Chapter Meeting May 2025

by | May 5, 2025 | Chapter Meeting

Chapter meeting: May 6th, 2025

Meeting/presentation starts at 7:00
Network & Dinner at 6:00pm.
Juniors Restaurant & Tap House
414 South Main Street, River Falls, WI
 
Guest Speakers
Kasey Yallaly – WI DNR
Nate Anderson – WI DNR
Senior Fisheries Biologist, Kasey Yallaly, will update us on fish survey results conducted in 2024, and Habitat Specialist, Nate Anderson, will present an overview of 2024 stream restoration projects and plans for future projects.
 
You can stream the meeting on the Kiap-TU-Wish YouTube Channel with the link below!
Subscribe to our channel to be notified of all uploads and access previous content.
Click here for YouTube Channel – Presentation will be live at 7pm

Rip Rap May 2025

by | Apr 29, 2025 | Latest News, Rip Rap


The Drift

Well, I made it through my first year as president of Kiap-TU-Wish. The chapter is still functioning, and I am happy to report that we’ve had many successes this past year. You as members continue to support our mission and our efforts to see it through. Your support is paramount to the chapters success and I personally want to thank each of you for helping to ensure that Kiap-TU-Wish continues to stand out as one of the premier chapters of Trout Unlimited.

When I look to our future I see that our participation and cooperation with our DNR friends will continue to thrive and that we as a chapter must provide them with both financial and volunteer help when the needs arise. Our efforts help enable projects, such as Nate has listed below, to come to be completed successfully. Habitat improvement not only benefits angling opportunities and fish retention but directly impacts our entire community. The stream-easements Kasey has worked so hard to obtain provide positive environmental opportunities for our members and the public. I have a hunch there will be more to come.

Over the summer and throughout this upcoming season I and my fellow board members, will be working very hard to assure you that our chapter will continue to be successful and will be available to help, in any way, the projects that protect the warm and cold water systems in ours and surrounding watersheds.

Have a great season, enjoy our streams, catch lots of fish, and make every adventure a memorable one. 
Suzanne
Habitat Improvement, 2024-2025
By Randy Arnold

Last year I recruited volunteers to help on 31 habitat related project days. Twenty-eight were brush and tree removal, two were for seeding/mulching and one was for tree planting. In addition, volunteers were recruited to assist Kasey’s team with shocking surveys on two days. Volunteers were also recruited by me to staff our booth at the Pheasants Forever Youth Field Day where we demonstrated fly tying, fly casting and fly fishing. 

Brush and tree removal work was done at multiple sites this year. Maintenance brushing was done at both the Red Cabin and Cty Rd. JJ sites on the Kinni where stands of 2–3-year-old buckthorn were cut, and the stumps were treated with herbicide. At the Quarry Rd. site across from the glass blowing studio where we have hosted the Greenwood Elementary service-learning day brush burn the past two years, newly sprouted buckthorn was either cut or sprayed. Volunteers helped in late October and early November to cut and pile brush at the Aldi parking lot site on the Kinni for this past year’s Greenwood brush burn. 
The bulk of our tree and brush removal efforts this past year was at the Steeple Drive site on the Kinni where 14 workdays were held starting in late December through the end of our fiscal year of March 31st. Other sites where brush and tree removal were done included the South Fork of the Kinni where a small crew of volunteers spent 3 workdays removing large willow trees from the streambank in preparation for the installation of more ERO features later this summer by Nate and his crew. Two days were also spent cutting brush and trees from the easement just downstream of the first bridge on Cty Rd. O south of Hwy 10 in preparation for our second year of working with the Ellsworth High School FFA students who turned out to help burn the slash.
 
Both volunteer hours and numbers of participants were down again over the previous year. A total of 53 different individuals attended at least one ‘brushing’ day, down from 73 the previous year. Of those 53 individuals, 32 attended multiple workdays. The box elders and buckthorn on the easements we are responsible for maintaining are growing at a faster rate than what we can do to control them. Hopefully we can increase our habitat volunteer participation in future projects and not get too far behind in our maintenance efforts.

Over 90% of our volunteer opportunities occur after the trout season closes in mid-October and before it resumes in May. I am grateful for the core group of volunteers who turn out week after week to support the work of our chapter, sometimes under less-than-ideal working conditions. I should start to keep a running tally of the number of hot dogs and cookies which are consumed around a bonfire at the end of our workdays. I make no apologies for any effects which it has on volunteers’ waistlines. I tip my hat to them and even occasionally give them some of my favorite dry flies or share my favorite fishing spots.
 
Tree planting recently took place Martin easement on Plum Creek and at the Moody easement on the Kinni. There will be seeding/ mulching opportunities in the coming months at the new Von Holtum easement on Plum, some possible work on the South Fork and a possible chance for involvement on the North Fork of Wilson Creek in Dunn Cty if the Clearwaters TU chapter needs additional volunteers.
I hope to meet many new volunteers during next season’s habitat work.

If you haven’t yet participated, come out and give it a try. I think you will like the feeling of community besides knowing that you’ve done something special that will benefit the entire eco-system that each project encompasses.
Recap of 2024 WDNR Trout Habitat Projects
by Nate Anderson 

I want to give a quick recap of what trout habitat projects took place in 2024 and share the field season plans for 2025. I will be giving a full description of each project along with photos at the Kiap-TU-Wish chapter meeting on May 6th.
 
