I would like to start off with a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who participated in our 4 x 100 drawing and on-line auction. The auction brought in $9,104, the drawings $4,670, and with a donation of $300 from TCTU , the total gross amount donated is $14,074!
This was our most successful fund raiser ever and discounting expenses, we netted $11,871 for the chapter. Thanks so much to everyone that donated items for the drawing and auction. Special thanks to Tom Schnadt for once again doing an incredible job on the drawing and thanks to the auction committee that included: Tom, Scott Wagner, Ken Hanson, Ed Constantini, Dave Johnson , and Matt Janquart.
This issue of RipRap kicks off an incredibly active spring for the chapter! R4F, the River Falls Film Fishing Festival, starts things off on March 4th at Tattersall in River Falls, which we will be helping out with. Get your tickets now! The Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo will be March 18-20 in St. Paul and we will have a booth there. Covid kept us out of the schools for the past couple of years, but Dean Hanson and Bugs in the Classroom will be back in April! Fingers are crossed with hopes we can help out with the trout release days for Trout in the Classroom as well. Rocky Branch Elementary will be collecting aquatic insects from the Kinni for their ECO Day and we will have our booth set up at the River Falls Earth Day celebration at Glen Park.
We are looking forward to launching our Stream Girls program for the Girl Scouts in May and will be helping to launch a fly fishing class at UW-RF. Hopefully, the city of River Falls fly fishing clinic will be back on too.
Of course, Randy Arnold is continuing to host brushing days every Saturday and is organizing some youth service days around this activity as well. Fundraising for the Kinni restoration is on-going too. Whew!!! We are an active chapter, and we are able to take all this on, because of your involvement. If any of these activities sound like something you would like to help out with, please reach out to me at: driftless23@gmail.com.
Oh yeah, the fishing should be heating up too! Hoping that BWOs will be on the menu soon!
