our fingers. Tre-mendous availability in the sizes andstyles of hooks.

There is such good selection nowof different kinds of dubbing and theability to make dubbing yourself.Hackle availability is a big thing. Wewere limited to Hungarian Par-tridge for soft hackles and now thereare genetically bred chicken hackle(hen necks) and other feathers thatalso work great for soft hackles.

Rather than using feathers forwinged wet flies I often use hair suchas badger hair for my winged wetflies. We have a better variety andavailability of materials for tying.The thing people have to realize isthat there is nothing carved in stone.If you get a better idea or see some-thing a little different, give it a try.

Do you have any tying tips forsomeone just starting out tying softhackles?

Take one or two patterns and justtie a lot of them so you can get usedto the basics. Master the techniquesand don’t worry about the individualstyles. When wrapping the hackledon’t strip the fibers off of one sideas some people recommend becauseyou are removing half of the shorterhackle fibers. Just tie it in by the tipand take about two wraps. When ty-ing soft hackles, avoid over-hackling.Sparse is best.

The following fly pattern is one ofRuss’s favorite soft hackle patternscalled the Grouse & Green.

HALF A CENTURY OF FLY TYINGAfter 50 years of tying, Russ Bouck still enjoys tying and fishing soft hackles. The trick most folks overlook, he says, is to tie them in three different weights: unweighted soft hackles, regular soft hackles which are tied on heavier hooks and maybe has a wire ribbed body, and what he calls “industrial strength,” which are weighted with wire or beads.

Donate to Wisconsin TU via Thrivent Lutheran FinancialIf you are a TU member and have investments with

Thrivent Lutheran Financial, you may have the abilityto make charitable donations to groups of yourchoosing through Thrivent Financial’s ThriventChoice program.

The Wisconsin Council of Trout Unlimited is now a

listed entity within the Thrivent Choice program.If you are a Thrivent member and have the ability

to make Thrivent Choice donations, we would behonored if you’d consider including the WisconsinCouncil of TU within your charitable planning, andmaking a donation to our cause.


Step 5: Tie the feather in by the tip and make one or two wraps as shown. Using a hackle pliers will make it easier and give you more control. The shiny side of the feather shown be toward the eye so the feather is cupped back toward the bend of the hook. Tie the feather off and trim off the stem. Use a half hitch tool or ball point pen to push the hackle back to make room to form a head. This also allows you to space the hackle evenly around the hook shank. Form a head and tie off with a whip finish or series of half hitches. The soft hackles of the feather create movement in the water, which helps entice the fish to take. This is a very effective pattern that works in most trout waters.

Russ Bouck’s Grouse & Green Soft Hackle

MATERIALS LISTGrouse and GreenSoft HackleHook: Any standard nymph hook.Thread: 8/0 or 6/0 dark colorBody: Green Ultra Wire, medi-um to largeTail: Krystal Flash

The soft hackle patternshown is the Grouse & Green.The color and body materialscan change to match the situa-tion. If you want to fish the flyin slow water, you might wantto dub the body.

If it is fished in moderatecurrent, you might want to adda wire rib. If you want to fishfaster water, consider using awire body as shown, or a beadto help get the fly down towhere the fish are.

Materials and colors can

change, but the basic principlesof a soft hackle are representedin this old English patterncalled the Grouse & Green.

For more information on ty-ing soft hackles and wet flies,you might want to go online orread the following books: “WetFlies” by David Hughes,“Nymphs for Streams and StillWaters” by David Hughes or“The Soft Hackled Fly” by Syl-vester Nemes.

Step 1: Start the thread and tie in small piece of Krystal flash at the bend of the hook as shown.

Step 2: Leave the thread at the bend of the hook and wrap the body with green Ultra Wire in brassie or medium depending on the size of the hook. Using a smooth-jaw pliers, grasp the ends of the wire with the tip of the pliers and rotate the pliers in the direction of the wrap to bring the tips of the cut off wire around the hook shank. Then wrap the thread through (between the wraps) of the wire. You should than apply a coating of head cement, UV set polymer or similar coating to help secure the wraps of wire.

Step 3: Dub a thorax using a dark-colored dubbing such as black. You can make a dubbing loop, split the thread, or just dub the thread based on your personal preference. The thorax should be dubbed as shown, leaving room to wrap the partridge feather or other soft hackle.

