Sometime early in the century when I was helping out – or so I claim; Mike may have a different view – at Mike Alwin’s Bob Mitchell’s Fly Shop, a guy named Paul Wiemerslage, would drop in, usually near the end of the day and usually accompanied by his pert and perky wife, and just sort of hang around, often well past closing time. By that time of day my supply of bonhomie had run low and I found him kind of irritating. He obviously came to talk to Mike and didn’t seem even to notice me, which, when you get down to it, is likely why I found him irritating. I learned that he was a high-level executive at a large local manufacturing concern and presumed that with that came a certain level of disdain for the help. I have never been more wrong in my life. I had mistaken a sense of respect for disdain. Sometime in the Christmas Holiday season in my days as a putative Lutheran, probably when my daughter was participating in a Sunday school show, Paul, who was a co-parishioner, stopped me in a hallway and asked me how my steelhead season had gone. I was surprised that he knew I’d been fishing. That one question breached the metaphorical levee between us and led to a conversation so long that I was, much to my wife’s consternation, late to my seat for the performance. Subsequently Paul and I forged a friendship that led us on adventures with venues as disparate as Paul’s home kitchen, the north woods, and the famous trout streams of Montana.
Paul had held many different positions with his employer and had excelled in all of them, but the job he had liked most, and was certainly best at, was in sales. He had a preternatural ability to earn people’s trust and to put them at ease. This wasn’t some sort of technique or act; it was simply and genuinely Paul. The first time I traveled with Paul we took his travel trailer deep into Wisconsin’s Driftless Region and set up at a campground on the upper reaches of Timber Coulee Creek. It had been a wet spring and the water table was high. The campground was soggy in many spots, but we’d parked the trailer in a high and dry spot. One afternoon I heard a group of campers talking. One of them was grousing loudly about where and how we’d parked and what jerks we must be. I told Paul about it. He shrugged and said he’d take care of it. He strode out to where the men were talking, introduced himself and asked them where they were from. “La Crosse,” the chief grump replied. “Me, too,” said Paul, “My father worked at Heileman Brewing for years.” This established Paul as a local and within minutes the entire group was laughing at Paul’s storytelling. There was no more grumping. I saw Paul build or reinforce relationships wherever he went. When we traveled, he brought along good bottles of wine and blocks of aged Wisconsin cheddar cheese from the Cady Cheese factory. He presented these as gifts to fly shop workers who gave him good information and to campground hosts who treated him well. Some of this was done, of course, as a means of ingratiation, but the real driving factor was Paul’s genuine respect for the knowledge they possessed and the effort they put in. These folks never forgot Paul, either. Perhaps they recalled the gifts, but I always felt it was more likely that they remembered Paul’s big heart and even bigger personality.
Paul had a close friend, John, a brilliant architect and businessman. John, a giant of a man, had an appetite and a lust for life that equaled Paul’s. John had an expansive cabin on what was essentially a private muskellunge lake in northern Wisconsin and another utterly primitive cabin in a vast lake-dotted landholding in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. We fished hard on trips to these midwestern paradises, but we ate Paul’s gourmet cooking and drank John’s French wines prodigiously as well. John was never happier than in these settings and Paul once said to me, “I just love to watch that man have fun.” The feeling, I’m sure, was mutual. The only problem for me was keeping up with these two characters and I soon learned that I was a better observer than participant.
In essence, Paul loved to watch all the people he liked and admired have fun. In the last few years of angling author Jim Humphrey’s life, Paul hosted a mid-winter get-together at his house with Jim as the guest of honor. Paul didn’t know Jim particularly well, but, again, he admired Jim’s work and what he’d done to help others through his writing. These were titularly discussion groups with specific topics pre-selected by Paul. The guests ranged in age from Jim at the oldest to anglers Paul’s son’s age with several of us in late middle age in between. Everyone’s input was welcome, but Paul made certain that everyone understood that Jim’s word was gospel. There was food and drink, of course, with typically three different varieties of Paul’s delicious chili served as entrees. Paul put hours of work into those soups, expecting nothing more than the obvious satisfaction of his guests.
