I’ve only been out fishing twice since I wrote last month. Other things, like work projects at home, work at work, and snowstorms in April, keep getting in the way of spending time on the stream. The only available chances to fish were both cold and rainy, which would be ideal in the middle of the summer, but kept the water temperature cold and the fish comatose in the early season. The first time out I saw only one fish (comatose, of course) and didn’t catch any. The water temperature stayed stuck at 42 degrees all day. The second time out, on a different river, the water temperature was a whopping 44 degrees and we were grateful to see (and catch) three nice brookies—which still wasn’t many though, especially compared to the thousands of fish that had showed up in the WDNR’s fish surveys for this particular stream. At least we weren’t skunked like the first day.
What we DID SEE on both days, however, was that the fine restoration work done on these streams over ten years ago by the local WDNR trout crew and Kiap- TU-Wish volunteers had held up through another season of spring flooding. An unrestored section on one of the rivers, downstream of our stream bank stabilization work, was washed out; 100 feet of 10- to 15-foot-high stream banks had eroded and were clogging the river below with sand and silt. I guess our work really does do some good. We also saw well-maintained banks, on both rivers, where the WDNR trout crew and Kiap-TU-Wish volunteers had cleared encroaching box elder and invasive buckthorn (while leaving most native species). This ongoing maintenance work helps stop the spread of invasive species and helps keep the streams challenging, yet fishable, for Kiap-TU-Wish members and non-members alike. Another good thing we’ve accomplished.
Unfortunately, this second good thing, ongoing maintenance work, is in danger of becoming a thing of the past. While new project work along trout streams will continue to receive some state funding through the WDNR, funding for maintenance along trout streams was severely cut and the responsibility for trout stream maintenance was transferred to another state department a couple of years ago when the WDNR was re-organized. Since that time, there has been very little trout stream maintenance done in our area of the state, unless it was initiated by Trout Unlimited chapters or other conservation groups. This means that all of the hard work we’ve done over the past 20 years to cut down shallow-rooted trees and brush, stabilize stream banks and provide coldwater trout habitat could be in vain and those areas could become overgrown and unfishable once again. Our local WDNR fisheries biologist and trout crew don’t want that to happen, and we don’t want that to happen either.
In order to accomplish our conservation goals in this age of increasing budget cuts and shrinking government services, citizens like us are going to have to work smarter, cooperate more with agencies and other like-minded groups, and take more responsibility for doing some things that were previously done for us by others. The Wisconsin DNR and Kiap-TU-Wish have been strong partners in the past and are committed to working even more closely together in the future. Kiap-TU-Wish members and our local fisheries and trout crew have met several times over the past year as this situation has unfolded. The solution to our maintenance issue, which we are developing, involves the WDNR and Kiap-TU-Wish putting together maintenance plans for all of our recent stream restoration sites. These plans could include periodic brushing, prairie plantings, mowing, burning and other activities that will enhance the coldwater fisheries and the riparian habitats along side them. Once these plans are assembled, we will look to the WDNR, other government agencies, other conservation groups, land trusts and, of course, Kiap-TU-Wish volunteers to cooperate together in fulfilling these plans. Will this take more planning, time and effort on our part? You bet. Will we end up with more ecologically diverse, vibrant, resilient streams and riparian habitats into the future? You bet. Are the members of the Kiap-TU-Wish Chapter of Trout Unlimited up to this new challenge? You all already know the answer to this one . . YOU BET!
In closing, thank you for all of your donations in terms of volunteer hours spent brushing, working with the kids from our eight Trout in the Classroom sites, and advocating for conservation causes in the past year, as well as for your generosity to the Hap Lutter Memorial Spring Appeal. Please join us for our final chapter meeting of the season at a Kiap-on-Tap on May 1 from 6:00-8:30 PM at Rush River Brewing in River Falls. And one more challenge for all of us: try to take one kid, one young person, or one young adult fishing this summer. They are our future and you just might change a life. Until fall, happy fishing! —Scott Wagner
Welcome to the Drift | A message from our Chapter President
Every month we’ll be posting current information as it relates to our chapter from a local, regional, and national perspective. If there are items that you would like discussed or particular questions relating to our chapter, please contact me.
