December 2022

To conserve, protect, and restore North America's cold-water fisheries and their watersheds

OPTU Newsletter

President's Message

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our members at Old Pueblo Trout Unlimited.  Your OPTU Board is planning a busy and fun year for 2023. We have a veteran “Outings Chairman” (Dennis Jennings) who is planning events for OPTU for the entire new year. Stay tuned to the Newsletter for events planned each month of 2023. We have a veteran “Conservation Chairman” (Jeff Collins) who has already included a Conservation Article in this Newsletter. The Board has decided to publish a monthly Newsletter to keep our members informed of our scheduled events and conservation programs in the coming year. As you know, the Newsletter has been a popular site over the years when we were meeting in person. Reminder: make sure we have your current email address so you can receive our email “Blasts” and a schedule of our monthly events. The Board would like to encourage our OPTU members to “GET INVOLVED”. Trout Unlimited has been on hold for over two years due to COVID.  For now, the “flood gates” have been opened.  OPTU is open for business again. Please follow the Newsletter each month to determine what events we have planned. Recommendation is to attend our monthly meetings or scheduled outings. Get involved with our members for a rewarding experience. We are planning a “Speaker Meeting” the first Wednesday of every other month. Planning underway for a Speaker on Wednesday January 04, 2023.  We have reserved a room at the Randolph Community Center on Alvernon at Broadway.  Our entire Board is wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Healthy New Year             See you soon. Mickey Fletcher (mfletcher15006@gmail.com) 520-349-1774

Upcoming Events January 4th: Monthly meeting at Randolph at 6pm January 9th: Fly Tying with Jeff at Randolph at 6pm

OPTU News

Tentative Schedule for 2022-2023 JAN 4 - Meeting FEB - Outing MAR 1 - Meeting APR - Outing MAY 3 - Meeting JUNE - Summer Vacation

Monthly Meeting

We will be having our monthly meeting at Randolph on January 4th at 6 PM. We will be sending out details on the speaker shortly. Congratulations to the OPTU members who won our door prizes at the November meeting. The door prizes consisted of 2 pocket fly boxes with a dozen + flies, from Great Flies, in each box and a $25 gift certificate to the Dry Creek Outfitters.

Conservation Corner

Hi all members, first off, let me introduce myself; Jeff Collins, recently voted on to be OPTU Conservation Officer. This is a position I held back in the mid 90’s with OPTU. Later becoming Vice President, then President. By the turn of the Century, I became State Chairman to a very inactive Arizona State Chapter of TU, AZTU. I was asked by Chris Wood to take that position and put Arizona back on the TU map. I believe I was in that position for 3 years. During that time we expanded the Apache Trout Territory signing a new MOU with the agencies. We added two chapters, one in Payson one in Prescott. We worked with National to identify all the Apache Trout historic Watersheds. Introduced Gila Trout back into Arizona, identifying watershed in the Pinalenos Mountain Range. So AZTU became very active. Recently I re-ignited my friendship with Scott Gurtin, former lead over AZGFD Native Trout Program, now lead over AZGFD Urban Lakes. I had read an article in Wildlife Views about fish habitat in a new Urban lake in the Phoenix area. I asked Scott if that would be Feasible for the four Tucson Urban lakes. He agreed if I could get funding to support his budget. I approached my old friends at OPTU, and after much discussion, we agreed to match funds up to $10,000. Scott and AZGFD agreed and after 4 workdays this past year we now have habitat in Silverbell Lake, Lakeside Lake, Kennedy Lake, and Sahaurita Lake. I thank all of you who volunteered your time. These lakes will now have a thriving winter population of Trout! Year round residents of the lakes; Bass, Catfish, Carp, Crappie and Sunfish will also benefit from new spawning beds to rearing beds for newly hatched fry. I asked to be on the OPTU board and since the Conservation seat was open I assumed that position. This coming 2023 year will bring some new Conservation projects and possibly revive some old ones. I’m hoping to have a few workdays which will encourage your help in volunteer time. Right off the bat, we have partnered with Tucson Clean and Beautiful to do monthly cleanups at Kennedy lake on the Southwest side of Tucson, and Lakeside Lake on the Southeast side of Tucson. In our next newsletter I will post dates of all of the Cleanup days for these little gem oasis in Tucson. Hope to see you there. Please note, we will not be cleaning the entire park, just the lake areas. It’s good to meet you all and hopefully we can have face to face discussions at our meeting and Cleanups. I will also be assuming the roll of Starting a new fly tying class which I’ll discuss in another article in this newsletter. -Jeff Collins This is the larger of the fish habitat structures. It will provide resting places for fish in our Urban lakes. On average, each lake received over 50 structures.

Lining up spawning and rearing habitat for deployment into the lake.

Workday crew at Urban lake. OPTU sponsored a delicious cookout afterwards.

