Rip Rap May 2025
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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 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |