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| The Drift: Now that we are in “tying season,” if you haven’t already, given John Gierach’s article in the latest issue of TROUT magazine, “A Quaint and Harmless Hobby”, a look. John writes when he first started to tie flies “The way I saw it, dabblers, dilettantes and the idle rich bought their flies over the counter, while serious and self-reliant fly fishers tied their own, and like all novices, I wanted to be one of the cool kids.” As the year 2024 ends, I hope everyone has had a wonderful time celebrating the holiday season with family and friends or however you chose to celebrate during this time. Now that winter is setting in, we can take some solace in the fact that the winter catch and release trout season will begin on January 4th . My recent review of the long-range weather forecast, however, tells me that the first two weeks of the month are going to be bitterly cold so you hearty souls might have to exercise a bit of patience before wetting a line. Firstly, I want to thank everyone for your volunteer hours and commitment to our goals and mission for stream and habitat restoration, stream monitoring and youth education programs. Following submission of the required Annual Activity Report to TU National, I received a call from Quentin Collins, Director of TU Volunteer Operations. Quentin relayed to me his thanks for all the great work our chapter has done over this past year. He commented that Kiap-TU-Wish bubbles to the top in many conversations at TU National. Our Annual Holiday and Chapter Awards Banquet on December 3rd was a huge success and was attended by 70 members and spouses. Chris Silver provided entertainment for 2 hours and his music added much to the event and was enjoyed by all. As a follow-up to the event we conducted a survey to get a sense of how the banquet was received by our members. The banquet committee has reviewed all survey responses, the majority of which were very positive. Any negative issues will be responded to during the planning of the 2025 banquet. I want to extend a special thank you to committee members Greg Olson, Mike Alwin, Matt Janquart, and Allison Jacobs. Thanks to some excellent writing and dedication by our chapter board members, the Kiap-TU-Wish Chapter was awarded an “Embrace A Stream (EAS)” grant from TU National in the amount of $7,500 for our stream restoration project on the South Fork Kinnickinnic River. We had the opportunity through this grant to raise additional funds and earn an added reward for our fundraising efforts. Our EAS Challenge campaign brought in $1,650 from our donors. TU National donated $1,250, for a grand total $10,400. Thanks to everyone. Fund-raising efforts are currently in full swing with the Hap Lutter Memorial Fund. In late January/early February, we will be conducting an on-line auction coupled with a 3×100 chance offering that will feature a Norling 5wt bamboo rod, an original painting by Josh Cunningham, and a Sage fly rod. Ticket sales will start in January. Watch for an announcement kicking off these events. Suzanne |
The Drift – Jan 2025
