august 2013A Monthly Publication of the Hiawatha Chapter of Trout Unlimited

HiawatHa tu Board

• Presidents Message • UpComing Meetings/Events

• Stream Project Updates • Candlelight Dinner a Success!

• Secretaries Report • If You Go

PRESIDENT Carl Berberich cberberic@gmail.com 507-951-2916

VICE PRESIDENT Seth Knight sethoro@gmail.com 931-434-2694

SECRETARY Frank Angelotti angelofw10@gmail.com 507-289-1688

TREASURER Dave Hansen 507-281-3561

EX OFFICIO Scott Steffens scott@mntu.org 507-398-2500

WEBMASTER Vince Robichaud vincer40@yahoo.com

MEMBERShIP COORDINATOR Phil Pankow, NTLC Liaison pankow.phil0615@gmail.com 507-208-4410

hABITAT COORDINATOR Ray Ricketts wudcanu@yahoo.com 507-282-2666

YOUTh & EDUCATION ChAIR Monica Willits monica@readmywalls.com 507-281-2536

WOMEN’S INITIATIVE ChAIR Marlene Huston mjkhuston@gmail.com 507-208-5013

NEWSLETTER EDITOR Phil Pankow/ Deb Angelotti angelottiink@gmail.com

hTU BOARD MEMBERS AT LARgE Mike Carpenter mikecarpenter@charter.net

Paul Krolak pkrolak@gmail.com

From the PresidentWe are entering the dog days of summer and this starts me thinking about how tough the fishing will get. Everyone has a favorite fishing spot/location/hole and I’m no different than anyone else. I do like to try new water now and then, but when the wild parsnip is ten feet tall, exploring is not necessarily a

good idea. My advice is to take care and watch out for ticks.

We finally had our candlelight dinner for four on Trout Run. The dinner was an item that was auctioned off at our spring fund raiser. Marlene and Tom Huston hosted the dinner at their Trout Run cabin. Tom and Trish Hannah cooked a gourmet meal featuring cedar plank grilled salmon. Frank Angelotti was the bartender, Sean Engel was the waiter and I took the busboy duties. Phil Pankow was the chauffeur and Monica Willets was the photographer. Fine food, good company and a very good time was had by all.

Out last event in July was a habitat field day conducted by Ray Ricketts, Jeff Hastings, John Lenczewski, and Paul Krolak. This was at our project waters on Cold Spring Brook. It was attended by county agents from Olmsted, Goodhue, Winona, Wabasha and Dakota Counties. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and numerous landowners also attended. Thanks to all for making this a success.

For our next major event we are in the planning stages for the 2013 Driftless Ren-dezvous. This will be on September 13th - 15th and will be held at the Eagle Cliff campground. The campground is on the Root River, between Lanesboro and Whalen. There will be plenty of camping space, but very limited rooms available. We will post more information on the TU website as soon as it is available. It looks like we will be having a hog roast again and I hope to see you all there.

Tight Lines

CarlSCENES FROM THE CANDLELIGHT DINNER photos by monica willits

up coming events/meetings

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AUGUSTSun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

UP COMINg MEETINgS August 5th, 2013: HTU Meeting, 6:30 - 9:00 pm: Tom and Marlenes’ Cabin on Trout Run. Brats, dogs and fixings plus pop and water will be served and there will be time to fish afterward. Bring your gear and good cheer!

UP COMINg EVENTS Veterans Family Picnic & Fly Fishing Extravaganza, August 10th 2013: 10 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. Sylvan Park@Lanes-boro, MN. I hope many of you can attend. It’s good to see you on the streams!Driftless Rendevous, September 13th-15th 2013: Eagle Cliff Camp-ground.

check hiawathatu.org for more information

HTU BOD Meeting 7:00 pm

Newsletter Meeting 6:00 pm

HTU EDU Meeting 7:00 pm

HTU Meeting 7:00 pm

Work is over halfway complete on Cold Springs Brook. The upper portion near the County bridge has a few additions to be done but otherwise, it is complete. The middle section below the large spring should be completed by the end of July, with seeding and hydromulching being the major work left in that segment. The bottom segment just above MN 60 will then be the only part left of the original plan.

Additional funding has been received that will allow us to do habitat improvement on the DNR’s reference reach -- the 1300 feet just below our middle section. This ad-dition will make the entire stream one continuous project except for a short uneased segment just below the County bridge. There have been several reports of good fishing on the new work but time will be the best judge of fishing quality. The water temp this week well below the feeder spring was 54 degrees with clean water and a good deal of self-scouring already taking place.

HTU and TUDARE hosted a field day on Cold Springs Brook for SEMN county SWCD and NRCS representatives and area landowners and found them to be an interested audience. Their comments and feedback were positive and several landowners were interested in how to obtain an angling easement on their property. Once the project is finished, we might plan a follow up field day to give people a better idea of the total work done on this stream.

HI work began on Mill Creek this past week with in-stream excavation taking place and the needed bank hide (skyhook) structures being built. This should be a 6 week construction project that is the first of three segments of Mill Creek that will eventu-ally join with the work the DNR performed in Chatfield several years ago. The next segment is currently being designed and should be constructed next year.