Regards,
Scott Wagner
President, Kiap-TU-Wish Chapter of Trout Unlimited
Theyounggunsseemtohaveit.TwomonthsagoIwroteaboutfishingwith RipRap’sContributingEditor,JosephDuncan,whohadcat-likereflexesand anabilitytoslingnymphsintofarawaytightplaces.ThismonthIneedtotellyou about another young gun who, like Joseph, is 18 years old. Will and his father, Paul,tookmespinnerfishinginacoupleoflocalspotsinwesternWisconsin.But whilethosespotswerefamiliartome,Ihadneverfishedthemwithspinners.Iwas aboutto,butonlyafterknockingdownthebarbsonourPantherMartinspinners, rigging our short, ultralight spinning rods and then hiking through thigh-deep snow down to theriver.
Mymemoryofcasting1/8-ouncespinnersisthatyoulaunchthemwithallthe wristpoweryoucanmusteratabouta45-degreeangletogetmaximumdistance. The spinner then travels in a high, broad rainbow arch and, after all that effort, landsabout20feetfromyou.Maybefarenoughforpanfish,butnotfortrout.Not so with young guns like Will. While I was trying to remove my spinner from an overhead branch which had snagged on my first rainbow arch cast, Will calmly walkeduptheriverslinginghisspinnerhorizontallyacrossthewater.Willcould sling them sideways, underhand and backhand, nearly always with the same result: the spinner traveling horizontally across the water would land 30-40 feet away in the spot he hadchosen.
I tried but couldn’t do it. The only difference I experienced in my efforts was thatinsteadofgettingstuckinoverhangingtrees,Iwasgettingstuckinstreamside bushes.Iaskedhisdad,Paul,aboutthisandhesaidthatitwasauniqueskillWill had taught himself over the years. Finally, I asked Will how he did it, especially with such light spinners. Will was a little bit surprised and simply said it was a combinationofasoftrodtip,anopen-facedreelandalotofwristaction.Typical younggunbehavior.Theydosomethingtheytechnicallyshouldn’tbeabletodo and then humbly think nothing ofit.
I’mstartingtothinkthere’salotwecanlearnfromyoungeranglers.Forstarters, they don’t always know that some things just can’t be done. Rather, they keep trying new ways of doing them until they can be done. As these young anglers turn their attention toward trout fishing, they don’t have all the preconceived notionsofhowto“properlyfish”assaytheover-50anglerdoes.Younganglersare muchmorewillingtoinnovateandexperimentwithnewtechniques.Theycatch fishinwaysandplacesthathaven’toccurredtotherestofus.Sure,there’salotwe canandshouldteachyoungeranglers,butthere’salottheycanteachustoo—in particular, the fresh way they look at each new fishing challenge. They look at thesechallengesasbeingexciting,conquerableandfulloflifeandfun.Thenthey setaboutdoingthem.That’swhywecallthemyoungguns.
Andspeakingofyounganglersinnovatingandexperimenting,youngflytyers are much the same way. They use a wide variety of new materials, approaches andtechniquesthatmany,ifnotmost,ofushaveneverheardof.That’swhywe’re givingtheyoungtheflytyerstheflooratourChapter’sannualflytyingmeeting in April. Come and enjoy the fun as our Chapter’s young guns show how they combine both the new and the old to tie trout, smallmouth and musky flies that reallywork!
Clean, cold, freely-flowing freshwater. I haven’t seen a lot of it these past few days. We’re in Los Angeles visiting our oldest son and while it’s been a pleasure to visit him—the sunny weather has been a welcome reprieve from home—each day I’ve become more aware of how little surface water there is here, and there certainly isn’t anything that would qualify as clean, or cold, or fresh. Compared with the freshwater resources available to LA’s metropolitan area of nearly 20 million people, most of us in Wisconsin and Minnesota don’t know how good we’ve got it.
It’s not really our fault. Just like one can’t truly appreciate the value of a glass of cold water unless one has been parched with thirst, we’ve all grown up surrounded by an abundance of clean fresh water. We grew up playing in the rain until we got chased inside by thunder and lightning. We went to the lake on weekends, boated, fished and waterskied. We went to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and canoed for days over seemingly endless lakes and rivers. And at some point we drove to the shore of Lake Superior (now that’s clean, fresh and COLD!) where we strained, and failed, to see the opposite shore. How much freshwater does that vast, deep lake hold? It’s mind boggling. It’s incomprehensible.
