Frank Talk Issue 10.2 June, 2015 The Newsletter of the Frank Hornberg Chapter of Trout Unlimited

Chapter Events

June 19 and 20 Stream Girls, Jordan Park on the Plover River

Saturday, June 27 9:00 am. Tomorrow River Clean-up, River Bar and Supper Club, Amherst July Board Meeting No meeting this month Saturday, July 25 Workday 9:00—12:00 Welton Road Thursday, August 6 Board Meeting 7:00 pm. Sentry World August Workday To Be Announced

Tomorrow River Clean-up The 2015 Tomorrow River Clean-up Day will be on

Saturday, June 27. This annual event is sponsored by the Frank Hornberg Chapter and the Friends of the To-morrow/Waupaca River. Volunteers should meet at the River Bar and Supper Club (the former Tomorrow River Supper Club) at 9971 County Road KK in Am-herst.

The schedule is to meet at 8:00 AM for coffee and

orientation and then to head for sections of the river by 9:00. People should bring waders, gloves, chainsaws and canoes for picking up trash and clearing downfalls from sections of the river. A lunch will be provided by the Friends of the Tomorrow/Waupaca River. We’re hoping for good weather and a good turnout. See you there.

2015 Workdays Our June workday will be the Tomorrow River Cleanup

on June 27. We have scheduled a July workday for Satur-day, July 25. We expect to work from 9:00 am to about 12:00 noon. Meet at the Welton Road parking area. We expect to have an August workday, but the day, time and place are not determined at this time. You should receive an email in August with details. No email? Call Matt Salchert. 715-321-1394.

Jim Stephani, Mark Hinrichs and Mary Jo Patton receive in-structions from Stu Grimstad at the 2014 Tomorrow River Clean-up.

Stream Girls 2015 This event, organized by Heidi Oberstadt, is a joint

project of Trout Unlimited and the Girl Scouts of Amer-ica. This year it is being held on June 19 and 20 at Jor-dan Park (on Highway 66 east of Stevens Point). Ac-cording to Heidi, the program is “designed to get Girl Scouts on the stream, learning about the science behind trout habitat and sharing our passion for the sport of fish-ing.”

River Keepers In 2014 our chapter started participating in the River

Keepers Program organized by the Central Wisconsin Chapter. Each River Keeper group selects a location on a local river and does regular monitoring of the water level, water clarity, dissolved oxygen and other factors related to the health of the river. Our chapter selected a location just downstream from the Nelsonville bridge on the To-morrow River. We will be continue monitoring this loca-tion in 2015. Ken Pierce is the leader of our team. Other members are Rick Foris, Mary Jo Pfankuch, Ted Carapezza, Cathy Carapezza, Jean Klein, Brenda Gingles and John Vollrath.

Fly Fishing School

Saturday, May 16, was the date of our an-

nual fly fishing school. We changed the format

this year to make it a one-day event, appealing

to local students who would not use the over-

night accommodations required by an entire

weekend event.

Ken Pierce and Brenda Gingles volunteered

their property on the Tomorrow River in Nel-

sonville as the location for the event. Ken was

the organizer for the school, and he and

Brenda did a masterful job.

Student enrollment easily met our expecta-

tions. The weather could not have been better.

Gary Glennon, Matt Salchert, Abe Downs

and Heidi Oberstadt worked on publicity for

the school. Paul and Loretta Peck provided a

memorable hot lunch for all attendees. Rich-

ard Wolding made his nearby field available

for casting practice.

Wyatt Bohm, Abe Downs, Brenda Gingles,

Gary Glennon, Stu Grimstad, Jim Henke, Jim

Larson, Heidi Oberstadt, Ken Pierce, Matt

Salchert and Jan Tully were among the chap-

ter members helping throughout the day.

Tasks included setting up, cleaning up, in-

struction on casting, reading the stream, iden-

tification of insects, fly tying and guiding stu-

dents on local stream in the evening. The vol-

unteer help is greatly appreciated.

Jan Tully teaches Sue Swamer how to cast in the field at the 2015 Fly Fishing School.

New Meeting Location

We held our June Board of Directors’

meeting in one of the conference rooms at

the newly remodeled SentryWorld build-

ing. Our hope is to continue scheduling

board meetings there—depending on avail-

ability. Members of the chapter are al-

ways welcome to attend board meetings, so

if you want to attend a future meeting,

you will probably find us in one of the

meeting rooms at SentryWorld. You might

check with a board member beforehand to

be sure.

We will try to schedule winter public

meetings in the same place. We will in-

form you if we do.

Scholarship Winners

Noah Ostrowski of Amherst is the winner

of the Frank Hornberg $250 scholarship for

the 2015 Wisconsin Trout Unlimited Youth

Fishing Camp to be held on July 16—19.

An anonymous donor funded this scholar-

ship, and we are very grateful for the gift.

