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.
Kiap-tu-wish sends our thanks to those who helped cut brush and trees back in October and November to prep for our Greenwood Elementary 4th grade brush burn and, thanks to those volunteers who turned out on event day to supervise the burn and make sure that it went off without a hitch.
This marks the 5th year that we have partnered with Geenwood to provide them with a service learning opportunity for the kids. A big thanks to Greenwood teacher Steve Papp for his efforts to get this program up and running each year. The kids themselves exhibited their usual boundless energy as they picked up the brush and logs and moved them to one of three bonfires which we had going. Event volunteers pictured below are from left to right; John Skelton, myself, Tom Schnadt, Chipo Robinson, Pat Sexton, Mark Peerenboom, Tom Anderson, Trish Hannah, and Ron Reigle.
Volunteers from Kiap-TU-Wish assisted Nate Anderson and his crew with seeding and mulching on three restoration projects this summer. The first was the newly restored stretch of Parker Creek downstream of the Pleasant Ave. bridge. Helping out were James Patterson, Chip Robingson, Dan Wilcox, and Tom Anderson.
In late August we helped out with the newly restored Martin Easement on Plum Creek, immediately upstream of the Von Holtum easement. Volunteers assisting at the Martin easement were Jeff Dahl, Tom Anderson and Dave Gregg.
In mid September volunteers were out again helping with the seeding mulching at the new Moody easement, over 4,000 feet of single bank restoration immediately downstream of the Main Street bridge on the Kinni as you enter River Falls from north. Those helping at the Moody easement were William Doherty, Tommy Doerenbush, and Tom Anderson.
Josh Kucko (WDNR) and I installed “kissing gate” stiles on both the upstream and downstream sides of the bridge at the Gutting easement on the Trimbelle.
Volunteers turned out in late July and early August to help Kasey Yallaly and her crew with their annual shocking surveys of both the Rush and Kinni Rivers. Helping out were Ben Toppel, Chip Robinson, Rainbow Barry, Tom Anderson, Mathew Chaplinsky, David Brockway and Brent OHara.
On Sept. 8th, Loren Hasas, Jeff Himes, Chip Robinson, Ed Constantini, Bob Diesch, John Skelton, Dan Donahue, Sally Noll, Tom Anderson and Cary Wood turned out to help me with this years Pheasants Forever Youth Field Day held at the Game Unlimited hunt club in Hudson WI where we worked with over 50 youth having them each tie a fly, receive fly casting instruction and finally taking a stab at catching a fish at the small lake which is on the club grounds.
I met up with Kasey two weeks ago where we visited sites on the Kinni in need of buckthorn, box elder and other invasive management. We identified the stretch of the Kinni between the Main ST. bridge and the Hwy 35 bridge as a site to use for the 4th grade class at Greenwood Elementary School in River Falls to use as they help us with a brush burn to serve as a service learning project for the 80 some students, teachers and parent chaperones. Cutting will begin there in the coming weeks to prepare enough cut brush for the kids to drag to a burn pile sometime in late November or early December Kasey and I also identified several sites where I plan to go in with volunteers in the coming weeks to do a foliar spray application of herbicide to kill off any buckthorn which has sprouted or was missed during recent restoration efforts on those sites.
Recently I was out today on the South Fork of the Kinni along with Dave Gregg, Tom Anderson, Chip Robinson and John Skelton as we worked to remove a number of really large willow trees which stand way of some upcoming restoration work.
Habitat Update: Activities in Fall through Winter 2023- 2024
This past season I posted MailChimp notices for 33 events encouraging individuals to get involved with boots on the ground habitat related projects. Volunteers participated in 3 seeding/mulching events involving projects on both the Trimbelle River and Parker Creek. We conducted one tree planting day where volunteers helped plant bare root seedling at both Wilson and Cady Creeks. Volunteers turned out to assist the DNR shocking crew at 3 events in August on the Rush, Kinni, and Willow Rivers.
There were 4 different opportunities to work directly with school age children, two Greenwood Elementary School service/learning days where 60-80 3rd grade students turned out with their teachers and adult chaperones to help burn cut brush from a site on Quarry Rd on the Kinni and, just this spring there was the chance to turn out and assist while 50 some Ellsworth High School FFA students and their instructor helped burn brush and slash from box elders on a stretch of the Trimbelle just downstream of the GasLite Bar. One of the FFA students was also a boy scout and he requested that I hold another brush burn for his fellow scouts two weeks later where 5 scouts along with 7 family members and 4 Kiap-TU-Wish volunteers conducted another burn on this same stretch of the Trimbelle.