Paul was a born organizer. We (Friends of Paul and friends of friends – Paul subscribed to the idea that his friends’ friends were also his) made trips every spring to Cottonwood Camp on Montana’s Big Horn River for several years. The fishing was superb and the camaraderie was excellent, but the best part was that everything was taken care of! Paul secured the lodging, planned the menus, and did the grocery shopping. In almost everything Paul did he started at wretched excess and went on from there, so while it took half the crew risking hernias and ruptured discs to haul his massive Yeti cooler from the truck to the cabin, we could be certain that we’d dine like kings throughout our stay.
One of the very best adventures I ever had with Paul was a trip that the two of us made to Montana in the late summer of 2012. Paul asked me to go along with him to pick up a gorgeous, custom-made wooden drift boat he intended to buy. I had been downsized from my job that spring and felt that I ought to stay home and be responsible, but Paul worked his salesman’s charms on me, made an offer I couldn’t refuse, and it was off to Montana we went. We took a southerly route through Wyoming, country I hadn’t seen, staying overnight in Sheridan before heading up across the Big Horns and on to our lodging at the historic Chico Hot Springs Resort. Eventually Paul took possession of the boat and we fished out of it on both the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers before returning home. However, it looked for a time as though details might block the sale and we were both nervous. When the details were resolved and the deal done, Paul drove us back to Chico and produced a bottle of sixteen-year old Lagavulin single malt scotch whiskey he’d brought along in case a celebration might be in order. I’d somehow made it into my seventh decade without ever having so much as had a nip of this delightful potable, but I rapidly developed a taste for it and it took a couple of hours of soaking in the hot springs and several cups of the resort’s potent black coffee to make me whole the next morning.
I was to have another memorable experience involving Paul and scotch. Late in the afternoon last December 20th, Paul called and asked the name of a smoky Scotch I’d told him about. I told him it was Ardbeg. He asked me if it could be found in any of Hudson’s liquor stores. I suggested he try Casanova’s. Not two hours later there was a knock on the door. It was Paul. He thrust a bottle of Ardbeg into my hand and told me that he’d bought a bottle for himself, too, and intended to go home and drink a glass of it and suggested that I do the same. He turned and walked out to his Jeep and out of my life. Paul died of heart-related issues sometime late that evening or early the next morning. If you knew Paul only casually or only by reputation, it was easy to think of him as a sort of Falstaffian character – which he was. Paul was a man of huge appetites and interests, but he was also one of the kindest, truest, and most generous friends a man could hope to have and I will miss him always.
Paul loved the outdoors and he loved fly-fishing for trout. He was a long-time member of Kiap-TU-Wish and once served on the board of the Kinnickinnic River Land Trust. His family has asked that memorials in his name be directed to those two organizations.
I think most would agree that the top three nymph patterns would have to be the Pheasant Tail Nymph, the Gold-Ribbed Hare’s Ear Nymph and the Prince Nymph. I’ll leave it for you to decide which is #1, #2 and #3 because they all belong in your fly box.
In this column, I want to focus on the Prince Nymph. I have been tying and fishing with a Prince Nymph for many years. I learned somewhere along the way that the fly was created by Doug Prince. What I did not know until I started to do some research on the fly was that its origins were right here in Minnesota. The original pattern was the Brown Forked Tail tied by Don and Dick Olson from Bemidji in the early 1930s. Doug Prince made some changes and renamed it the Prince Nymph which became widely available in the early 1940s.
I personally like to tie Prince Nymphs, but I will admit that they are not the easiest fly to tie. The goose biots that are used for the tail and also the wing can create some issues. You can have a nice-looking tie going and with one poor thread wrap the whole thing can go south on you. This fly is one that you just need to work at and tie a fair number (dozens upon dozens) to get it down.