James Peck is the winner of a $95 schol-

arship for our chapter’s 2015 Fly Fishing

School held on May 16. Wayne Drifka, a

chapter member living in Minnesota,

funded this scholarship. Needless to say,

we appreciate his generosity.

Lost Creek

The Lost Creek remediation project on

Rainbow Drive east of Stevens Point is the

creation of the Wisconsin Department of

Transportation. It is one of many planned

wetlands created specifically to compensate

for wetlands lost when new highways are

built. But Lost Creek has a somewhat

unique feature. It was discovered that two

drainage ditches located on the property sup-

port naturally reproducing brook trout. This

complication meant that there would have to

be a physical separation of the ditches from

the wetland itself, since regulations govern-

ing trout streams are different from those

governing wetlands. Such was done. You

can see one of the ditches next to Rainbow

Drive itself.

Today, the rerouted ditches are not doing

well. They carry a heavy load of agricultural

nutrients and they lack shading that would

protect them from constant direct summer

sunlight. The resulting algae growth will

degrade the quality of the trout habitat.

Kyle Herrman, PhD, is an Assistant Profes-

sor in the College of Natural Resources at the

University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. He

envisions a research project on Lost Creek

that would compare some methods of cutting

the sunlight in sections of these two ditches.

Observation of other streams (such as the

Little Plover River) shows that trout can be

sustained in streams with high nutrient load

if the streams are shaded. Professor

Herrman proposes a comparison of floating

islands, fast-growing vegetation and sun

shading material (as is found in green-

houses), all done under controlled scientific

conditions.

Professor Herrman gave a presentation of

his project at our June 4 board meeting. He

is looking for sources to help fund his project.

Subsequently, we voted to contribute $500 if

Professor Herrman can supplement our con-

tribution with enough money from other

sources to initiate the project. We will keep

you informed on how this turns out.

The Path to an Award

The Wisconsin State Council of Trout Unlimited

honors individuals by giving awards at its annual

banquet in February. Perhaps the most prestig-

ious award is the Joan and Lee Wulff Award for

Outstanding Conservation Leadership.

The winner of the Wulff award this year was

Hornberg chapter member Stu Grimstad. Anyone

who knows Stu knows that there is probably no

one in Wisconsin TU who deserves this award

more than he does.

A little backstory: Competitors for the Wulff

award are nominated by chapters. Norb

Wozniak, Jean Klein and myself, John Vollrath,

collected the documentation to support Stu’s

nomination. All done without his knowledge, by

the way. Surprise. (Actually, none of us were

sure that Stu would be the winner until it was

announced at the banquet in Oshkosh.)

The following people either wrote supporting

letters or sat for interviews with us. They are

the ones who deserve the lion’s share of credit for

the success of this nomination. Without their con-

tributions it would not have been possible. Many

thanks to them.

Al Niebur, Wisconsin Department of Natural Re-

sources

Kevin Halvorson, Natural Resources Conserva-

tion Service, United States Department of

Agriculture

Jeff Dimick, Manager of the Aquatic Biomonitor-

ing Laboratory, University of Wisconsin Ste-

vens Point

Barbara Gifford, President, Friends of the Little

Plover River

Jason Spaeth, Fisheries Technician, Wisconsin

Department of Natural Resources

Rebecca Stephens, President, Friends of the To-

morrow/Waupaca River

Justin Isherwood, Farmer and Author

Thomas Meronek, Fisheries Biologist, Wisconsin

Department of Natural Resources

Jean Klein collected the total set of nomination

documents in an attractive portfolio that is now in

the chapter archives.

Tag Ends: Finances

We netted approximately $1100

from tuition for our fly fishing

school.

The Frank Hornberg Chapter-

Trout Unlimited Fund at the Natu-

ral Resources Foundation of Wiscon-

sin will now generate $500 dividend

income per year for us. This is be-

cause we now have over $10,000 in

the fund.

The River Alliance of Wisconsin

has fallen on hard times. At our

May 7 board meeting we voted to

give them a one-time donation of

$250.

The postage cost for this issue of

Franktalk is about $80.

Frank Hornberg Chapter of Trout Unlimited

Chapter Officers President - Matt Salchert (715) 321-1394 Vice President - Dan Boggs (715) 445-1359 Secretary - Abe Downs (715) 572-3225 Treasurer - Jean Klein (715) 341-5389 Franktalk - John Vollrath (715) 341-3087 E-mail: frankhornberg.tu@gmail.com Website: www.hornberg-tu.org

Board of Directors Wyatt Bohm Stu Grimstad Jim Henke Dan Holland Bob Juracka Heidi Oberstadt Janeau Tully John Vollrath Norb Wozniak

For more information regarding the Frank Hornberg Chapter #624, of Trout Unlimited, contact:

Frank Hornberg Chapter TU

P.O. Box 393 Stevens Point, WI 54481-0393

Frankhornberg.tu@gmail.com

Frank Hornberg Chapter, TU P.O. Box 393 Stevens Point, WI 54481-0393