October 2024| View Upcoming Events

October 2024 Newsletter

Happy October, a time when our weather really does change or at least we hope. The nights are cooler in spite the record setting daytime temperatures. The better news is the high-country temperatures are dropping, the lake temperatures are cooling and will soon turnover producing better fishing opportunities.

October is an interesting month with all four major sports playing. Unfortunately, the Arizona Diamondbacks are out of the running this year. However, all the schools are back in session and their sports are regularly active.

We have several upcoming activities and changes coming to your chapter. We begin our Salt River Saturdays next month, and the Zane grey chapter is growing. Stay tuned for more information about these exciting latest changes.

Your chapter and various representatives attended several activities, some of which are historic. Among the activities we attended are:

• A two-day Apache Trout Delisting Celebration

1. The first event was the official U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service “Special Apache Trout Announcement” at Bass Pro Shop in Mesa on September 4. This event included several dignitaries including Trout Unlimited’s CEO Chris Wood.
2. The next day, the White Mountain Apache Tribe hosted a special celebration, at Hawley Lake, along with USFWS, AZGFD, and Trout Unlimited. (Read the High Country News article here, one of the better articles covering these various events.

• AZ Fly Shop held its second-annual film festival, Sunday September 22, 2024. AZTU and Zane Grey chapter members were there along with a joint AZGFD – TU R3 table and Casting for Recovery. AZ Fly Shop is donating a portion of the film festival funds to AZTU Fish Camp.
• We held Zane Grey Chapter’s TU on Tap at Spokes on Southern, Tuesday, September 24. We had a wonderful time, met some new friends and signed up some new members! Look for more frequent chapter meetings around the state as we expand our territory.
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Troutfest Arizona postponed! AZTU has postponed Troutfest Arizona to Winter 2026. AZTU discovered two competing events on the same weekend they originally scheduled TroutFest Arizona 2025, February 22, 2025, Rescheduling for this year is not an option. These events in Colorado and Texas compete for the same vendors as TroutFest Arizona. Stay tuned for news for TroutFest Arizona 2026.

Your ZGTU board asks that as you read this newsletter, please think about how you would like to join in and help promote fishing, conservation, education, and love of nature. You may contact me or any board member to let us know about your ideas.

We hope you can join us, or better yet volunteer to help with these many and varied activities. 

Until then, 

Tight Lines. 

Alan Davis

Just like that, summer is gone. Kaput. Seems like yesterday Jeff English and I were floating the Missouri River and I nearly wrecked his drift boat in front of a bemused crowd at Stickney Creek pullout. We were later told it was the folly de jour in all the Craig bars that night. Jeff still maintains I have the makings of a good drift boat oarsman…in another life. 

But while all us anglers were having the time of our lives this summer, Zane Grey Trout Unlimited was quietly working on building its membership and community profile. Our end-of-summer TU On Tap mixer at Spokes on Southern last month was great fun (free beer will do that) and brought out new faces and new members. The broad appeal of trout talk, beer and food is always a winning combination. We need to do it more often.

And, we’ve added talented and dedicated new people to our TU team this summer. Avid angler, brilliant rod builder and general good guy, Marco Cecala, has been appointed Conservation Chair for the Arizona Council of Trout Unlimited. Marco is a creative doer and will work closely with our Chair, Alan Davis, in managing our various conservation projects and volunteer groups around the state. 

On a personal note, I own a custom 5-6 wt Marco Cecala rod and it is my go-to stick for large trout. I took it to Chilé earlier this year and it had the finesse and backbone to bring the biggest browns to net. Welcome, Marco…let’s go fishing! 

Speaking of Chilé, when we were there in February, our hosts, Pancho and Karina Vilches, owners of Chilé Trout in Patagonia, offered us a BOGO (buy one, get one) trip to raffle off at a future date. That date is fast approaching. These trips are priced at $5600 double occupancy through our friends at Destinations Fly Fish so getting one for free is a huge bargain. And the fishing is a lifetime bucket list trip. Stay tuned next month for an update on this offering. 

And, with the money you save on winning this trip, you can become a Life Member of TU and get an Orvis Helios 4 limited edition rod especially built for TU for the very reasonable donation price of $1500. The rods alone are $1100 retail and you get the TU Life Membership for $400, which normally runs $1800. This could be the mother of all Life Member deals. Check it out at tu.org/liferodoffer.

Coming up in Zane Grey Land

Arizona Fly Casters' monthly meeting will be Tuesday, October 8, at the American Italian Club 7509 N. 12th Street, Phoenix, AZ. Speaker is Frank Burr, The Golden Trout Dude. Meeting starts at 6 p.m.

Desert Fly Casters' monthly meeting will be on Wednesday, October 9 at the Elks Club, 1775 W. Chandler Blvd, Chandler. Speaker is Steve Berry of Destinations Fly Fish. Meeting starts at 7 p.m.

And, if you need to renew your TU membership you can do it here easily. This link should take you directly to the renewal page.

September Meeting Summary

The AZ Trout Unlimited Public Policy Committee (AZTU-PPC) held its normal monthly meeting on Thursday, September 12, 2024, at 7:00 pm. The speaker was David Crimmins with Leaky Weirs Society. David's presentation was on "watershed restoration" and how beaver Dams and simple rock structures that work to slow water down helps to store more water in the underground water table. These structures in theory could easily be created by small volunteer groups. We concluded that David would present his material to the AZTU-PPC at an upcoming meeting as we ran out of time and he has a lot of detailed material to cover.

Legislative Update

The state legislature closed on June 15th, 2024, we do not have any current updates for our members. During the off season, TU is staying connected with its legislative contacts and helping identify and draft legislation that will be beneficial for water conservation, forest health, public land access and wildlife habitat. Stay tuned as we progress through the calendar year and look forward to the 2025 legislative session.

While the Legislature is Out of Session,

Let's Do Some Conservation Work

Tom Osterday - Past Chair AZTU PPC

Silver Creek Reed Removal Project

The Silver Creek reed removal was a two-day project held on September 17 and 18, 2024. A discussion of the work project accomplishments will be forthcoming in the November 2024 newsletter.

Upcoming Public Policy Events

The meeting of the AZTU-PPC on Thursday, October 10, 2024, will be postponed to a later date in October due to scheduling conflicts. Presently, the speaker for the AZTU-PPC October meeting is expected to be confirmed in the coming week. We do have Daniel Dauwalter with the TU National Organization lined up to speak on November 14, 2024, on the follow up procedures/activities to be performed to monitor the progress of the Apache Trout recovery.

The AZTU-Public Policy Committee hosts a virtual meeting on the second Thursday of the month at 7:00 until 8:00 PM. If you are interested, please contact Ron Stearns at PublicPolicyChair@az-tu.org.

Trout Unlimited’s CEO Chris Wood, the Arizona Council of Trout Unlimited, along with the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD), Gov. Katie Hobbs, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, and White Mountain Apache Tribal Chairman Kasey Velasquez recently celebrated the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) delisting Apache trout from the federal Endangered Species List.



These activities included a special two-day Apache trout Delisting celebration. Several Trout Unlimited members attended the Bass Pro Shop, Mesa event: the official announcement, and a few of us also attended the White Mountain Apache Tribal (WMAT) announcement along with the other delisting partners: TU, AZTU, AZGFD, USFWS, USFS. The celebration included a special Apache dance honoring the various directions.

The photo collage below are just a glimpse of these activities.

The Arizona Sportsmen for Wildlife Conservation (AZSFWC) license plate fund is derived from the sale of wildlife conservation license plates and member organizations as well as non-member organizations are eligible to apply for those funds. 

The Arizona TU Council and Chapters have received funds over the past twelve years to support the Annual Native and Wild Trout Conferences, Fish Camp, Trout in the Classroom programs and varius conservation projects.

The next time your registration comes up for renewal, choose the conservation license plate option at registration to show your support for conservation and our projects. 

Below is a list of fishing organizations in Arizona. Feel free to join, explore, visit their websites or attend a meeting to find out more information:

You may access our calendar here. 

Zane Grey Trout Unlimited