Please note, the chapter meetings will now be on the first Tuesday of the month.
Matt Doth
From Matt:
Born and raised right here in the Twin Cities I started as a child with a devoted passion for everything outdoors. I have spent my entire life hunting, fishing, trapping, camping, and hiking. It has inspired me on hunts in Alaska with my brother for grizzly, to the Northshore of Lake Superior for Minnesota steelhead. From the mountains of Colorado hunting elk, to the Mississippi River, right out my back door for trophy smallmouth bass.All these experiences and trips were done on a working man’s dollar, and all of them Do It Yourself! A lifetime’s obsession for the outdoors and an inner drive for teaching others and giving back inspired me to create Mahigan Outdoors.
My mission is to bring this passion and love of the outdoors to others through hands on experiences. (Ma-he-gan) is the Algonquin word for “wolf”, an animal that is synonymous with leadership, strength, family, community, integrity, and a relentlessness to achieve. For centuries Native Americans have aligned wolves with loyalty, and freedom, and have long regarded wolves as teachers. These are the very things that the foundation of Mahigan Outdoors was built on.
Please note we are now meeting on the first Tuesday of the month.
Juniors River Falls
Dinner at 6 Meeting at 7
Dennis Pratt, President of the Brule River Sportsmen’s Club, will be our speaker at the October 4th meeting of the Kiap-TU-Wish chapter of Trout Unlimited. His presentation will describe in detail the spawning cycle of the Brook Char (Brook Trout) highlighted by his use of underwater videos captured on Wisconsin’s Bois Brule River.
Dennis, a retired DNR fisheries biologist of thirty-seven years, is still actively engaged in fisheries improvement work and leads several volunteer trout habitat efforts each summer on the Bois Brule. Dennis grew up at the mouth of a small trout stream on Lake Superior’s Chequamegon Bay and spent his entire career in the Lake Superior Basin at field stations in Bayfield, Brule and Superior. Hobbies include hunting, fishing, historical fishery research and most recently, trout videography.
Kiap-Tu-Wish Chapter Meeting: Wednesday, September 7th, 5:00 p.m. Rush River Brewing Company 990 ANTLER CT RIVER FALLS WI 54022
Chapter Meeting Social: Pizza, 50/50 card raffle, Door-Prize Drawings and Raffles, Casting for fun, Write-in tip drawing. Paul Johnson flies for sale, Gear Swap (rods, reels, fly tying materials, stream accessories, float tubes), 6:00-8:30 pm.
Hybrid Event – Option for in person or ZOOM (ZOOM link below) Where: Radisson-River Falls/Juniors, River Falls, WI (Best Western is now Radisson) When: March 2nd
6 pm dinner (on your own dime)
7:00 pm – announcements followed by the program
Program: Dry Fly Dick Frantes Open Tying Event (and via ZOOM)!
Observe and ask questions of such KIAP fly tying luminaries as Jonathan Jacobs, Scot Stewart, and others! Otherwise, it is a fun, open tying event for anyone to participate!
Also, fly tier extraordinaire, Scott Hanson, will be tying at Juniors and live via ZOOM!
If you intend to tie, bring your vice, materials, and any extra lighting you require (in which case bring an extension cord).
A word about Dick Frantes, legendary KIAP member for whom our fly tying meeting is always dedicated to, in the words of Jonathan Jacobs taken from the April 2004 issue of RipRap.
Dry Fly Dick
“Dick was an able, ardent and intelligent conservationist who worked hard to stay informed on pertinent issues and to take action on them. He wrote to government officials to urge them to do the right thing. He raised money for conservation organizations. He worked hard for Kiap-TUWish, serving as chapter secretary for four years and as chair of a membership committee for several more. He made it a point to attend TU meetings both here and in the Twin Cities and was a member of the Rush River-Eau Galle Sportsmen’s Club, the Federation of Flyfishers, the Nature Conservancy, the, Audubon Society and the St. Paul Fly Tiers Club as well. And he rounded up fly tiers for our tying meetings, too, which is reason enough to memorialize him every spring. You would do well to pattern your membership in TU after his. You could do worse than to pattern your angling attitude after his, too, because I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who took more pleasure from fishing and I am certain that I’ve never known anyone who more enjoyed displaying the persona of a trout angler. Dick was, by any reasonable definition of the term, a character. It was as if he’d read Robert Traver’s stories of fishing-obsessed souls in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and decided that he ought to replicate that lifestyle here. Then again, perhaps the judge heard of Dick and modeled his motley crew after him. He surely did his best to look the part of a cartoon angler. His standard fishing uniform consisted of a U.S. Postal Service pith helmet (which was heavily festooned with truly godawful looking flies, placed there, I think, to distract fellow anglers from looking at the fly that was at the end of his leader), a khaki shirt with the phrase “Save A Worm’s Life —Fly fish” emblazoned across its back, a vest that Lee Wulff himself might have sewn, and canvas waders with old khaki pants worn over them to protect them from punctures. I never quite figured out what held the pants up, as they were never zipped. This created, at first glance, quite an arresting vision.”
For those not comfortable meeting in person or unable to make the meeting in person, use the ZOOM link below to attend the meeting virtually to watch Scott Hanson tie.
Kiap-TU-Wish is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Dry Fly Dick Frantes Tying Event Time: Mar 2, 2022 07:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Meeting ID: 836 8430 1107 Passcode: 454589 One tap mobile +13126266799,,83684301107#,,,,*454589# US (Chicago) +16468769923,,83684301107#,,,,*454589# US (New York)
Dial by your location +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 646 876 9923 US (New York) +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) Meeting ID: 836 8430 1107 Passcode: 454589 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/ko6xCscGV
For those attending in person. We want to make these meetings as safe as possible for our members. We strongly suggest that you are fully vaccinated and request that you wear a face covering when not eating or drinking. Thanks!