Tying the white goose biots in for the wing seems to create the biggest issue. It is somewhat difficult to judge the length of the wing and also to get them tied in straight. When you finally accomplish that, it takes 47 wraps of tying thread to completely cover up the butt ends of the biots and you are left with a big blob of tying thread.
What I have started to do is to use some dry fly hackle for the collar of the fly. After I get the white biots tied in, I tie in the hackle and make 1 ½ turns with it and that covers up the butt ends of the biots and gives the fly a nice finished look.
Give this a try and let me know if the Prince Nymph moves up your list of favorite flies to tie and fish.
Before I get to the flies, I wanted to talk about Ed Constantini and myself a little bit. Ed and I are fishing and tying buddies. We both learned to tie through classes we took in the mid-’80s at Bob Mitchell’s Fly shop. We weren’t in the same class but we had similar experiences. We both still have our copies of the fly pattern recipes that Bob handed out in class and we learned the same initial patterns from Bob and his friends. If there is such a thing as a tying or fishing style, I would say that Ed and I come from similar fishing roots, have similar and compatible styles, and we have lots of fun.
Jonathan Jacobs’ KU Stonefly
When I first met Ed I told him I had just started doing some work on this website and I remember him asking me what had happened to the collection of fly patterns that were on our website. The patterns Ed remembered were originally featured in our paper Rip Rap newsletters in the days when Scott Hanson was our editor. Back then Greg Meyer, the guy who originally built and managed this website, used to feature the patterns on a fly tyers corner website page. It turned out that with updates to the site design, the pattern collection went by the wayside. One day I was poking around and ran across a collection of images from the old fly pattern page. I gathered them up and emailed them to Ed so he could have them for his own reference. Of course, Ed took the time to put these images back together with their original fly recipes. I’m sure this was a considerable amount of work on his part going through the Rip-Rap files stored on our archive page. Ed’s PDF file of Secret Kiap Flies is now on the website here and if you’d like to see the original articles check out the Rip Rap archive and start looking at Scott’s March 2008 issue and work forward. It’s worth the time. This particular issue has a great article by Jonathan Jacobs covering several early season patterns In addition to Jonathan, subsequent tyers include Michael Alwin, Brian Smolinski, Scott Hanson, Greg Meyer, Ron Kuehn, Perry Palin, and Bob Torres.
Before I go I’d like to talk about volunteering. We are not a fishing club or entertainers. We are a volunteer organization. There are lots of ways to pitch in and help our chapter. Kiap is known for getting stuff done. Our brushing work days are always well attended and often draw people from outside the chapter. In fact, that’s how I became a member of Kiap. I was a TCTU member from St Paul and went to WI to work on the Willow and ended up switching my membership. I actually have a picture from my first workday.
Left to right: Gary Horvath, Chuck Goosen, Ken Hanson, and two other TCTU members.
Photo by: Jim Humphrey
There are lots of ways to volunteer and help Kiap. Behind the scenes, there are many people including our board members and other volunteers that make things happen and get things done. Some tie and donate flies and some write grants to help raise funds. Ed and I manage our chapter’s MailChimp email service and this website. Using these tools we put out timely updates and our regular electronic chapter newsletters. We also, with help from Matt Janquart, managed our past two online auctions via the fundraising application and are currently working on the 2023 auction that will begin on March 6th. Ed is 76 and I am 64. Not the typical age range to be doing this work. Our chapter is looking for help in the areas of communication and social media. If interested, please contact chapter president Greg Olson, someone from the board, Ed, or myself. Our contact info is on this site right here.
Scot Stewart is stepping down from the board after serving his three-year term. Scot was an outstanding board member and we will miss him. He had great ideas, advice, and contacts for our chapter, honed from his many years in DNR fisheries. He came up with many of the speakers for the chapter and gave an excellent talk himself. He readily volunteered for our activities and I am glad he will still be an active member. Thanks so much Scot!