The Eau Claire habitat crew started the year working at Parker Creek, which was the second and final year of the project. This site is in St. Croix County just northeast of River Falls downstream of Pleasant Ave. We started the season off on May 8th, had 8 rain days while there and finished on July 1st. We were able to complete 8,392 feet of integrated bank treatment while using 7,000 tons of rock. We installed 78 root wads, 3 ERO structures, 13 spawning riffles, 13 rock clusters, 7 rock v-weirs, 3 islands, 19 overwintering deep-water pools, and 4 backwater refuges. Total cost was $172,851.93 or $51 per stream foot.
 
The second project for us was the Plum Creek-Martin easement. This project is south of Plum City along Highway U. The goals of this project were to increase and protect the amount of instream habitat available to trout and thereby increase the number of trout within the project area and increase fishing access and fishability for anglers. Total project length was 2,680 feet of both banks and 911 feet of one bank. We installed 77 root wads, 5 rock V weirs, 1 double ERO, 6 spawning riffles, 3 backwater refuge, 10 mid-stream boulder cluster, 1 island. Total cost was $95,483 or $15.22 per foot. We also installed a new parking lot along HWY U for anglers to be able to park in a safe spot while fishing.
 
Our final habitat project was on the Kinni-Moody easement which is upstream from East Division Street (HWY M) This project is a highly visible and very accessible project due to the location right in the town of River Falls. Access for fishing is from Hwy M bridge. We started August 26th and ended September 24th. This was a very tight location with my crew only working on one side. We used a lot of rock to protect the high bank next to the house. This bank was steeper than we would have liked but were limited on what we could do. There are still a lot of nice Cottonwoods, Bur Oaks and Black Walnuts on site which will make this a very nice-looking project soon. On the upper section of this site, we just added rock to the inside of the bank because the stream was overly wide, and this allowed us to save a lot of nice Black Walnut trees. We spent a lot of time in the track truck making the long hauls but were able to save the trees. We completed 2,700 feet of streambank protection and installed 28 root wads, 1 log spur, 4 spawning riffles, 6 deep pools for overwintering habitat, 5 rock deflectors. Total streambank rocked was 2,685 feet. Total rock used was 4,331 tons or 1.6 tons per foot. 
Total cost was $151,000 or $56 per foot. Total stream length for 2024 was 8,786 feet (1.66 miles) for a cost of $412,408.
 
We were able to do some upland work on South Fork Kinni Fee Title Property. Correct size rock for making ERO’s were delivered to the site this winter, at a cost of $8,200 which KIAP paid for. (Thank You!)  4 Control spraying was applied in the fall to help eliminate unwanted woody vegetation. The total cost to spray the site was $8,054. Pheasant Forever paid $5,000 for the spraying and Kiap paid the remaining balance. Kiap donated $5,000 for equipment use so Josh and Nick spent 68 excavator hours in October and November removing large trees that were too large to spray. Total cost for equipment of was $11,818.57 with $6,818.57 coming from Trout Stamp funds.
 
Our 2025 field season will consist of:
 
Wilson Creek-Manwarren project
Wilson Creek is in Dunn County and just north of Knapp. This is a NRCS partnering project to take an existing ditched section of the North Branch of Wilson Creek and put it back to somewhat the original channel. We were able to work a couple days in October to remove trees and knock down reed canary grass in hopes the site will freeze better. This site is very wet so we wanted to be able to try and work while the ground was frozen. We were able to create the new channel and fill in the old ditch section with the fill from the new channel. This summer, we will add habitat features such as root wads and double wing deflectors. We will do this project during a dry spell this summer and it should take us about a month and a half to finish everything we need to complete.
 
Plum Creek-Von Holtum 2025
This site is in Pierce County south of Plum City on the upper Von Holtum easement. This project will take place upstream of our project last year and the project consist of 4,400 feet of stream length to be completed. The crew removed trees this winter and hauled 7,500 tons of shot rock at a cost of $8.95/ton for a total cost of $67,125. This will be our first project of the year starting sometime the first week of May. It should take us about 2 months to complete.
 
South Fork Kinni ERO building/ 1 week of Feconn work
It was recommended to burn the South Fork of the Kinni property this spring for best management practices on reducing woody vegetation but not having that as a viable option for many reasons, WDNR will borrow a state skid steer with a Feconn head attachment and spend a week of mowing. The Feconn is like a large brush hog that will mulch all vegetation flush with the ground. Any resprout of woody vegetation will be sprayed by 4-Control in the fall. This should give us the advantage of getting the woody vegetation under control.
 
North Branch Wilson Creek Stoll Easement
If time allows this summer, we will start another project on the North Branch of Wilson Creek. This site is an old pasture and is being overtaken by reed canary and tag alders. This section is 1,800 feet of stream length, have good access and help take angler pressure from Wilson and Gilbert creeks. This will be a more typical project with rocking the banks and adding instream habitat for all size structures for trout.
Skips Loose Threads: My Spinning Rods for Trout
Skip’s Loose Threads, Layton James

Boo! Hiss! Spinning rods for trout? Where’s your flyrod? Let me explain.

Over the years, I have fished for trout in places where a flyrod is not the “tool of choice.” My first spinning rod was a 3.1oz number by Shakespeare, 6 ½ feet long, 2-piece, with those white spiral wrapping marks called the Howald process. The catalog called it a “Sporty.” It was part of a pair of light rods, the other being a 6 ½ foot flyrod that weighed only 2.5oz. I still have that one. I had asked for the pair of rods for my 16th birthday, and my dad came up with the spinning rod. I bought the flyrod later with my own money.