Step 4: Prepare a partridge feather or other suitable soft hackle as shown in the picture. Some people prefer to pull the hackle off of one side, but this eliminates half of the shorter hackles that you may need based on the size of the feather and the size of the hook. Pull the soft fuzzy material from the stem and trim the hackle as shown.

Grouse and Green Soft Hackle

Bob’s Fly Tying Tips& Techniques Book

Over 125 tips and information tohelp make your fly tying easier

and more fun!

$25 plus $5 Shipping & Handling

(Sales Tax Included in the Price)

Please send check in the amountof $30 with your name andaddress to: Robert Haase,

W7949 Treptow Ln.Eldorado, WI 54932

Support WITU Youth Camp with book purchase

Bob Haase is donating $5 from the sale of each of hisbook “Bob’s Fly Tying Tips and Techniques” to WisconsinTrout Unlimited to be used for youth program such as ourAnnual Youth Fishing Camp. This offer is available until ourAnnual Banquet in February.

The cost of the book is $25 plus, $5 to cover the cost oftax and shipping. Just send a check in the amount of $30to: Bob Haase, W7949 Treptow Lane, Eldorado, WI 54932.Please include the first name of the person receiving thebook and Bob will sign and include a short note to that per-son.

This donation is in addition to the $1 that Bob is donat-ing to Wisconsin TU for each book sold. The $1 donationdoes not have a time limit and will be used for purchasingfly tying materials for our youth fly tying programs. Thankyou for your support and the support of TU activities.

Gear up for your Fly Tying and Winter Destination needs with us.


2017 ContributorsEd Barnes Middleton WIJames Baxter Whitefish Bay WIJolene Berg Chippewa Falls WIRobert Burke Markesan WIDennis Buzzar DeForest WITom Crabb Monona WITerry Cummings Rhinelander WIDavid Darling River Falls WIRichard Duplessie Eau Claire WI

David Dybdahl Middleton WIChuck Egle Amherst Junction WIBeatrice,William Evans NewRichmond John Ewen Neenah WIErik Forsgren Fremont WIRichard Galling Hartland WIRobert Galvin Crivitz WIDaniel Geddes Appleton WIGiorgio Gimelli Madison WI

MAIL TO: TU Watershed Access FundAttn: Doug BrownR4800 Timber Ln.

Ringle, WI 54471

Name

Address

City, State, Zip

Phone

Ron & Margery Ginsbach Elmwood WIThomas Goodman Miami FLDan Grauer Wausau WIJohn Gribb Mt. Horeb WIJack Halbrehder Sparta WIStephen Hawk Madison WIAshton Hawk Madison WIJames Hayett Hartland WIJan & Mark Heifner Appleton WIWalter Hellyer Egg Harber WINancy and Dan Hill Spencer WIMike Hittle Appleton WIEd & Irene Josephs Oconomowoc WIPatrick Kirsop Stoughton WILane Kistler Milwaukee WIRobert Kleba Crivitz WIBarb & Joe Kruse LaCrosse WIPeter Kurtz O.D. Menominee WIDavid Lange LaCrosse WIRandy Lueth Marshfield WIBrian Madsen Ellsworth WIMatenaer Corp. West Bend WIKim McCarthy Green Bay WIFred Mikolajewski West Allis WIRobert Moser Milwaukee WIHerb Oechler Wauwatosa WIEdward Parsons Platteville WIRay Piehl Wautoma WI

Gary Preisler West Bend WIRandall Rake Helena MTBob Retko Cedarburg WIKen Rizzo Oconomowoc WIJames Roden Eau Claire WIDan Rorabeck Hudson WINancy Rosenbacher Waupaca WIMichael San Dretto Neenah WIJeff & Mary Schmoeger Lake Mills WIGeorge Shinners Antigo WITim Stark Wind Lake WIWayne Stockman Spring Valley WIJuergen Stuebs Wautoma WIRonald Suslick Peshtigo WICharles Urban Wauwatosa WIKaren & Martin Voss Eau Claire WIDick Wachoski Eau Claire WIDon Wagner Gillett WIRodd Wangen OregonDonald Wellhouse Kaukana WIJared Wunderlich DePere WI

Kiap-TU-Wish Chapter of TUMarinette County Chapter of TU

Winter 2018 updateThe 2017 Watershed Access Fund campaign has come to an end

and we had another excellent year of financial support. Throughyour generous contributions we raised more than $6,000. Thank youso much.