Requests for design bids for Camp Creek and the last segment of Pine Creek have been sent to qualified firms and their bids are pending. This should allow us to see the work on Pine Creek completed in the 2014/2015 construction period.

Hiawatha Trout Unlimited (HTU) Stream Work and Other Projects by Ray Ricketts

Candlelight Dinner at Hustons Cabin a Success!

Veterans Family Picnic & Fly Fishing.

Lanesboro, MN

At the 2013 Hiawatha Trout Unlimited annual banquet we auctioned off a dinner for four at the cabin of Tom and Marlene Huston on Trout Run. They graciously allowed us to enjoy the beauty and peaceful setting of their cabin to treat a foursome to a streamside dinner. This lucky four-some will be treated to a chauffeured ride to and from the cabin, a home-made meal including wine and can-dlelight, then more wine and dessert. We hope the experience works out well enough to do it again next year. Don’t forget our annual banquet is typically held in April.

continued on next page

We passed no formal motions in our July board meeting. But we had a lively dis-cussion.We discussed trout in the classroom , which is coming along nicely. There may be a delay in getting trout eggs but not enough to endanger the program.There was discussion about purchasing new equipment for some of our HI work. We are still in the planning and experimentation stages and haven’t developed a concrete list of tools that we wish to purchase. This is ongoing.The decision was made that we should have everyone who attends HI work or other events sign a photo release so we won’t get into any trouble with photos in the newsletter.We brought up a past motion regarding spending money to help landowners with projects in watersheds that we are interested in improving. To our recollection we authorized $2000 max per project and $5000 max per year on the program.\There will be HI work in August. Keep an eye out if you are on our mailing list. HI projects are too weather related to plan solidly. There is a Veterans picnic that we will help out with on Aug. 10 in Sylvan park in Lanesboro.The next big HTU event is the driftless Rendezvous Sept 13-15.The big Driftless Sports and Outdoors Show in Rochester “The Glacier Stops Here” has been moved from Aug to Dec 6/7.

Frank Angelotti, HTU secretary

If you’ve ever cast a line and snagged a fly on overgrown weeds and grasses on a trout stream you love to go to, then you fish trout streams in the summer like I do. It’s not that they’re impos-sible to fish, just a lot more challenging. I consider myself a thrifty fly fisherman like most and I’m Ger-man, raised Lutheran, and a native Minnesotan from Rochester. So when I hook a fly I spent time and money on to make, I hate losing them. So out of pure frustration, I stumble over to the offending weed and unhook my fly, all the while scaring the crap out of any fish within a 200 foot radius of me. Then I cuss, mostly at myself (but loud enough for anyone within earshot to hear me) and wait for a while or get out of the stream and head to a new part of the stream and start all over again. It doesn’t always go that way for me, and I’m certain hardly anyone else out there has ever experienced this same problem, so I offer an alternative. A very good friend and fellow fly fisher, Mike Carpenter, fly fishes for smallmouth bass in the bigger Root and Zumbro River systems. It cuts down most, but not all, the frustrations and smallies are heartier fish that can stand higher temperatures compared to trout. Trout are tolerant up into the 50s and not much higher as bass can stand temps into the mid 60s range and sometimes higher.

If you go, Mike suggests using 5 to 7 weight rods with floating weight forward lines. A sinking tip can be used, but the rivers in Southeast Minnesota, unless flowing fast and heavy after a good rain, don’t justify them. With bass, a level line leader is just fine. Bass aren’t as leader shy so you don’t have to worry about a delicate presentation. Bass cue in on noise, so make a splash. The one thing Mike suggests is to be mindful of accuracy. Try 10lbs. Trilene mono. You can keep your leaders shorter than you do for trout and longer casts with a heartier leader helps get your heavier flies out there.

FLIES yOu SHOuLD CONSIDER: Sub-surface: Clouser Minnows, Zonkers, Wooly Buggers, and Mike’s favorite, a Shenk Streamer. Mike’s favorite colors are white and yellow. Look for cleaner water and rocky shore lines or other types of structures like downed trees or stumps.

Top water: Block heads, Deer Hair Poppers, Sneaky Pete’s or Sliders.

Where to try: The Root River is better when water temps are in the 60s. Try locations like Parsley Bridge, just five miles outside of Chatfield at the canoe launch, and other faster moving water with like areas and conditions. Sorry, no secret locations to give away. Try the Zumbro River either on the south or north fork. Again, look for rocky shore lines or struc-ture bass love to hang out in and lay in wait for unsuspecting food. And the best times of year, right now. The end of July is optimal for size and August for numbers.

Phil Pankow, Newsletter Editor

With the severe rain and flooding in Fillmore County earlier in July, the planned work for Blagsvedt Creek will have to be reviewed to see if it needs to be redesigned given the flooding changes that took place on this stream. The planned work was minimal but will likely be deferred until Spring 2014.

Work continues to be hampered on Mill Creek in Chatfield. Due to heavy rains and a late winter, HTU has been kept out of the mucky fields. Work is finishing up on Cold Spring Brook near Zumbro Falls. Work is also being done or finishing on Pine Creek, East Indian, and Camp Creek.

Stream Work & Other Projects continued

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