With that spinning rod, my boyhood friend Billy White and I caught our first Rainbow trout in a park lake that had been stocked the week before. It also was used for trout in the brook trout streams of New Hampshire, where my former wife’s family lived. It acounted for plenty of fish from the White Mountains streams, particularly the South Branch of the Pemigewassett River. All those fish went for a Number 0 Mepps Aglia spinner with no feathers. The same combination fooled trout in the Big Sur River south of San Francisco.

That rod was replaced later by a Fenwick FS74 in the mid ’80’s. I used to play the harpsichord at a festival in Petoskey, Michigan, for several Summers. That’s on the East side of Lake Michigan, and I needed a rod that would cast far out into the lake to fool the trout. That one was an 8’ 3” two-handed rod that could heave a ¾ oz Little Cleo from here to eternity, it seemed. That rod was just fine for the big browns that were cruising the waters around Ephraim, WI in the Fall. But I found that when Linda and I went up to the North Shore, I needed an even bigger rod for Lake Superior. That was an 8’ 6” two-hander that threw a 1 oz Little Cleo.

All of these rods were equipped with Mitchell reels: a 308 for the lightest, a 300 for the middle one, and a 306 for the biggest. Now don’t get me wrong. To my left, as I sit at my desk, is a Sage 389 fly rod, the original 2-piece version, and a LRH Lightweight Hardy reel loaded with a 3-weight line is within reach. Maybe I’ll request that that rod be added to my casket. Or is that a little too Egyption a request? That sounds like something a Pharaoh would do. 
Views From My Side of the Vise: The Thin Tim
by Paul Johnson

To put this story in the right context, you need to know that I am writing this on an April afternoon sitting in the comfort of my basement fly tying room. I am sitting in my comfortable chair surrounded by my tying materials, photos and other fishing memorabilia. I guess I have had two lives in my lifetime. For most of my life, I was a contributing member of society. In the past couple years, I have become a full time fly fishing bum. I have learned a great deal from both of my lives. I guess I would not be able to enjoy my current life as a bum without my previous life? There has been one constant from my professional / public life and my fly fishing bum life and that is that the best ideas I have ever had were borrowed from someone else. Maybe that is kind of true about all ideas? My newest good idea is a fly that I call the Thin Tim. I borrowed the idea from Walter Wiese of Yellowstone Country Fly Fishing. He calls his fly the Triple Wing BWO. Walter borrowed the idea from Charlie Craven’s Timmy Fly. I am not sure where Charlie came up with the idea. Maybe he borrowed it from someone else as well. This is one of those flies that just seemed to catch my eye when I first watched the video of Walter tying it. I made some slight modifications to the pattern when I started tying them up this spring. I have had the opportunity to fish this fly and I am happy to report to you that the fly seems to catch a trout’s eye just like it did mine. I have been tying the fly primarily on a size 16 emerger hook. You could easily tie it down to size 18 or 20. The fly does ride a little lower in the water so it can be a little challenging to see if you are fishing it in broken water. Hook: Size 16 emerger hook Thread: Olive 70 denier UTC Tail: Mayfly Brown Improved MIcro Zelon Thorax: BWO Superfine Dubbing Wing / Post: Silver Congo Hair Just one helpful tidbit for tying this fly and that is to save yourself extra room between the wing and the hook eye. It is very easy to crowd the eye. I found out the hard way! As always, if you have any questions / comments / suggestions, please feel free to reach out to me. Paul Johnson 
Waconia, Minnesota 
Paulwaconia@gmail.com 
952-334-4688 

Click HERE to watch Paul tie the Thin Tim on his YouTube Channel
Kiap-TU-Wish volunteers help DNR plant trees
By Kasey Yallaly, photos by Tom Schnadt

A group of Kiap-TU-Wish volunteers recently helped Kasey Yallaly and her DNR crew plant trees at the Martin easement on Plum Creek and at the Moody easement on the Kinni.Participants included: Kasey Yallaly, Sam Jacobson, and Dustin Schurrer (WDNR), Chip Robinson, Roy Erickson, Ed Constantini, Ken Hanson, and Tom Schnaudt (Kiap-TU-Wish). 

Kasey says we have been purchasing larger/older seedlings to give the trees more of a head start and to increase survival rates. The goal with most of our tree plantings is to provide future shading to maintain good stream thermals and to provide more diverse terrestrial habitat. We have been planting trees in ways that will eventually provide a savannah type habitat with large “super canopy” trees and a grass understory that can still be maintained by mowing. The Plum Creek planting was a little bit different than what we normally do because we needed to replace some of the landowners privacy trees but in general this is what we try to do accomplish. We usually always provide tree protection in the form of tree tubes or cages which will protect the trees from deer rubbing and browsing until they are large enough to avoid this on their own. We have documented great survival rates for these larger seedlings.

Here is a rundown by species of survival rates for some that we planted on Gilbert Creek.
The overall survival rate was 81%.
Swamp White-76% survival
River Birch-100% survival
Cottonwood-100% survival
Tamarak-67% survival

Kinnickinnic River-Moody Easement upstream of CTH M
45 trees total
12 Swamp White Oak
16 River Birch
8 Bur Oak
5 Hazelnut
5 Silky Dogwood
5 Yellow Birch

Plum Creek-Martin Easement upstream of CTH U
49 trees total
18 White Cedar
13 White Pine
8 Black Spruce
10 White Spruce
Upcoming Events:

1. Chapter Meeting, Tuesday, May 6th. Dinner at 6:00 pm, meeting starts at 7:00 pm. Juniors Restaurant and Tap House, River Falls Wi. Presentations by Kasey Yallaly and Nate Anderson of the Wisconsin DNR.