This past year, this fund was able to secure an important link onthe “Horse-shoe” section of the North Fork of the Bad Axe. With-out your continued support, this wouldn't have been a reality.

Chapters can request up to $7,500, and two chapters may each re-quest for a single acquisition. Each chapter would have to match 50percent of the grant. This could provide as much as $15,000 for a sin-gle purchase or easement. The matching 50 percent from chapterscan be in the form of volunteer hours.

The 2018 fundraising campaign is under way, and you shouldhave received the campaign letter. Please consider supporting thisimportant program so valuable trout streams across this state can beprotected for permanent access and enjoyment.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and holiday season. Iwish you the best in the 2018 fishing season.

Doug Brown, Wisconsin TU Watershed Access Fund Chair

Here is my contribution of $100 or more to the Wisconsin TU Watershed Access FundMake your check payable to Wisconsin Trout Unlimited

By Mike San Dretto

Watershed assessment was themajor focus of this year’s Workshopon Science for Trout Stream Resto-ration. Looking at an entire water-shed often leads to the best answersfor trout habitat restoration. Theworkshop, now in its fifth year, washeld in October at UW-StevensPoint. A continuing theme of thisconference is using the best andmost recent scientific research avail-able. This leads to looking at thewhole stream, everything going onin it and the riparian zone whichsupports it.

What better watershed to use forthe workshop than the Little PloverRiver? Not only is it near StevensPoint, but it’s also one of the moststudied rivers in Wisconsin, sinceportions of it dried up in 2005. Cir-cumstances made it necessary for alllocal stakeholders to work togetherand look at all aspects of the prob-lem and potential solutions.

A diverse faculty included fisherybiologists, hydrologists, UWSP fac-ulty and a wetlands specialist. DNRand community leaders presented asession on team development forwatershed assessment. Attendeesincluded DNR fisheries and streamrestoration personnel, along withTU members and others interestedin stream restoration.

The morning was spent on theUW-Stevens Point campus. Thosepresent learned where to find infor-mation about a watershed, the im-portance of ground water andevaluating high-water-use areas.

Study of wetlands and their contri-bution to the river was part of thediscussion. Analysis of stream flowrates needed for trout and study ofbrook trout populations in the LittlePlover were discussed as well.

While understanding the scienceprovides valuable information aboutthe status of a stream, working on aproblem as severe as the conditionof the Little Plover River requiredinput from many groups. Communi-ty members and leaders with repre-sentatives from agriculture andindustry collaborated. Take-homepoints were to get beyond fingerpointing and focus on the problemand solutions.

There is nothing like getting outinto the field on a sunny fall day.The afternoon was spent evaluatingtwo sites. We spent a portion of theday on the Little Plover looking atlocations for natural and cost-effec-tive trout habitat improvement. Thegroup also studied areas of potentialwetland restoration with intent toincrease stream flow.

The idea for the annual work-shop came from Ray White, who ac-tively participates in the workshopand its planning. His knowledge ofWisconsin trout habitat goes back tohis time as a fisheries biologist in theWisconsin Conservation Depart-ment (now the DNR). Ray is a be-liever in lifelong learning. Thatinterest in learning lead to a careerof teaching and sharing knowledgeabout trout habitat. As a past associ-ate professor of fisheries at Michi-gan State and Montana Stateuniversities, he understands that

WORKSHOP ON SCIENCE FOR TROUT STREAM RESTORATIONTracy Hames, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Wetlands Association, explains the Little Plover River Watershed Enhancement Project during the Fifth Annual Workshop on Science for Trout Stream Restoration. The project is a multi-party collaboration led by the Village of Plover to improve the health of the Little Plover River Watershed.

Joan

na G

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in

Workshop highlights watershed assessmentsharing information leads to newknowledge and new ideas. Ray re-ceived the Aldo Starker LeopoldAward from the Wild Trout Sympo-sium for his work.

