SWTU, P.O. Box 45555, Madison, WI 53744-5555 president@swtu.org

New Members – April 2023

We’re pleased to announce the addition of the following new members to our ranks! Read More

Newscasts – March 2023

This issue is filled with great information, including:

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Our Nohr TU Friends Keep Providing More Fishing and We Keep Helping!

Our Tuesday, March 14, Chapter Meeting
By Topf Wells

Please join us for the March SWTU meeting on March 14 at Schwoegler’s Bowling on Grand Canyon Drive.  Dinner, drinks and conversation starting at 5:30 with the meeting and presentation at about 7.

And we’ll have a spectacular double-barreled presentation.  Carol Murphy, President of the Harry and Laura Nohr Chapter of Trout Unlimited (our friends to the west in Iowa and Grant Counties), will show some slides and describe Nohr’s latest projects on 6 Mile Creek, the Blue River and Big Spring Creek.  Read More

Make a Difference and Some New Friends – Step up for SWTU

By Don Golembiewski

uncle sam fly fisherNominations are now being accepted for positions on the SWTU Board of Directors. Our volunteers make a huge difference for our members, our resource and our community.

We are looking for two new directors (thank you, Pat Hasburgh and Curt Riedl) and a new Treasurer as Nick Jackson has admirably served the chapter but will roll off the board. We’ll have elections this April and are also looking for a couple of people to join our Nominating Committee (a fun, short-term task). If you have questions, are interested or know of someone who is, please contact any officer or board member.

A Simply Splendid Series of Spring 2023 Workdays

By Jim Hess, Conservation Chair

It may not look like it, but spring is just around the corner and I wanted to update everyone on our spring workdays. We still need to finalize some details, but the locations and dates have been determined. For now, please hold these dates open, if you can (note they’ve been updated slightly since last month).
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Another New Easement Coming Shortly

By Topf Wells

Dan Oele, the DNR fish biologist for Dane, Rock, and Green Counties, scores again.  Thanks to his patient work and the generosity of the Pokorny family, the DNR will soon have another easement on Sawmill Creek.  Although the agreement is final, the paperwork will take several months.  So, NO FISHING until the DNR signs go up. Read More

A Treasure Trove of Info on Key Local Creeks

By Topf Wells

Follow this link to Dan Oele’s new assessment of the trout fishery on the Sugar River. It includes streams many of us know and fish – the Sugar, Badger Mill Creek, and Story Creek as examples – and some surprises – Schlapbach Creek might head that list. Of particular interest are his descriptions, analysis and recommendations for Badger Mill Creek. My belief is that the report is more evidence that Badger Mill is well worth protecting in the face of the threat the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District presents to it.

Thanks to Dan for more excellent work on our local trout streams. SWTU is eager to work with Dan to protect and improve all these streams.

Learn What Your Board’s Been Up To – March 2023

Minutes from SWTU Board of Director meetings can be viewed in this Google Drive. If you have questions on what you read in them, reach out to one of the Board members listed on the last page of each newsletter. (Note that you may need to click the “Last Modified” header at the top to sort the list with the latest minutes at the top.)

Jim Slattery’s Original Stimulator

Stimulator Fly - Rusty Dunn

Fountains of Youth – Classic trout flies that have withstood the test of time … flies that remain “forever young”

by Rusty Dunn

In today’s world of instant communication, each of us is but one TikTok video away from stardom.  Celebrities are newly minted on TikTok, YouTube, and other platforms almost daily, but their significance fades just as fast.  The quantity of online fly-tying resources can be overwhelm­ing, but this avalanche of information is a relatively recent phe­nomenon.  How did we learn about productive new (or old) flies during the decades and centuries before brows­ers, websites, and YouTube?  The social medium of last­ing impact back then was the printed page.  Books and magazines were the cur­rency of public influ­ence.  Fly patterns could become locally famous by word of mouth, but recognition on a national scale came from hard-copy publications.  Jim Slattery’s Stimulator fly is a perfect example of ‘going viral’ the old-school way. Read More

New Members – March 2023

We’re pleased to announce the addition of the following new members to our ranks! Read More