2. STREAM GIRLS, May 17th, 9:00 am. Ellsworth Rod and Gun Club.

3. BIC/ TIC. Volunteers are still needed for each. Contact rainbowbarry@kiaptuwish.org if you want to participate. To view the volunteer schedule click HERE.

4. Fly Fishing Clinic, Saturday June 7th, 2:00-9:00 pm. If interested in helping with this event, please contact board member, Matt Janquart directly to share availability and volunteer interest. mattjanquart@kiaptuwish.org

Chapter Meeting Cancelled

by | Mar 3, 2025 | Chapter Meeting

Chapter meeting: March 4th, 2025* WHAT…Heavy snow possible. Total snow accumulations between 4 and 8 inches possible. Winds could gust as high as 40 mph. * WHERE…In Minnesota, Washington County. In Wisconsin, Barron, Rusk, Chippewa, Dunn, Eau Claire, Pepin, Pierce, and St. Croix Counties. * WHEN…From Tuesday evening through Wednesday afternoon. * IMPACTS…Plan on slippery road conditions. The hazardous conditions could impact the Wednesday morning commute. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS…Rain is expected Tuesday evening before transitioning over to all snowfall late Tuesday evening to early overnight. The heaviest snowfall is forecast Tuesday night through Wednesday morning.
Peter Jonas will give his presentation at our October 7th, 2025 Chapter meeting!The next chapter meeting will be on April 1st.

Rip Rap – Mar 2025

by | Mar 3, 2025 | Latest News, Rip Rap

The Drift

As spring approaches, I hope all of you fly tyers and fly buyers have filled your fly boxes with your confidence patterns and maybe some unfamiliar ones as well that 
perhaps popped up during a cold winter night when you decided to check out YouTube’s numerous fly-tying channels.
 
As of this writing, the Kinni at River Falls is running at 114 ft3/s with minimal turbidity, and the Rush is running at near normal levels and is slightly off color. Brian at Lund’s Fly Shop reports that midge larva (emergers and dries), winter stone flies (nymphs and dries), small nymphs and scuds, and buggers and small leech patterns are good options to try. My main source tells me that the fish seem to be congregated in the deeper pools and the slower water just off the main flow.
 
I want to thank everyone who continues to volunteer for the buckthorn and box elder removal downstream of the Steeple Drive bridge on the Kinni. Randy is hoping to clear this spot through the end of March. 
 Our fundraising efforts for the auction were very successful. Thanks to all the auction donors for their art, vacation stays, guided trips, gift cards, gear, swag and other fun stuff. The net income for the online auction is $10,560, the 3×100 chance board is $4,820, our Hap Lutter Memorial Appeal as of February is $8,290, and a donation from  Tattersall of $3,000 gives us a total is $26,670. WOW!!!

I want to give a special thanks to the auction committee members: Greg Olson, Ken & Missie Hanson, Michele Bevis, Jeff Himes, Tom Schnadt, Ben Belt and Matt Janquart. The auction requires extensive planning and I am amazed how it all comes together and runs so smoothly. Kudos to you all!

Winners of the 3×100 Chance Drawing:
Sage rod (#19) Gary Horvath,
Debra Kovats Cunningham painting (#68) 
Norling bamboo rod (#47) Ron Kuehn.
Congratulations to the winners and thank you to everyone who bought a ticket(s) for a chance on one of the items. 
 Recently, I met with Kasey Yallaly (WDNR) and Amanda Little, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, to discuss the chapter’s sponsorship of a DNR internship program for students enrolled in Environmental Sciences at the University. A formal agreement between the DNR and Stout is currently being processed to create a DNR gift fund that will provide funding for a summer intern to help Kasey and her team with the many fisheries projects scheduled for this upcoming season. Kiap-Tu-Wish will  be the donor source to the DNR fund. At the February board meeting,  a motion was made and approved to fund up to $6,000 / year for a 3-year period. Any additional donations to the program from outside sources, grants etc., will be used to offset the direct cost to the chapter. 
 Maintenance Committee Items:
Rock for the South Fork of the Kinni project has been delivered at a cost $6,407,
Needs for Plum Creek for grass seed/mulch: $6,000
A proposed mowing budget came in too high. The committee will review the proposal with the WDNR in order to revise the projected mowing costs.

Kiap-TU-Wish board members who are up for re-election:
Gary Horvath, Randy Arnold, Rainbow Barry, and Ben Belt. Please take some time and read their Bio’s below. Elections will take place at the chapter meeting on April 1st. 

Happy Spring, Suzanne

Board Nominees

Randy Arnold


Board Member / Volunteer Coordinator

Randy was raised in Monticello, Minnesota, three blocks away from the Mississippi River. He usurped his father’s fly rod at 10 years old to pursue panfish in any of the lakes he could reach via bicycle.While working in technical theater in the Twin Cities, a coworker related stories of fly fishing in Montana; soon the two of them were exploring trout fishing options in the metro area. A visit to a local south Minneapolis fly shop steered them to western Wisconsin where Randy saw the chapter’s positive impact on the streams in and around River Falls. He joined the chapter and his now the passionate leader of the Kiap-TU-Wish volunteer workday crew. He enjoys fishing, but also enjoys the time spent working on stream restoration efforts.
Ben Belt 
    
