By Topf Wells

More thanks to Justin and Lloyd for some pleasant reading and good news. You can find it at the DNR Trout Stream Survey page on its website and clicking on Dane or Iowa County. Lo and behold, the creel survey report for Gordon Creek.

My summary is that lots of folks, mostly local fly fishers, fish and wholly enjoy it. Not as crowded as other good streams, such as the Big Green. Harvest is just not an issue – hardly anyone is harvesting fish or even wants to.

Personally, I’m incredibly grateful to Justin, Lloyd and the other DNR folks who have created such a great fishery on Gordon. And must also think back to impressive SWTU efforts led by Mike Schmidt, Jim Gentry and Jim Kanvik. And also for Justin’s and Lloyd’s great conclusion where they note that Gordon’s fishery is due in large part to the DNR’s easements and restorations. Let’s hope the higher ups in the Fish Bureau read this creel survey and draw the right lessons from it. Just to be unnecessarily obvious: More Easements; More Restorations.

BTW1. Huge thanks to Mitch Trow, who might be the hardest working person in DNR’s fish program. Mitch, the senior fish tech for Dane, Rock, and Green Counties was already filling in for Dan Oele, following Dan’s promotion. Now he’s also fulfilling some of David Rowe’s duties, after David, the supervising fish biologist, accepted a job with Dane County. And the DNR Fish budget has cratered. Mitch needed to have some basic equipment to complete his summer surveys of trout streams. As a token of our gratitude to Mitch and to make sure those surveys are as accurate and as helpful as possible. SWTU donated funds for that gear.

BTW2. Mitch reports that some of those surveys showed strong trout numbers in some of the upper parts of Black Earth Creek.