Fly Tyers Den

Hi again. OPTU is restarting its Monthly Fly tying meetings to be held the first Monday of every month( due to the holiday, January meeting will be Monday, January 9). This will be held at the Randolph Recreation Center; same place as our regular meetings. 6pm-7:30pm. We will take a period off during June, July and August for summer travel and put your flies to use. Each meeting you’ll receive a packet of materials for that evenings flies, enough for about 3 flies each including proper hooks. You will also receive, at the beginning of this program, a notebook binder containing instruction on tying the fly and fishing the fly. Material packets and updates will come monthly at the meetings. At least that’s the plan now, lol. This article and updates will appear in this newsletter monthly. Please bring your vise AND basic tools. OPTU will have vises and tools to borrow for beginners just getting started. If you are new to tying or a green beginner, please plan on getting there at least 15 minutes early for orientation. Here is the tentative schedule, I’ll try and match flies seasonally: January: Urban lakes flies with discussion Egg, squirmy worm, mop fly, Pheasant tail wet February: Wooly Bugger, Simi Seal Leech, Balanced Leech with discussion March: Chironomids and midges and their life cycle with discussion Red Chironomid, Zebra midge, emerging midge, midge cluster April: Life cycle of Stonefly and discussion Kaufman Stone, yellow Sally, Stimulator May: Life cycle of Mayfy and discussion Mayfly nymph, Comparadun, parachute dry( maybe Klinkhammer) Summer off September: Terrestrials and discussion  Foam flies- hopper, dragonfly, ant October: Life cycle of Caddisfly and discussion Larvae, emerger, deer hair Caddis  November: Scuds, Damsels nymph and Dragons nymph and discussion December: Attractors and discussion. Hares ear nymph, Adams, Prince -Jeff Collins Fly tying instructor Jeff, also Teaches Project Healing Waters

Fishing

We are planning on having more conservation and fishing outings in 2023, hope to see you out there! We'll have more details to come soon.

Trout in the Classroom

AZTIC.org - List of Participating Schools Monday November 14th was another BIG day for the Arizona Trout in the classroom (TIC) program. After 2 years of challenges caused by COVID-19, volunteers were anxious to deliver eggs to 33 schools throughout the state. An additional delivery to remaining schools is being scheduled for early December. A must see 3 1/2 minute video, just released, provides an overview of the Arizona program with testimonials from the students and teachers on the positive benefits they received from the program. The video can be seen on www.aztic.org. Steve Reiter is the OPTU TIC chairman. If interested in the TIC program to spread the word or to volunteer, contact Steve at sreiter4@cox.net Our thanks to Jim walker and Zane Gray Trout Unlimited for sharing this article with us.

AZTU News

Checkout Jim Strogen's latest article in the Payson Roundup. Perfect Christmas Gifts for a Fly Fisher AZ TU has a new website with lots of great information about public policy, conservation and more. Check it out at the link below. AZ-TU.org

TU National News

Note from TU President and CEO, Chris Wood Reopening 450 Miles on the Klamath – $40 Million Deal with the Forest Service

Fish-killing algae blooms in the hot water impounded behind Iron Gate Dam on the lower Klamath River. Photo: EcoFlight. Conservation is a long game. Seeds planted today may not bloom for years or even decades, but as Thoreau said we have “great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there and I am prepared to expect wonders.” Two weeks ago, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission officially approved the removal of four dams on the Klamath River in OR and CA. As Chrysten Rivard, our OR director said, “The major investments TU and others have made in improving water quality, fish passage and habitat in the upper Klamath Basin will soon pay their full dividends, as salmon and steelhead finally come back to their ancestral spawning grounds.” Four hundred and fifty miles—450 miles!—of river that was blocked for a century will be re-opened for salmon and steelhead. I called a nearly giddy Brian Johnson, our CA director, who spearheaded the effort so well for so long, and he described how proud he was of TU—of all of you—for sticking to this issue for so long. TU doesn’t gadfly issues, just like we don’t gadfly partners and communities. We are in it for the long haul. That stick-to-itiveness is the secret sauce behind the second piece of big news. The Forest Service and TU signed an historic five year $40 million agreement for us to conduct restoration on Forest Service and adjacent private lands. The agreement is only possible because of the dozens of staff and volunteers who have worked so hard and long on restoration on the national forest system—the relationships you fostered and the trust you built.  There is a direct overlap between the highest quality native trout habitat and the lands managed by the Forest Service. This agreement will allow us to help recover the resiliency of these lands and waters to the effects of the changing climate.

For Sale

Nor-Vice and bobbin with extra spools, a Renzetti vice, lots of dubbing and hackle materials, a box full of hooks of various sizes. It is enough to get anyone started with tying or add significantly to anyone who already ties.  $300.00 for everything Contact Ron Sims at ronald.sims16431@gmail.com if interested

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