Active TU member since 2016. Live on a small farmette in Arkansaw, WI with my wife Valerie and our three sons, Huxley (8), Sawyer (6), and Moby (5). I try not to give them all fly rods at the same time in the same boat. My passions include letting the boys be boys, guiding them in the right direction (fishing of course), and on occasion, finding time to soak a fly with a friend or two. Typically I focus on trout, musky, and bass. But very much opportunistic when a bite is on no matter the species. Time on the bench is limited but sometimes a necessity. I’m looking forward to meeting you all and encouraging our youth to participate and finding good mentors to keep the chapter and sport going strong. Thank you for your continued support within the chapter.
Rainbow Barry 


Board Member / Education Coordinator   
I initially learned to love water in the lake country of Oneida and Vilas County, Wisconsin.  But after moving to River Falls in 2006, I became enamored with the Kinnickinnic and its tributaries.  My husband persuaded me to stop looking under rocks and try fly fishing a few years back.  Finding new pockets of trout in headwater streams is a wonderful addition to my natural wanderlust. Environmental education has driven my vocational pursuits. I have led ecological restoration parties at the UW-Madison Arboretum and studied aquatic ecology on the front range of the Colorado Rockies.  More recently, I ran a small, organic CSA farm and I am now a Children’s House (Kindergarten) teacher at the River Falls Public Montessori Elementary.  As an employee with the River Falls School District, I hope to expand on opportunities to educate and engage youth in our outstanding coldwater resource, especially children who would not otherwise have access to these experiences.  I am also an enthusiastic participant in Kiap TU Wish’s on-stream work including restoration work days and water monitoring with the Wise H2O app.  Looking forward to meeting and working alongside more of our dedicated and knowledgeable chapter members!
Gary Horvath


Treasurer
Gary spent his most memorable times as a kid in the outdoors with his father wading wet as they fished the Jump, Yellow and Fischer Rivers near his grandmothers’ farm in Taylor County. He attended the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point where he received a B.S. in Water Resources/Chemistry. He was introduced to trout fishing in the streams of the central sands west of Point.He worked on his first stream improvement on the Little Plover River, which is currently ravaged by groundwater withdrawals. In 1985, he took a job as a chemist at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture analyzing groundwater for pesticide residues. Gary moved to River Falls and has been active with the chapter since 1989 serving in all officer positions including 5 years as President.

Stream Highlight: Isabelle Creek

by Kasey Yallaly
The Baldwin area DNR fisheries crew completed a watershed survey of the Isabelle Creek watershed in 2023. Watershed surveys are basically a comprehensive look at the fishery within the entire watershed and valuable information can be gained from these types of surveys including interactions between the mainstem of Isabelle Creek and its tributaries, areas of importance for natural reproduction, trout species composition throughout the watershed and size structure and densities of trout and non-game species. I have received many inquiries about Isabelle Creek after the large fish kill occurred in 2022 so hopefully this article will give folks a good update on how the stream is recovering. Isabelle Creek is little gem of a stream with its watershed sandwiched in between the Trimbelle and Rush River watersheds. The stream flows south from Ellsworth and enters Lake Pepin in the town of Bay City, WI. Most of the stream features high gradient limestone riffles and pools with the stream flowing through a picturesque valley like its neighboring streams in Pierce County. Access to the stream is mostly limited to bridge crossings, of which there are many, other than 2 DNR easements. The northernmost easement on Isabelle is located upstream of the Esdaile town park at the intersections of CTH EE and 620th Street. This easement is only on the east side of the stream from the town park up for a few hundred yards at which point it becomes easement on both banks. There is some nice water and trout within this reach of stream. The lowermost easement is located just outside of Bay City, and it can be accessed from STH 35. There is a distance between the highway and the easement that is not public access on the banks. Otherwise, there are many stream crossings off 620th Street and at CTH EE that provide great access.

During the survey, brown trout were found at all stations that were sampled one year post fish kill. The 2 upstream-most stations were located within the area directly impacted by the fish kill and brown trout were found in low densities within this area, but evidence of limited natural reproduction was found. The uppermost station at CTH V revealed mostly yearling brown trout that were likely the result of the restoration stocking that occurred in the fall of 2022 after the kill. The fish kill did not impact the area downstream of the 4th  bridge crossing (as you are moving downstream or south) off 620th Street and this was apparent in our surveys based on the status of the trout population. Brown trout densities within this reach of stream were high and fish were found up to 18 inches and natural reproduction was strong. Our trend site, which is located along CTH EE downstream of Esdaile, has documented a steady increase in brown trout densities for almost a decade. Stocking was also previously needed to supplement the fishery in the Class II section, but stocking ceased in 2018 in order to evaluate the fishery. Because of this increase in densities and natural reproduction within the mid and lower reaches of the stream, the current Class II portion of stream will be reclassified to Class I and the Current Class III section will become Class II during the next reclassification cycle. We will continue to monitor the recovery of the fishery within the impacted area in 2025 but barring no future fish kills, the fishery should continue to recover nicely. See you on the stream!

Another Leader

By Mike Alwin

There are billions and billions of trout fly patterns out there. You can walk into any fly shop on this continent and buy an Adams. And if you look long enough, you’ll probably find a pattern you’ve never heard of and never seen before. Buy one, it might work. If it doesn’t, there’s always that Adams to fall back on. If an Adams will work, why is there such a dizzying array of patterns? Now the cynic will tell you that if you publish a magazine article about the next big deal fly, you’ll make a few bucks on the article and gain yourself a slice of fame, but there’s more to it than that.
 