Board candidates:
Scot Larson
Scott Larson would be a replacement for Scot Stewart. He is a knowledge management professional whose career is focused on connecting people with the information they need, when they need it, wherever they are. In his current role as the Director of Enterprise Content Management at the Metropolitan Council, he leads a team of records and knowledge management analysts to transform decades of disparate institutional data into relevant, actionable knowledge for the Council and its partners.
Born and raised in Wisconsin’s Driftless Region, he spent his free time exploring the vast network of rivers and streams with a fly rod in hand. After graduating High School, Scott made the decision to dedicate his life to public service. From 1998-2016, he served in active and reserve roles in the US military, spanning the Navy, Army, and the Air Force before retiring. During that time, he worked as a Gunners Mate, an Inspector General, a Civil Engineer, and a Knowledge Operations Manager. These roles prepared him with a unique understanding of servant leadership, transparency, and teamwork. He joined TU in 2018 with the goal of using his background and experience to contribute to TU’s mission of preserving the area’s fisheries with other like-minded individuals.
Ben Belt
Ben replaced John Kaplan on the board after the business meeting last year, being elected by the board. He will be voted on by the chapter at the April meeting. Ben is passionate about getting younger members into the chapter and about making inroads at UW-RF. He can also get donations for our auction like no other! His bio follows:
I grew up on the Waupaca River three miles west of Waupaca, WI. Out my back door I had a wonder piece of river with spawning gravel, holes, boulders, and undercuts that provided me tons of opportunity to observe how and when trout move, eat, sleep, and of course, take or reject my offerings. I am blessed to have been raised on water and as an only child, I had built many solo memories wading down to my uncle’s house and reconstructing the river to pull fish in closer to shore where I could get a line to them. My ol’ man had an old Fenwick glass rod hanging on a couple nails in the back of the garage and he allowed me to purchase some newer fly line for it and my uncle had a few ol’ timer flies that he said caught all the fish. Just a couple 10/2 casting lessons and I was off on a new adventure. Little did I know it would be what I live and breathe for, but it’s truly a passion. I may not stay up with the trends and have all the new and improved gadgets, but I catch fish and enjoy fooling them.
I started out in TU back when I was in middle school and my mother drove me to the Fox Valley Chapter’s Cabin Fever days. I would listen to speakers and watch tying demos. Although, I didn’t have a mentor there that took me under his wing, I enjoyed being part of something that cared about the fish I so much enjoyed catching. Then high school and college days came around and life took a shift in my priorities. It wasn’t until around 2015 when I met Wyatt Bohm from the Frank Hornberg Chapter that I drew a strong interest in getting back into TU and freeing up some time to socialize and participate in TU meetings and events. I volunteered on workdays and was interested in becoming a board member. Little did I know, I would be offered a promotion at work and end up moving to NY. There I became a member of the Tiadaghton Chapter of TU and Twin Tiers Five Rivers FFi where I attended meetings for a short time before moving to TN. I transferred membership to the Hiawassee chapter 640, but couldn’t attend events as they were on Saturdays and I worked every other Saturday and a young family kept me tied down. Now I work Monday-Friday, no weekends and I desire to get involved. I can provide sincere dedicated involvement, help wherever needed, and provide flies for meetings from time to time. My strengths involve hard work and knowledge seeking. I would like to build up youth participation in the chapters.
Michele Bevis
has served on the board for almost 3 years after taking over for the sudden departure of a board member. Lucky for us, she has decided to run again. Michele has been a valuable member of the board. In the past year, she has headed up the 50th Anniversary hats/patches, Linda and Michele started the Stream Girls program, Missie and Michele wrote our Chapter of the Year submission, and she has been an integral part of the Auction team to just to name a few things. What follows is her bio:
I grew up outside of Minneapolis and lived in the southwest for 17 years after high school . One year, I came home from New Mexico for the summer. That summer turned into decades, as I rejoined parts of my family and later met my husband. Minnesota is now my home once again.
