The angling fever is a very real disease and can only be cured by the application of cold water and fresh, untainted air.

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1 Issue September 2014 Member Musings Summer activities are slowing as schools resume their schedules. While we don t really want to admit it, you can feel fall in the air as the days cool and the daylight hours keep getting shorter. This last month of the Inland Trout Season can be one of the best as the stream traffic declines. Just ahead is the prime season for tributary fishing. Speaking of late-season fishing, one of the items being proposed in a new set of simplified trout regulations is lengthening the inland-trout season to October 15th. Actually this is just one of a number of changes that are being proposed in an effort to simplify the regulations and to encourage more participation. Other season parameters changes being proposed are opening the early catch-and-release season on January 1st and eliminating the 5 day closure between the early season and the annual opener. Part of the proposed simplifications includes a new color coded systems for streams with the following outline. Voice of the Fox Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited Our September Habitat Day is scheduled for Saturday September 20th on the Chaffee Creek south of Wautoma. Please check the website for both details and directions. With September comes our first Chapter Meeting of the new season. On Thursday, September 18th, we will meet at the Bubolz Nature Preserve for a Social Night program. This is a chance to gather, share experiences, and learn a little more about Trout Fishing. We hope to see you there. The 2015 Cabin Fever Day will be held on January 24th at the Grand Meridian. It is not too early to mark your calendar and spread the word. They have ordered nice sunny weather for this year, so we should be all set. The cooler fall days are ahead, so get out and enjoy the last of the Inland Trout Season and then get ready for the Tributary Fishing. Stop light concept for inland trout regulations (determined per DNR Biologist/County or General Fishing Areas): no length limit bag limit 5 no bait restriction caution, 8 inch length limit, bag limit 3, no bait restriction Red Stop, special regulations. Understand the regulations before fishing The current regulations have not been updated since around 2003, and the changes being proposed are fairly broad in nature and would pertain to all of the 13,000 miles of trout streams in the state. To learn more about the proposed changes, please visit DNR.WI.Gov and search under Trout Review. If finalized the changes would take effect in the spring of You can be part of the process at one of the following sessions opened to the public in our area: Sept 9th Bay 6:00 PM DNR Service Center, 2984 Shawano Avenue Sept. 10th Waupaca 6:00 PM Room B Waupaca Public Library, 107 S. Main Street Editor The angling fever is a very real disease and can only be cured by the application of cold water and fresh, untainted air. Theodore Gordon

2 Let s Talk Bugs Tom Lager No matter how hard we try to observe and understand conditions that bring trout to surface, at times discernment is impossible. Recently a group of us pursued a pod of rising rainbow in the Missouri River for more than an hour from an anchored drift boat. The trout were feeding in a gentle steady current in a methodical fashion just below the surface, creating small ring waves without breaking the surface with their noses or porpoising. Jim Jenkin, Al Johnson and I took turns casting an array of flies dries, film-huggers, emergers and wets. Although we each managed to boat trout our methods were dissimilar and catch rate was low indicting we did not solve the puzzle we were persistent enough to foul a few, but not knowledgeable enough to foul the many. Our departing conclusion, stated by Jim was: No matter how hard we tried, we could not put the pod down! It was as if they were feeding on invisible bugs, certainly invisible to us. We watched closely for any indicator or clue as we fished throughout the following days. The Trico hatch was more easily understood, not meaning to suggest our application of knowledge lead to a plethora of filled nets, but at least yielded the satisfaction of understanding the rules of the game we played. We, along with Don Cloutheir and Mark Peerenboom, pooled our knowledge, refining our performance, and played a fair game. The pursuit of understanding was pressed further to that of sieving surface waters with a hand-net which exposed a few clues or must probably though, it provided a glimpse into His myriad variables created for our pondering. The screening contained two notable diminutive food items: Daphnia and a mayfly dun. Daphnia, commonly named water fleas, are semi-microscopic crustaceans (2-5 mm) consumed mainly in lake or reservoir habitats by mature rainbow and brown trout; immature trout, less than several inches in length, commonly feed on Daphnia and other zooplankters along river margins as well as in lakes. The Daphnia collected from the Missouri River were washed downstream from Holter Lake where trout feed on them; however, it is unlikely they serve as a meaningful food item in the river since their numbers become diluted and dispersed making feeding unlikely. In lakes Daphnia form densely concentrated populations that migrate vertically within the water column and are easy prey for trout. So we are left with the mayfly dun as a possible invisible food item. The dun is 4mm from head to abdomen tip, a #24 size hook, smaller than some midge flies and almost too small for the mesh of the net it was captured with. It is a member of a group of tiny Baetids within the Baetidae Family, based on the hind-wing characters (refer to pictured dun). Emergence begins in mid-afternoon followed by an evening or early morning spinner fall on the Missouri and Big Horn rivers. Other fishers have described the challenges of fishing this mayfly group, collectively called Pseudo or in some cases The Curse, in the west. The latter name provides in-sight into the angst of fishing this group. Pseudocloeon, the generic term which gave rise to the common name, is no longer recognized by scientists as a valid name; now the term is Heterocloeon and for other members of this group: Acentrella, Plauditus. well enough of that. To me the Pseudo is the likely invisible food item. This conundrum was not left in Montana, it is here in Wisconsin s Driftless Area under the common name Tiny Olive (Heterocloeon anoka (Daggy)) where I will pursue it with a chartreuse bodied Student a fly pattern among other solutions. Therefore not only pick the rocks to see who is there, dip a net and the invisible transforms to the discernible and discernment leads to understanding. GOOD Take along a friend and share your stories and photos when you join Fox Valley Trout Unlimited and our chef BoB Kinderman for the 2nd Annual FVTU Social Night SEPTEMBER 18, 2014 BUBOLZ NATURE CENTER 7-9 PM Perhaps fishing is, for me, only an excuse to be near rivers. Roderick Haig-Brown food, fun and friends! F o x V a l l e y TROUT UNLIMITED