Because of the time he spent as aWisconsin fisheries biologist, RayWhite understands how hard DNRfisheries and stream restorationpeople work, but they don’t alwayshave access to the latest stream sci-ence research. Seeing the need forDNR personnel to keep up withnew developments, Ray and his wifeAlmut made an endowment to UW-Stevens Point which supports theworkshop. As a long-standing mem-ber of Trout Unlimited, Ray real-

ized this workshop would also beuseful to Trout Unlimited membersinterested in trout habitat restora-tion. Those of us TU members whohave attended have learned much,found new restoration ideas andthink differently about our streams.Think about joining us next year.

Mike San Dretto is past presidentof the Central Wisconsin Chapterand currently a core team member ofthe TU CARES collaborative restora-tion effort of the four Central RegionTU Chapters. He truly enjoys the timehe gets to spend outdoors on troutstreams.


Driftless RamblerWith Duke WelterTUDARE Outreach Coordinator

With a gray December sky drop-ping quiet “slowflakes” on us thismorning, it’s been a nice time to sitback and reflect on the season justpast, with a few thoughts aboutwhat’s ahead. Over the weekend weattended one of our favorite holidayhappenings, a bluegrass (and more)concert at a country crossroadsdance hall between Middle Ridgeand St. Josephs Ridge, always aheart-filling time with good friendsand fine music.

Once the leaves drop here, acoating of new snow on the ridgesand hillsides accentuates the rockfaces and limestone spires one usu-ally can’t see for the foliage. Drivingaround, I am probably a safety haz-ard to other motorists, because Itend to stop to take a picture of an-other rock face or column I’ve neverseen before. The Three Chimneysoutside Viroqua, Monument Rocknear Liberty Pole or the ElephantRock near Lloyd may be betterknown, but it seems almost everyvalley in the region has its own land-mark stone structure.

A busy personal schedule haskept me mostly away from birdhunting this fall, but now in Decem-ber my springer Josie and I have fi-nally had a few outings chasingpheasant on public lands alongsome of our streams. It’s been just ajoy to follow my merry bird dog andappreciate viewing a recent streamproject just waiting to be fished. Wepoke out along those grassy mean-ders and work the buffered streamedges, and we’ve had success de-spite my middlingshooting.

We can see themany redds in thoseprojects, scoured outof silt and populatedby trout of a size I al-most never encoun-ter when I’m fishingfor them. Thosetrout scoot off whenJosie snuffles alongthe water’s edge, butI know they’ll beback soon. It’s grati-fying to know sup-port from our TUcomrades helped create the condi-tions for those active spawners, re-building the habitat they need.

Restoration progressThe year past saw significant

progress made on various aspects ofrestoration across the region. Iowa’sColdwater Conservancy is incorpo-rated, organized and working to ob-tain stream access easements, withan eye to developing good projectson those sites.

In Minnesota, five miles of newstream access easements were justclosed by their DNR, with morelikely to follow by year’s end. Ourfall bus tour of projects there high-lighted some of the innovative workbeing funded by the Lessard-Samssales tax dollars in that state. Min-nesota TU chapters have been lead-ing the way in Driftless streamrestoration using those funds. Ah, ifour other Driftless states could justhave that dollar resource available,what we all could do!

In Wisconsin, more than $1.2million in funding from the USDA’sNatural Resources ConservationService went into more than 30

Driftless projects this season. I’mrepeatedly amazed by the successJeff Hastings and DARE have hadin securing large regional Farm Billgrants, which are then put into indi-vidual projects in counties acrossthe region. Add to that the fundingfrom TU chapters, U.S. Fish &Wildlife Service, Wisconsin TroutStamp and other sources, and thesupport for this work has been out-standing.

For 2018, dozens of projectshave applied for more of that NRCSfunding across Wisconsin. If ap-proved, it will cover about 70 per-cent of the project costs, and willsupport both DNR crews and pri-vate contractors. We’ll find out soonwhether funding has been ap-proved for many of those projects,and then will have a busy time find-ing the remaining share from othersources.

Landowners provide a publicfishing easement, and we find thefull project cost wherever we can. Ifyour chapter is sitting on a cache ofcash, or if you personally are look-ing for a charitable tax deductionthat does demonstrable good, con-sider supporting a project with oneof our TUDARE partners.

Butchering operation in Vernon County?

Out here in Vernon County, weare facing a serious threat to ourwater resources and it’s got a lot ofpeople concerned. A large porkproducer, Lynch Provisions, hasbought Driftless Meats, a butcher-

ing operation be-tween Viroqua andWestby just off thefour-lane Highway 14(known around hereas the “Uff-da Bahn”).The facility is locatedin the uppermostdrainage area of theNorth Fork of the BadAxe River. Lynch pro-poses to butcher andprocess as many as400,000 hogs a year.