There are two other factors involved. One is the inherent creativity of our species, and the other is our perceived need for an improvement. Bob Mitchell once said, “The reason you tie your own flies is because that way you get exactly what you want.” Tying your own flies is one of the adjustments you make to further your success on the trout stream. If you’re fishing a dry fly, there are two adjustments you can make: change flies and change the tippet. If you’re fishing nymphs there are three adjustments you can make: change flies, add or subtract weight, raise or lower the strike indicator.
  
When I started trout fishing in the early 70’s, short of money, I bought one leader and a spool of tippet material. How do you think that worked out? Like everyone else I gradually added longer leaders and more spools of tippet material, trying to adjust. I also spent a lot of time at the kitchen table practicing knot tying. That skill came in handy when I bought a copy of JOE HUMPHREY’S TROUT TACTICS and became semi-obsessed with his leader formulas. He had leaders for dry flies, nymphs, streamers and wet flies, all of which were designed for various conditions. So, I bought a leader wallet and filled it with leaders for the specific situations I envisioned for myself. They all worked, but I got tired of retying the dry fly leaders. Now most people don’t carry around a dozen leaders like that. Most people buy a leader and shorten or lengthen it to fit the situation. One of my friends, nameless, said I was crazy; I prefer to think of myself as thoughtfully engaged.
  
Tying your own leaders is one more adjustment you can make to further your success, but you don’t have to carry a leader wallet to make these adjustments. Several years ago, Gary Borger published an article about his latest leader design he called the Uni-Body Leader. I honestly don’t know why it took me a decade to screw around with it but two years ago I succumbed. Warning: it is unorthodox. Here is the formula.
48” — .020”     12” — .013”     48” — .010” 

I made only two modifications to this formula. I substituted 20 lb Amnesia for the butt section and I attached a tippet ring at the end of the .010” material. You can tie the entire Uni-Body with whatever nylon you like; I used the amnesia because I like its visibility. The tippet ring allows you to modify the tippet without chopping up the Uni-Body. To fish a nymph or streamer you can add just a foot or so of tippet material of the appropriate diameter. To fish a dry fly or swing a wet fly you can add a couple feet of your favorite tippet material. You might be bewildered like I was at the radical nature of this design, but it turns over well and serves almost any function you can imagine.

Tying and Fishing the Goddard Caddis

by Jonathan Jacobs 
Until recently I had not much employed the dry/dropper technique. Rigging these setups is challenging and fishing them effectively is a skill I’ve been slow to develop.  There are so many intriguing caddis emerger patterns out there, however, that it seemed prudent to figure out some way to use them. Trailing an emerger from twelve to eighteen inches behind a high-floating dry seemed worth a shot. The choice of an emergent pupa was easy; I wanted to try Charlie Craven’s Caddistrophic Caddis Pupa.  Choosing the dry proved tougher. I settled on the Goddard caddis. It’s both buoyant and visible. I like to fish with flies I’ve tied, so I set about learning to tie it. The process proved daunting.  I watched two YouTube videos, one by Tim Flagler and one by Charlie Craven., which proved invaluable and I strongly encourage you to watch both. Mr. Flagler produces fine instructional videos, but overall, I found Mr. Craven’s more helpful. Here are the tying instructions that I worked up for my own reference after gleaning all I could from the videos and tying several flies, followed by some additional musing:  

·       Hook: 3769 Tiemco, size 14 (Heavy wire nymph hook used to withstand
        thread pressure) 
·       Thread: Semperfli Nano Silk, 50D black body, 8/0 Uni olive for dubbing and to
        finish  the fly 
·       Body:  Select cow elk from Blue Ribbon Flies 
·       Hackle:  Brown, preferably slightly undersized 
·       Dubbing: Ice Dub olive brown 

Start the Nano Silk two eye lengths back of the hook eye. Wrap to above the hook barb, forward to the starting point and back to the hook barb. Apply a very small amount of cyanoacrylate glue where the thread is hanging.  Bind down a cleaned, stacked and trimmed (hair tips removed bundle of cow elk with the tip ends forward.  Hold the hair until glue sets. Carefully wind the thread forward through individual hairs. This will cause the hair to stand up. Center the working thread over the uncovered portion of the base thread. Use a half hitch tool to push the leading edge of the hair vertically and take a few wraps of thread at that point. Clean, stack and trim another bundle of elk hair. Center the thread on the bundle and use a spinning technique. Once the hair is secure, take a few half hitches while using a half hitch tool to keep hair out of the way. Cut the tying thread. Remove the hook from the vise and while holding the fly by the hook eye with pliers, briefly run it through the steam jet from a tea kettle. This will cause the hair to “spring,” making it easier to trim. Go through the arduous process of trimming the elk hair with a fresh double edged razor blade. Grasp the fly between thumb and finger to trim the tail to length, using the arc of the thumb as a guide. Place the hook back in the vise and start the Uni thread. Tie in a hackle with the quill stripped back about a quarter inch. Dub the head, finishing with the thread at the hook eye. The hackle should be dull side forward. Take a turn or two of hackle through the tip of the body and then make tight turns through the dubbing, capture the hackle and tie off.

The heavy-gauge hook, the Nano Silk and the cow elk are keys to tying this fly successfully.  Standard dry fly hooks bend under the pressure required to properly seat the hair. The Nano Silk thread is very fine which, as Mr. Craven points out (He uses 30 denier thread while I chose 50 denier), is easier to guide through the hair.  I tried using Primo Deer as Mr. Flagler suggested. It’s great for flies like the X-Caddis, but the strip I have had hair that seemed too fine for this application.  You’ll find that determining how much hair to use is literally a matter of cut and try.  If you use too little, the fly will be sparse and not sufficiently buoyant. If you use too much, you will encounter difficulty in locking down the spun portion of the body and are likely to cut through thread when trimming the fly.  A brand-new double-edged razor blade will get you through a few flies, but be prepared to replace it.  Lastly, do not add antennae, as is often suggested. It’s painful to do correctly and the stiff fibers inhibit hooking fish.
 
