Hello, fellow KIAP-TU-WISHers! Hope everyone is doing well. As for myself, I am still in mourning over the events that happened on October 16th. I awoke that day knowing the inland trout season was now closed – the saddest day of the year. The trout season again went by too quickly! I found myself in River Falls on October 23rd, perhaps the warmest day we will see until May 2024 and I stopped by the upper Kinni. I sat beside a favorite fishing hole and watched and listened to the water flowing past. Suddenly there was a smattering of BWOs coming off and I spent an enjoyable 20 minutes watching a pod of trout sipping them off the surface. So fear not, the trout are still there! We will give them a break to go about their spawning business and we can all get some streambank time during Randy’s work days which have now begun! Come on out, it is a good time!
Our chapter “year” has started off well. It was good to see your familiar faces at our Rush River Brewing kick off in September. In October, we heard from our happy TU campers Ben Hassing and Elazar Haas. Then we had an exciting talk on spey casting from guide Josh Boeser. In November, Tim Stieber and Josh O’Neil will be speaking to us. Tim is the Land and Water Conservation Administrator and Josh the Conservation Planner for St. Croix County. They will be talking about their stream improvement projects and ways we can help. Save the date, December 5th! We will again have our holiday banquet at Juniors and I hope to see everyone there! More details to follow! Finally, our chapter auction will end on February 18th. This is our biggest fundraiser of the year. If you have any items to donate – fishing equipment, gift cards, vacation stays, guided trips, etc. – please contact me. Thanks for your support!
Hi all! Hope everyone has had a great summer! From a fishing perspective, it has been pretty good. Water levels haven’t been too low and I don’t want to jinx it, but we haven’t had any punishing rain events. We have had some Canadian wildfire smoke and I think the only solution for that will be winter. Hatches of BWOs, Caddis, Sulphurs, and Tricos have been solid where I have been fishing and I hope you found the same thing.
The effort to remove the dams on the Kinni continues to move in a favorable direction. The Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE ) open house on August 15th drew a big crowd, with most in favor of removal of both dams. The ACOE is still working on the feasibility study which they hope to have done this fall with a public review in the winter. Fingers crossed that they deem it a doable project to take on!
Another environmental issue we have been keeping tabs on is a proposed Ridge Breeze Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) located between the Rush River and Plum Creek. The chapter supported a 6 month to 1-year moratorium on Pierce county CAFO expansion in order for the county to determine if their application process was stringent enough to ensure that the two watersheds would not be negatively impacted by expansion of the herd. Unfortunately, the moratorium was voted down at the land conservation committee level and never made it to the county board. We are also keeping a watch on what I am calling the “zombie biodigester.” After being shot down in Hammond, Roberts, and just a couple weeks ago New Richmond, word is that it is stumbling and crawling to Ellsworth next.
On a more positive note, we had a couple of summer BBQ/fishing outings. Our Sulphur Solstice in July at the Ellsworth Rod and Gun Club was well received (it was nice having the air conditioning in the bar that day!). Matt Janquart and Dave Drewski helped organize the event and we enlisted the help of Ben Belt and Ben Topple to help with the food prep and guiding new anglers. In August we held Phil’s Full Moon Fever at Phil Kashian’s home and vacation rental. Phil and his wife Kay were great hosts! In conjunction with the event, Pat Houlton held a night fishing clinic using streamer and mice patterns and some nice fish were caught! Pat suggested a euro nymphing clinic for next year, so keep your eyes open for that. Both outings were a great way to stay in touch with chapter members in the summer months. We offered mentored fishing for individuals wanting some instruction and it resulted in some anglers catching their first trout on a fly! The River Falls Fly Fishing clinic was another success thanks to yet another year of guidance from Mike Alwin. We also did a fly casting clinic at the New Richmond library. I’d also like to give a shout out to all the WiseH2O anglers out there who continue to monitor our area streams all summer long, as well as those who helped Kasey with shocking and fish counting!
The upcoming chapter year will be another busy and fun one. We will kick off September with our open house/gear swap at Rush River Brewery starting at 6 pm on September 7th. Be sure to invite a friend! We will be back at Junior’s on the first Tuesday of the month from October through May. The speaker list is not finalized yet, to talks from Josh Boser on spey casting, Tim Stieber who is the Resource Management Director for St. Croix County, artist and guide Bob White, a summary of stream restoration projects and results of fisheries surveys from Nate and Kasey and the annual banquet. We are also expecting to include a macroinvertebrate update from Kent Johnson and Clarke Garry to answer if our perceived diminishing hatches on the Kinni are real or imagined.
There will be plenty of opportunities to pitch in and make a difference this year of course: Randy’s work days, TIC/BIC, Pheasants Forever Youth Day, Stream Girls and RF Fly Fishing Clinic just to name a few. Be sure to watch for email updates and consider volunteering. You will have fun and make a huge impact! As always, if you have any questions/comments/concerns please email me at driftless23@gmail.com. Looking forward to seeing you at a chapter meeting, volunteer event, and streamside!
Here we go!!! I love this time of year, we have so much going on in the chapter! Randy and our brushing volunteers have been battling the snow storms and winning on Cady Creek. Now is the home stretch to get the project done before the snow is gone and everything dries out. Please lend a hand if you can!
As far as fundraising goes, we sold out of Cunningham painting and Norling rod tickets in a hurry! Thank you! Be sure to check out our online Auction, there is something for everyone and every budget – from $20 to $5000, with over 80 items! The number and quality of the guided trips and fly boxes is truly impressive.
Thanks to all that came out to R4F to cheer on Gary Horvath as he received Fly Fisherman magazine’s Conservationist of the Year award. Simm’s also donated $10K to the chapter in conjunction with the award. That donation has been pledged to be added to the ACOE feasibility study on the Kinni dam removal. Special thanks to the R4F folks for allowing Gary to be honored at their event – it was perfect!
Back to volunteering, we are going to need your help. We are going to need volunteers for Bugs in the Classroom, ECO Day, Earth Day, Trout in the Classroom releases, and others! Watch for emails to sign up, once we have the dates firmed up in April and May.
Finally, I love this time of year because the BWOs will be returning! Looking forward to moving from #24 midges to #18 BWOs!
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!!!
Good news! We will be having a holiday gathering at Junior’s for our December meeting! After not having our banquet at the Lake Elmo Inn for the past couple of years due to Covid, I’m really looking forward to it and hope to see you all there. See the article in this issue for more information.
We will also have chapter awards at the December meeting. Without the banquet, we did awards two years ago during our on/line February fundraiser. Not handing out the awards in person, didn’t feel right, so last year we had awards at our May meeting at Rush River Brewing. That was better, but having me standing on a picnic table, yelling at the top of my lungs to be heard, again left something to be desired. Getting back to our December format will be much better.
Speaking of chapter awards, we have so many great volunteers in our chapter. I hear from many other chapter presidents how impressed they are with how much KIAP-TU-WISH accomplishes. That is all due to our membership and I want to thank all of you for your time and money. We have such hard-working and passionate members. If you haven’t gotten involved in a chapter volunteer activity – why not? There is something for everyone – brushing, Trout in the Classroom, youth days, Stream Girls, grant writing, and stream monitoring to name a few. Tell me what your interests are and I will plug you in with a group. You will have a lot of fun! Trust me! KIAP’s reputation is that of a “doer”. A group that isn’t afraid to get their boots wet or hands dirty – let’s keep it that way!