3 Office: E. Enterprise Ave., Suite 500 Appleton, WI Student Fly Jesse Walters Hook: Mustad Thread: olive, 8/0 Tails: dun, CDC Wing: dun, CDC

4 DNR Trout Regulation Review Goals Summary Simplify regulations and retain quality fishing (Proposed regulations (inland) Reduce categories and special regulations (management goals) more uniformity and clear boundaries monitor and evaluate update maps and tools Increase opportunity for all trout anglers extend early season where it exists (catch and release) January 1st Extend fall season statewide (harvest opportunities) October 15th Eliminate 5 day closure (catch & release) Stop light concept for inland trout regulations (determined per DNR Biologist/County or General Fishing Areas no length limit, bag limit 5, no bait restriction caution, 8 inch length limit, bag limit 3, no bait restriction Red Stop, special regulations, understand the regulations before fishing Timeline & Process WCC District Meetings August 2014 Public meetings/stakeholders briefings Summer/Fall 2014 Spring Hearings April 2015 Rules effective Spring 2016 Trout Baseline by County Adams Iowa Polk Ashland Iron Portage Barron Jackson Price Bayfield Jefferson Racine Brown Juneau Richland Buffalo Kenosha Rock Burnett Kewaunee Rusk Calumet La Crosse Sauk Chippewa Lafayette Sawyer Clark Langlade Shawano Columbia Lincoln Sheboygan Crawford Manitowoc Saint Croix Dane Marathon Taylor Dodge Marinette Trempealeau Door Marquette Vernon Douglas Menominee Vilas Dunn Milwaukee Walworth Eau Claire Monroe Washburn Florence Oconto Washington Fond du Lac Oneida Waukesha Forest Outagamie Waupaca Grant Ozaukee Waushara Pepin Winnebago Lake Pierce Red (7) Wood