I fish this dry/dropper upstream in riffles to beneficial effect and have so far found the two flies equally effective. To date I have tied the tippet material for the pupa to the hook bend. That has worked well, but I am going to try tying the Goddard caddis to the main tippet while leaving a very long tag end on the knot, to which I will tie the pupa. That may produce a more natural looking drift for the dry fly.
 Editors Note: If you want to learn more about caddis, Jonathan has an excellent video on his YouTube channel where he explains the life-cycle of the caddis and shows caddis fly patterns that imitate each stage of their cycle. I encourage you to check it out at the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in3Lm6wSZPY

Views From My Side of the Vise:

By Paul Johnson

If you do an internet search for Parachute Blue-Wing Olive (BWO) dry flies you will find pages upon pages of results. It is the same on YouTube. I am not sure if there is a fly pattern out there with more variations. A couple of these variations have earned a permanent place in my Driftless fly boxes. My main go-to baetis dry flies are the BWO Special (from a previous column), the Purple Haze Special (for a future column) and the subject of this article, the Parachute BWO. I guess the best way to describe my Parachute BWO creation process might be to take a bunch of the many available BWO patterns, toss them into a blender and see what comes out. Some of the features of this fly are the same as most others, but not all of them. Here are the components that I put together to make this fly. 

1. I like to use an emerger-style hook in size 16 to 20. The emerger hook gives the fly a nice profile, leaning towards a Klinkhammer look.
2. On this fly, I prefer to use Mayfly Brown Zelon for the tail, aka the shuck. This material is the perfect color with just enough sparkle or sheen.
3. For the abdomen I use a stretchy floss. For the most part, I have been using Bug Legs from Fly Tyers Dungeon. However, there are lots of similar products available such as Span Flex that work just as well. I like this stretchy floss because it gives the abdomen a subtle segmented look like you would get with biots or quills, but is much easier to work with.
4. Pretty much any hydrophobic material works great for the parachute post. I like to use white, but you can use whatever color works best for you, i.e., is easiest to see on the water. 
5. The thorax uses just a touch of BWO Superfine Dubbing to clean up around the parachute post.
6. The hackle collar is medium dun rooster hackle. I will oversize the hackle (measures larger on my hackle gauge than the hook size) and make 5 or 6 wraps of it. The extra turns of hackle really help to float this fly.During our local spring and fall baetis hatches I will typically start with my BWO Special. However, in faster water or poor light conditions I will switch to the Parachute BWO to make it a little easier for me to see the fly on the water. 

Hook: Emerger hook, size 16 to 20 
Thread: 14/0 Olive 
Shuck: Mayfly Brown Improved Zelon 
Abdomen: Olive Bug LegsParachute
Post: Congo Hair 
Thorax: BWO Superfine Dubbing 
Collar: Medium Dun Rooster Hackle 

Give this pattern a try this spring and let me know what you think! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Paul Johnson 
Waconia, Minnesota 
Paulwaconia@gmail.com 
Watch Paul tie this pattern on his YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3nXGyLRrE0

A Band Aid Approach

By Jonathan Jacobs
 
The paragraph below, with light editing, accompanied the photos in a post I made on social media.  Judging by the reactions it generated there, folks found it interesting.  The editor of RipRap thought its readers might enjoy it and asked me to send it along for publication. Writing it brought back fond memories for me but when I re-read it, I thought people might find it either interesting or incongruent that an Iowa farm kid somehow connected with fly tying and fly fishing or might wonder how Minnesota fit into the picture.

The Iowa/Minnesota component is easy to explain: When I was young my family lived on a farm deep in the Corn Belt, miles from any kind of fishable water, but we rented a cabin for a week on a little lake in central Minnesota in late summer for several years before my parents sold the farm and bought a classic lakeside tavern/boat rental/cabin rental operation there. That’s where I did my fishing, but the roots of my interest in fly fishing are more complicated and are something I’ve had to think about.

For one thing, in my time on the farm I had unfettered access to the outdoors before large scale, full-on industrial agriculture took over. There was a little creek on the property that ran through a sliver of abandoned pasture, low ground that hadn’t been fitted with drainage tile. There were only minnows in the creek, but interesting flora and fauna abounded and being “out there” inculcated in me an intense interest in the natural world. I think that being outdoors was the thing that my father liked best about farming, too.  

My father had a brother, my Uncle Leonard, who with his wife, my treasured Aunt Luella, farmed just a few miles from my family and we spent a great deal of time with them. Like my father and me, Uncle Leonard loved to read. He subscribed to several magazines, including the old-fashioned “hook and bullet” magazines like Sports Afield, and some general interest magazines, too, and I had access to them.I read every word of those magazines, and I found articles about trout fishing in the outdoor magazines mesmerizing. Even the mass-market magazines occasionally had articles that would get me dreaming.  One of them, either Life or Look – I don’t know which – did multi-page pieces complete with glorious color photographs on trout fishing in the Catskills and on fly fishing for Atlantic salmon. One of those articles included a photograph of a Silver Doctor, an old-fashioned showy wet fly, and I recall thinking that someday I would tie my own Silver Doctor and use it to catch a fish. That hasn’t happened yet, but I continue to hang on to the dream. 