Driftless Meats for-merly handled locally

grown pork, lamb, beef and deerharvested around here. The newcompany has told local farmers theywon’t process local meat, just hogsfrom large hog operations. Whileother areas, notably Iowa, are dot-ted with these facilities, they aren’ta feature of the countryside in Ver-non or Crawford counties right now.The company doesn’t like to haulpigs more than 50 miles, whichleaves people wondering how manybig hog barns they will build closeby. That’s a lot of pig manure, whichwould have to be land spread, in ad-dition to the cow manure alreadybeing spread from the many dairyfarms around here.

It’s doubly ironic that this area ishome to Organic Valley, the na-tion’s largest organic dairy co-op, aswell as hundreds of small Amishfarmers, many of whom are organicand sustainably certified.

Often DNR proclaims that largeconfined animal feeding operations(CAFOs) are subject to a higherlevel of regulatory oversight thanother agricultural operations. Thatmay be true, to some extent. Buteven the rules regulating CAFOsand other ag operations are open to

the criticism that they aren’t strongenough, or aren’t being enforced.

Even with some oversight by theDNR or the Wisconsin Departmentof Agriculture, Trade and Consum-er Protection (DATCP), we havemany situations where resourcesare being damaged. KewauneeCounty, with five times as manycows as people, faces disastrouswell-water contamination becauseall that manure is going in shallowsoils and fractured limestone bed-rock and poisoning the groundwa-ter.

Vernon County, and the wholeDriftless Area, also has shallowbedrock beneath shallow soils. Itshould be tremendously wary of thethreat posed by 200,000 hogs inconfinement.

But Vernon County isn’t zoned,and the township where DriftlessMeats isn’t, either. That takes awaythe single most useful tool munici-palities can use to prevent resourcedamage. If local residents don’ttake action, they could get one nox-ious industrial operation, which willopen the way for more. Right now,the only tool they have is publicopinion.

An initial question was wherewill the waste water from the plantbe taken for processing? Concernedcitizens pressured nearby cities withwastewater treatment facilities,such as Sparta, Viroqua and Rich-land Center, not to accept wastewater from a new hog operation.But apparently the company hasstruck an agreement with Sparta.

Many around here pride them-selves on Vernon County’s high-quality trout streams, and the multi-billion-dollar benefit to the Drift-less economy from anglers. MatWagner and his wife, Geri Meyer,who operate Driftless Angler FlyShop in Viroqua, feel the threatpersonally:

“They’re trying to get a foot in

the door with this hog butcheringoperation,” Wagner said, “But evenbigger, they will want to get these50,000-pig farms started all over thearea. Why can’t people think of howthis will affect the way people livearound here? The butchering oper-ation will be just upwind of theWestby to Viroqua bike trail. Howmany people will want to ridethere? What’s the traffic going to belike, as they haul all those pigsthrough Westby and Viroqua?

“This fragile geology aroundhere can’t handle the manure fromall those pigs, and those operationswill most likely hurt our groundwa-ter,” Wagner said. “It's super short-sighted to consider allowing this netnegative for the area, instead of en-couraging them to look elsewhere. Ican’t believe it. This will be harmfulto the environment, air quality andour streams, all for a handful of re-ally crappy jobs.”

Well, what’s an angler to do?“Call the policy makers. The mayorof Viroqua, the county board chair,the tourism committee chair, theViroqua Main Street Chamber,”Wagner said. “Let them know youwon’t come here to fish if they’regoing to make Vernon County acenter for the big pig industry.”

During the past decade or so,the Driftless Angler has become arespected fixture around here, bothfor locals and for visitors. As the ar-ea’s fishing attractions have in-creased, they’ve been here withguides and advice and gear. Andthey’ve been unafraid to speak outagainst threats to area waters. Butthis development bodes poorly. “Ifthis operation comes in and hurtsour business,” Wagner say, “we’lljust have to figure out what to do.”

Underneath that cloak of newsnow, rather than an entirely placidland, some troubling currents are tobe found.

“Let them know you won’t come

here to fish if they’re going to make Vernon

County a center for the big pig

industry.”

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