I held 26 separate brush/tree cutting work days this past calendar year. A lack of snow cover dictated when, where and how we worked. Brush and trees were cut at the Quarry Road. site in the month of October in preparation for the Greenwood event. Following that, we moved our operations upstream on the Kinni and gained access to the north bank through the Patrick Traynor’s property. With the lack of snow cover in December and January, being able to park in Patrick’s outlot and hike and haul equipment the short distance down to the Kinni made life much easier. The lack of snow cover also necessitated the need to bring along a pump to each workday in order to extinguish the fires before leaving. After working at the Traynor location, we moved to the opposite bank gaining access through the handicap fishing pier access.
Further cutting opportunities this past season were at the Red Cabin site on the Kinni, the Trimbelle location downstream of the GasLite and finally on Steeple Drive on the upper Kinni where we got a head start on work which I hope to resume this coming winter.
I did post looking for volunteers to assist with opening blue bird nest boxes in the fall and closing them up again this spring and always found volunteers willing to assist. There are currently 283 individuals who receive my Mail Chimp postings seeking volunteers. Out of that number, 72 turned out to help with at least 1 workday event. On the other hand, there are individuals who are disappointed on the rare weekend when I don’t provide a work opportunity over the winter months. Among those volunteering by name and number of work days were : Jim Tatzel 22, Dave Gregg 20, Tom Anderson 16, Jeff Dahl 14, John Skelton 13, Scott Wagner 11, Steve Cox 10, Matt Janquart 9, Dave Kozlovsky 9, James Patterson 8, Ted Higman 8, Loren Haas 8, and Chip Robinson 7. The highest turnout for any one workday was 16 volunteers. In the pre-Covid years, attendance at workdays was occasionally as high as 30.
I hope to see an increase in the volunteer turnout in the coming year. The DNR no longer has money or manpower in their budget to conduct maintenance work on the multitude of easements which exist. Without volunteer input, these stretches of water would soon become overgrown and a lot harder to access. There are miles of easement which have not seen any attention for years. I’m 71 now and would like to at least make a dent in that before finally having to put my chainsaws out to pasture.
Thank you all for all your hard work this past season.
Greenwood Elementary Service Day 2023: Randy Arnold
What started back in October of last year with six workdays of volunteers cutting buckthorn, honeysuckle, and box elders at a site on Quarry Rd, wrapped up last Friday when 75 students, 15 parent volunteers and the teaching staff of those 3rd graders at Greenwood Elementary School in River Falls showed up at 9:30 in the morning. Their aim was to drag all of the slash from those workdays and place it on three bonfires that had been started about 30 minutes before their arrival.
The volunteers present helping to start the fires and watch over the kids to maintain safety were Jim Tatzel, Dave Gregg, Tom Anderson, David Brockway, Tom Schnadt, Pat Sexton, Dave Kozlovsky and myself. Soon two busloads of students arrived. I gave a brief talk to the Greenwood entourage about safety precautions we asked them to follow.
Half of the students returned to the bus and headed further upstream for a nature walk led by one of their teachers while the other half put on safety glasses and began hauling brush to the two bonfires. I had a gas driven water pump ready as a safety precaution and, on several occasions, I did fire up the pump and pour a little water on one of the bonfires to keep the flames from getting too high. The weather on the days leading up to the event could not have been better, with several days of rain and below average temperatures keeping the fire danger relatively low. This event had been originally scheduled for back in December and then again in early January but was postponed due to bitterly cold temps and a following blizzard. After an hour of moving brush to the bonfires, kids who had been on the nature walk returned and switched places with their classmates. A third bonfire was started just prior to the changeover and, the second wave of kids made short work of the brush which remained.
This is the third time that this event has been held. Chapter member and Greenwood 3rd grade teacher Steve Papp was the driving force behind the creation of this event and the 3rd graders at his school are also participants in the TIC program. This event provides a wonderful opportunity for the kids to connect with and realize how a healthy stream corridor is so important to the survival of trout. In past years Kasey Yallaly and Marty Engel have assisted by leading the kids on the nature walk portion. Both were unavailable this year so the teaching staff took it upon themselves to fill that void. Thank you to all who participated and I look forward to many more years of this very successful program.