        
 
Another member of the group recently posted a picture of their first fly tying vise. Here’s mine. It was part of a portable kit my father made for me at least sixty-five years ago after I saw an article about it in Boys’ Life magazine. It required a hardwood dowel, which we didn’t have out on the farm in Iowa where we lived at the time, so Dad cut the handle off one of my mother’s wooden cooking spoons, which pleased her not at all.

To assemble the kit, you placed the short dowel, which was center drilled, into the band-aid tin in the appropriate position and passed a nail (The nail is long gone, the screw is a modern replacement) through the hole. You then placed the longer section of dowel, the one with the slot cut in it, atop that. The longer dowel had a slot cut down it and a screw and wing nut through it. Tightening the wing nut closed the “jaws.” It actually held moderate-sized hooks pretty well. Hooks came from the hardware store and materials were things I mostly scavenged with some of them coming from my mother’s sewing supplies.  Along with the vise components, the hooks and materials were stored in the Band Aid tin.  I tied some flies that, while crude, caught sunfish in a little lake in Minnesota. That little kit set me on quite a path.

Shakey Beeley

Shakey Beeley
by Ken Hanson

The Shakey Beeley was named after a Yellowstone National Park ranger that was known to fish the Madison in the park. A detailed story of this pattern can be found in “Fly Patterns of Yellowstone volume two” by Craig Matthews and John Juracek of Blue Ribbon Flies in West Yellowstone, MT. 

The pattern as we know it today was created by Blue Ribbon guide Nick Nicklas. Nick tied the fly on a #12 DaiRiki 280 a curved hopper hook. A TMC 2312 or equivalent will work fine. 
Like a lot of western flies I fish with, I’ve found the Shakey Beeley to work extremely well in our local waters. With the contrasting colors and flash, brook trout go nuts for it. I also tie it in purple. 

Hook DaiRiki 280 hopper or TMC 2312 #12
Thread: Brown
Tail: Dyed Mallard and Yellow Krystal Flash
Body: Yellow Haretron or Awesome Possum 
Rib: Brown Spandex
Thorax: Orange Ostrich Herl
Hackle: Hungarian Partridge and Yellow Krystal Flash

A couple tricks:
1. When tying in the Krystal Flash for the tail, leave some facing forward to be used later to use as flash just behind the hackle.
2. Before tying in the partridge soft  hackle, stroke the forward facing Krystal Flash back and wrap a few turns of thread surrounding the hook with flash.
3. Tie the partridge feather in at the stem and utilize some of the webby barbules to add a little bulk. This is not a sparse fly.

You can see Nick Nicklas tie this fly HERE. Tim Flagler does another nice version HERE.

Upcoming Events:

Upcoming Events:

1: Chapter Meeting, Tuesday, March 4th (weather permitting). Dinner at 6:00 pm, Dinner at 7:pm. Juniors Restaurant and Tap House, River Falls Wi. Presentation by Paul Jonas “What’s the deal with aquatic organism passage?”

2: Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo, March 21-23, Hamline University, Saint Paul Minnesota

3: Chapter Meeting, Tuesday, April 1. Dinner at 6:00 pm, Dinner at 7:pm. Juniors Restaurant and Tap House, River Falls Wi. Annual Business Meeting and selection of Board Members. 

4:  Chapter Meeting, Tuesday, May 6th. Dinner at 6:00 pm, Dinner at 7:pm. Juniors Restaurant and Tap House, River Falls Wi. Presentation by Kasey Yallaly and Nate Anderson of the Wisconsin DNR

Chapter Meeting – Mar 2025

by | Feb 27, 2025 | Chapter Meeting

Chapter meeting: March 4th, 2025
Meeting/presentation starts at 7:00
Network & Dinner at 6:00pm.
Juniors Restaurant & Tap House
414 South Main Street, River Falls, WI

What’s the Deal with Aquatic Organism Passage?
Presented By Peter Jonas


As partnership specialist for Trout Unlimited’s Driftless Area Restoration Effort (TU-DARE), Peter Jonas helps anglers, farmers, resource professionals, environmentalists, educators, students, and government officials work together to heal watersheds.
   
I have developed experience and expertise in recruiting partners, community building, public speaking and grant writing in his prior work as an ordained minister and as a founding member of RUTH—Rural Unity through Hope, a community organizing coalition. 
  
I am a life member of Trout Unlimited and has served on the boards of the Southern Wisconsin and Wisconsin Clear Waters Chapters.  Recently, he has worked to secure support and funding for stream restoration projects in Buffalo and Trempealeau Counties.   
 
Peter also enjoys participating in stream days with middle and high school students, being a fishing buddy and facilitator forReel Recovery, a program that offers cancer survivors an opportunity to learn to fly fish in a transformative community. 
 
Peter and his wife Kary live in Eau Claire, WI.  They have three adult children.


Program
The Driftless Area Restoration Effort is in the process of gathering data about the size and condition of stream road crossings throughout the Driftless Region.  Why is this data important, and how does work on fish passage complement our ongoing stream restoration efforts?


The Footsteps we walk in—the paths we help others make: Being mentored and Mentoring in Outdoor Life and Conservation
Who taught you how to fish?  Who were the people that helped you embrace a conservation ethic?  How have you passed this way of life on to others?  Peter Jonas will explore mentoring and being mentored in an time of storytelling and reflection on the place of fly fishing in the quest to become truly human 




Peter Jonas
Trout Unlimited
Driftless Area Partnership Specialist
Eau Claire, WI
608-323-2006
peter.jonas@tu.org


Click Here for YouTube Channel – Presentation will be live at 7pm