Love of and concern for water have been driving forces in my life. I learned how to swim, water-ski, sail and canoe as a kid. Later on, I learned to kayak, raft and now paddle board. But I never even thought about fly fishing until about 8 years ago.
When I lived in the west, I did everything outdoors except fishing: hiking, backpacking, rock climbing, rafting. In New Mexico, I worked as a VISTA Volunteer for NM Solar Energy Association. As a VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), I learned carpentry from the bottom up, and eventually remodeled and modernized my 70- year old adobe home. Neither contracting, nor silversmithing, multi-level marketing or geology worked out for me. But those years sure were fun!!
Eventually, as I said, I found my way back to the midwest. After finally.. finishing college in the Twin Cities, I worked at the MN Correctional Facility at Shakopee (for women) and developed an accredited Construction Technology program. Next, I managed the Green Institute Lumber (reclaimed) Warehouse, did odd carpentry jobs and fixed up old houses. My last paying job before retirement was as Office Manager for Friends of the Mississippi River, St. Paul. Now I co-manage 3 rental units, all of which are over 100 years old.
My work history has been adventurous and eclectic. Yet there were three recurring themes: working for non-profits; helping women and girls gain self-confidence and try new things; and taking actions that support a healthier planet – with specific focus on water and trees.
About 8 year ago, another friend told me about an intro fly fishing class for women at Lebanon Hills Regional Park. Now I am an intermediate fly fisher, according to Cody, the guide I hired in Yellowstone this summer. To be expert, he said, I needed to master the drift and the mend. Thanks Cody – maybe I’ll be back next summer for my review… Fly fishing has given me a deeper dimension in which to engage and interact with water. I never realized how fascinating aquatic insects and their life cycles could be! I never took the time to admire or think about fish!
Every time I fish, I learn something new. While exploring known or new river stretches, I often meet friendly folks on the river who more times than not, share tips and flies. Sometimes I even catch fish! Fly fishing has given me new reasons to explore the Bighorns and the Absorokas, the mountains of northern NM and southern Colorado, Yellowstone and the Wind River Range; new reasons to visit and fish the BWCA, the North Shore and of course, closer to home, the rivers and streams of SE MN and Western WI.
Recently, I served on the board of Fly Fishing Women of MN (FFWMN) for two years, mentoring and helping with event logistics. With this club, I joined other club members for the yearly cleanups organized out of the Rush River Gun Club. Through collaboration between Friends of the Mississippi River and the MN DNR, I’ve helped with fish counts on the Vermillion. When TCTU was restoring the banks of the Vermillion a few years ago, I helped with brush clearing. I’m a member of TU through the TCTU chapter as well as the Laughing Trout Fly Tying group in Wayzata.
I would like to help more people get into fly fishing. Fly fishing is a ready avenue to sparking concern and passion for the environment, and specifically water quality and habitat. As a woman on the Kiap-TU-Wish board, I could serve as a role model for other women and girls to take notice and consider that they too, might try this unique activity and maybe add it to their lives.
I have strong organizational, logistical and writing experience. I am flexible, willing to try new things and play well with others. Being a board member would provide more options for me to give back to the waters in Wisconsin – through restoration and advocacy efforts.
This event combined with the Auction and Hap Lutter Appeal are where most of the chapters funding comes from for the entire year! From a Trout in the Classroom chiller to a ton of rock needed for a stream restoration, we use the proceeds to help fund the chapters yearly activities.
The Auction will start on March 10th and continue until March 21st. More details later. Let me just say the trips, experiences, and items on the auction are better than ever! The 2 X 100 chance drawings will start now, with the winners drawn on March 21st.
The first item, a beautiful painting by our 2022 Silver Trout Award artist, Joshua Cunningham!