5 When the Student is Ready the Teacher will Appear Mark Peerenboom The charcoal colored storm clouds that hung above the foothills of the northern Big Horn Range were dragging their rain tails just above the canyon reservoir. Ironically they were the color of the black caddis fly, which was about to emerge on the river. It was their hatch that had brought us here. The clouds were disappointing since a storm could push us off the river early and this was our last evening fishing the Big Horn s annual hatch. We arrived early to our chosen spot below the Three Mile take-out. Pods of trout soon appeared, boiling the water, feeding just below the surface. It was time to fish. I fooled several fish into taking my offering, but had expected more response due to the numbers of trout available for the taking. It was then that the fisherman appeared in the river upstream of me, just like he had done the night before. In anticipation of his arrival my fishing partners and I had closed ranks and staked out a tight claim on this piece of water. He was now shouldering his way in between us. This was a bold move on his part. Even friendly fisherman can become snarly junkyard dogs if their territory is threatened. Mine was. But just like the evening before, fish soon began coming to this intruder s hand like he was their patron saint. I imagined that the trout he was fishing to, were my fish, even though they had ignored my clumsily offered gifts. I believed I had driven my quarry upstream to him. His presence now made it impossible for me to have a second chance at my fish. I was mad. For a moment the caddis disappeared and so did the fish. I noticed the storm clouds over the southern foothills had moved on as well. But my anger was still there. Maybe it too would disperse if I could meet my intruder. I walked over and introduced myself. He told me he was camped at the After Bay Campground and that he had been fishing the Big Horn for the past three months and had spent his summers on the Big Horn for the last thirty years. He had fished other named waters but this was his favorite. He talked about 100 fish days during PMD hatches. He complained that this stream and others were warmer than even what they had been a few years ago and did not fish as well. He then said, You were the guy fishing next to me last night. He politely didn t add, who occasionally caught a fish while I caught one after the other. Okay, he didn t have horns or a tail, but he had something, and I intended to mine it out. I asked to see the pattern he was using. He showed me a small mat of shredded hair and dubbing which looked like he had fished this same fly for the last thirty years. I wasn t going away. I wanted to see what the pattern looked like before the fish tore it apart. He then opened a small plastic fly box hinged with a piece of duct tape. I was hoping he was going to give me a new unused sample so I could duplicate what he was fishing. That didn t happen. I don t think he had one. After pocketing that fly box he pulled out a used tobacco snuff tin. The flies were in a wind swirled mass in the middle. Now I knew he wasn t going to have that fish-catching pattern to share. His intention was to catch fish not to bow to the lesser god of an organized fly box. There was more to his secret than the fly and its profile in the water. When I asked about his fishing technique. He recited the usual: make drag-free casts which required extra long leaders and try to get the fly as close as you can to the fish without lining them with either the fly line or the leader. Yes, the written word and direct experience tells me these fish are looking for something that is floating naturally. They are high in the water column. Their field of vision and feeding lane is narrow and they spook easy. But still. Before walking over to chat I had watched him making long smooth fluid casts with the minimum amount of false casting. Occasionally he would roll cast to keep his fly from tangling on the vegetation on the bank behind him. He appeared to not waste any motion and his fly was on the water were it should be and not in a bush. But there was more. Beyond his casting stroke the secret might be in his equipment. It was not in his old Pflueger Reel or off-name rod but there might be a clue in the yin and yang of his eyewear. At the same time he wore his framed distance glasses and just underneath, his separately framed readers. This would mean the sighting in on a rising fish could have no margin of error. He would have to find the middle road between those magnification extremes. Coupled with the long distance of the required cast, he could not possibly see his tiny fly on the water. So it was a combination of things: his fly pattern, his casting, and his ability to land his fly on his trout target with the right presentation. But at the heart of the mystery was the question of how was he able to bring that all together without being able to see his fly? I had been focused on the parts rather than the whole. The answer to his effective routine could only lie in the repetition of this activity, three months a year, for thirty years. His fishing was effortless. Like the blindfolded Zen archer, he had become One with the rod, fly, water, and trout. His fishing was a spiritual practice. To duplicate his success would require repetition, practice, and a lot more time on the water. I better start fishing.

6 NON PROFIT US Postage PAID Appleton WI Permit No W. Spencer St. Appleton, WI Mark Your Calendars! Saturday, September 20 Work day on the Chaffee Creek See you there! Check website for details! Chapter Board Members President Tom Lager Vice President Open Secretary Dick Stielow Treasurer Al Johnson Board 1 Keith Bassage Board 2 Duane Velie Board 3 Norm Christnacht Board 4 John Hammond Board 5 Tony Garvey Board 6 Steve Heuser Board 7 Roger Genske Board 8 Scott Heinritz Board 9 Don Clouthier Board 10 Jim Jenkin Board 11 Rich Erickson Board 12 Rick Schinler Past President Joe Bach Pan-fried Venison Backstrap Venison backstrap cut 1 inch thick, 4 pieces olive oil and butter, about 1/4 cup oil and 4 Tbsp. butter 1/2 green bell pepper, chopped 1/2 cup onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 Tbsp. parsley flakes Lawry's Seasoned Salt Pepper In medium fry pan add the olive oil and butter over medium heat. When butter is melted add the green pepper, onions, minced garlic and parsley flakes. Saute until onions are clear. Pat dry the backstraps and coat with flour then place in pan seasoning with Lawry's and pepper. Fry until lightly browned turning once. Venison is best when served medium/rare to medium. Enjoy, BoB Kinderman