Well, there is a mind boggling amount of freshwater in Lake Superior and in the many thousands of freshwater lakes and streams in Wisconsin and Minnesota, but there isn’t in Southern California. There really isn’t. I’m not smart enough to start a discussion on the effects of climate change, or on the ethics of one geographic area using the natural resources (in this case, freshwater) from another, but I am smart enough to know that our area’s most abundant natural resource, and one that we probably take for granted, is an extremely valuable natural resource indeed.
Just like the air we breathe, freshwater is necessary for survival. Unlike the air we breathe, freshwater is not spread evenly across our country or our world. For some unknown reason, we in the Upper Midwest have been given a disproportionately large share of the world’s fresh water. I don’t know what this means for our area in the future, but I do know that we need to treat this resource with the respect that it deserves and that we need to become better and better stewards of it.
That’s about it for this month. I just can’t wait for spring when I’ll start wading through some of our clean, cold, freely-flowing freshwater searching for wily trout, and probably doing so with more respect for the freshwater resource that makes trout fishing possible. Happy Fishing and Conserving. — Scott Wagner
Cat-like reflexes. It’s just gotta be his cat-like reflexes. He can cast a bit farther than I can, but I think I make up for it with my stealth. I’m shorter than he is, which definitely helps when you’re trying to put on the sneak. We’re both using Pink Squirrel anchor nymphs with small dark midge droppers. We’re both getting strikes, but he’s catching twice as many fish as I am. I keep missing most of mine, but he seems to connect almost every single time! It’s just gotta be his catlike reflexes.
Scott Wagner
It’s the second Sunday of the open season and I am fishing with Joseph Duncan, one of our younger members. Joseph and his siblings grew up fishing with their father, Dan Duncan, in Wyoming, where Dan grew up. Dan brought Joseph to a couple of chapter meetings a few years ago, where Joseph learned about trout camp. Joseph applied for a Kiap-TU-Wish scholarship to the camp and attended the following summer. He came back from camp, fished more and attended some chapter meetings. Then he applied to be a youth counselor at trout camp the next summer. Now, Joseph is mentoring other young trout fishers, writing articles for RipRap and politely putting some of his “elder” chapter members to shame on certain unnamed tributaries to certain unnamed rivers in Western Wisconsin. All this started with an adult—in this case Joseph’s father—sharing a love for the outdoors with a young person, and then other adults sharing their experiences at places like Trout Camp, until an interest and love for the outdoors ignited itself within the young person and it became their own.
Other Kiap-TU-Wish participants from Trout Camp, like Grady McAbee, Anna Kuehn, Eloise Olson, or Dahlia Olson, could share similar stories of learning new skills, growing in self confidence and coming back from Trout Camp with more enthusiasm for trout fishing, coldwater conservation and spending time with other young people who enjoy the outdoors. All of our campers have come back and shared about their camp experience at a chapter meeting, which is impressive in itself. Many have taken on active roles, sharing their skills and youthful energy with our chapter. All have seemed comfortable interacting with adults at our meetings. In my opinion, our campers are a pretty impressive group.
I haven’t been to Trout Camp yet, but it sounds like a pretty neat experience. If you would like to volunteer at camp this summer, or better yet, if you know of a young person who might enjoy attending Trout Camp this summer, contact me at (715) 781-6874, or jswagner@bremer.com. There are a limited number of youth we are allowed to send to camp each summer. We ask interested youth to complete a short application to apply for these spots. Normally, campers need to be 12-16 years of age and be interested in learning more about bait, spinner and fly fishing for trout. Parents or guardians are responsible for transportation to and from Trout Camp. Kiap-TU-Wish pays the $250.00 cost for the applicant(s) we send to Trout Camp each year.
Oh, and one more thing. If you happen to be out fishing with one of our younger members, and he innocently asks to take a picture of you with a puny, but colorful trout you just caught, beware! That picture could be posted all over social media before you’re even half-way home.