12″ x 16″ oil on linen painting titled “Stonehammer.” A stretch of the Rush River painted in very early spring that should be recognizable to most anglers in our chapter. If not, you should seek it out (just not when I am fishing there)!
In Joshua’s words:
“Stonehammer”, was painted on the Rush River in the quiet spring of 2020. The shelter in place orders were loosened, allowing us to fish, hike, and plein air paint…as long as we were outside we were okay, which is a good rule of thumb regardless.
I was captivated by the way the shadow of the cliff rolled across the bottom of the crystal clear river while connecting and contrasting the foreground and background of the scene. It was very challenging. I abandoned the first attempt, wiping the canvas and painting a different stretch of the river. But the scene wouldn’t leave me, so I went back, to try again.
This is the second attempt, and even then I had to make a couple more visits. With each visit I would layer the brush strokes to adequately express the light filtering through innumerable buds and branches, while having enough interest and reflected light in the shadow side of a cliff without undermining the integrity of the light effect. It had rained between visits, and the waters had muddied a bit, but all around me spring was pushing through. Trout lilies were blooming, goslings were paddling along the far shore, the water would sparkle along the ripple of a rising fish. Despite the challenges …I couldn’t have been more please that I had stayed with it, and even more so know, knowing that a few years later, my work can contribute to the excellent work of KIAP-TU-WISH.
Only 100 tickets will be sold at $20 a ticket. You know you want (or is it “need”) this original painting of one the most iconic fishing spots in state! Get your ticket(s) NOW!!!
The second item is a beautiful Norling bamboo rod!
The rod is a 5-wt, 7′ 6″ rod with two tips, agate guides, rod sock & brushed aluminum travel tube with brass cap by renowned rod makers Dave Norling Sr. and Dave Norling Jr.
Only 100 tickets will be sold at $20 a ticket. You know you want (or is it “need”) this heirloom quality rod! Get your ticket(s) NOW!!!
To purchase tickets, email Greg Olson at driftless23@gmail.com. I will let you know if we have tickets remaining (I will be sending mailchimp updates once a week). You can either send me a check made out to KIAP-TU-WISH or pay on-line via our website, specifying which drawing your donation is for (but email me first to make sure we have tickets left!). I will also have both items at our February and March chapter meetings, selling tickets at Juniors, if any tickets are left.
Hello chapter members, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year with your family and friends. This year ended with a bang for us as we were named the winner a Silver Trout Award “Chapter the Year” by the Wisconsin State Council of Trout Unlimited. The award will be presented at the Council’s annual meeting that will be held in February of 2023. The new year will began in much the same way we ended it in 2022, with the announcement of another major award. This time, long-time KIAP-TU-Wish member and current vice president Gary Horvath, received Fly Fisherman Magazine’s 2023 Conservationist of the Year award.
In our chapter’s 50th year (2022), we won the Wisconsin TU Chapter of the Year Silver Trout Award! Michele Bevis and Missie Hanson wrote the submission letter for the award. Thanks to them for doing such an awesome job. This award goes out to all of our members. You are the reason this chapter has been going strong for 50 years and will continue to do so. We are a chapter of do’ers. You keep showing up for Randy’s work days ensuring that our past projects remain accessible and assisting the DNR with pre and post work on new restoration projects. We are a watchdog in our chapter’s watershed, keeping tabs on dams, biodigesters, manure spills, and crazy racetrack/housing developments. We monitor the area streams for temperature/nitrate levels and assist the DNR with fish counts. You continue to educate the next generation about the importance of cold water conservation, helping out with Trout and Bugs in the Classroom, Rocky Branch ECO Day, River Falls Fly Fishing Clinic, and Stream Girls to name a few. You keep showing up for meetings either in person or on-line and keep supporting the chapter’s two major fund-raisers, the Hap Lutter appeal and the on-line auction. I could go on and on. Take a bow KIAP-TU-WISH members, you deserve it!!!
