February 2026| View Upcoming Events

February 2026 Newsletter

Greetings, I hope you all had a good New Years and January.

The Chapter had a busy January. We hosted two Salt River Saturdays, one was co-hosted by Arizona Fly Casters and the other by Desert Fly Casters. Both events were well attended and we continue to clean up a significant amount of trash at each event. We normally collect between 10 - 15 bags of trash which, in aggregrate, weigh 100+ lbs. It's hard to imagine what the area would look like if we didn't hold these clean up events twice a month throughout the winter.

Information about the upcoming Salt River Saturday events for February is outined later in the newsletter. Please join us, your efforts make a difference.

On January 17th Trout Unlimited and AZGFD participated in the OdySea Expo. The Expo brought together a number of National and Local conservation organizations to educate and interact with the public about the important conservation work they do on their behalf. The event was very well attended, with several thousand people showing up for the day. This event is held each year and is free to the public.

Please read through the remainder of the newsletter as it contains updates on various conservation, advocacy and education events Zane Grey TU is involved with.

Should you have questions about these projects please don’t hesitate to contact me.  I can be reached at president@zanegreytu.org.

Tom Goodwin

Chapter President

Conservation

Dude Creek Riparian Planting - Alec Young

On November 22nd, volunteers joined TU, AZGFD, and Tonto National Forest Staff to plant over 350 individual native plants along the banks of Dude Creek. Dude Creek is a small arm of the East Verde River watershed which has been utilized for the past decade as a Gila Trout recovery stream and is open to fishing certain times of the year. Trout Unlimited completed repairs of a headcut on the stream in October, 2024. This headcut had diminished waterflow and fish habitat on a large portion of the creek. During the planning for this project, native seeds were collected from targeted plant species by the Tonto National Forest Botany team. The seeds were then grown at the Flagstaff Arboretun for over a year, until they were mature enough to be planted. The planting event itself lasted two days and included over 25 dedicated volunteers.

The reintroduced native plants (Willows, Baltic Rush, Broom Sedge, New Mexico Raspberry and Golden Columbine) will serve multiple purposes including sercuring newly restored banks, provide shade to lower stream temperatures, and act as a crucial resource for local pollinator species. All these elements will improve Gila Trout habitat as well as secure fishing access points for local anglers.

Combating Invasive Apple Snails in Arizona

By Jeff Sorensen, AZ Game & Fish Department, Invertebrate Wildlife Program Manager

If you spot what looks like pink bubble gum along shoreline vegetation and rocks at your local pond or river, you most likely have found apple snail eggs. Apple snails are large freshwater snails of the genus Pomacea, originally from south and central America, and Florida.

Years ago, these snails were sold as pets for home aquariums. Unfortunately, someone had illegally dumped their unwanted pet apple snails into the lower Verde River around 2009. Since then, those apple snails have become well established in the lower Salt River and the canals and urban lakes of the Phoenix metropolitan area. A new infestation of these snails was recently documented in Archer Lake in the Tucson area.

Apple snails are highly invasive, with female snails capable of producing thousands of young each year. They adapt well to our waters, and may out compete our native snail populations, which are a food source for many fish and wildlife. Most of our fish, water birds, amphibians, and reptiles don’t find apple snails very tasty, so there is little to no predation pressure on these large snails.

Arizona Game & Fish Department is working with Tonto National Forest, OdySea Aquarium, SEALIFE Aquarium, the Phoenix Zoo’s Trailblazers Program, and volunteers to help survey and combat apple snails in our local waters. By smearing or knocking the pink egg masses from shoreline vegetation and rock into the water, we help reduce the number of young apple snails. The snail eggs will drown if submerged. Juvenile and adult apple snails can be netted from shallow, warm waters and properly disposed of in trash bags. The snails are most active during late spring through early autumn, with peak reproduction during the summer months.

We recommend that you wash your hands after handling any apple snails or eggs. The snails are known to carry a parasite that causes rat lungworm disease, which can infect humans. We also ask the public not to release unwanted pets into the wild. It’s illegal, and it causes more harm to our fish and wildlife that live in those waters. 

Salt River Saturday Clean Up!

The weather is balmy, the area beautiful and the fishing good! Come on out on Saturday February 7th and spend Saturday morning in the outdoors doing good for the land! We'll bring the coffee and muffins!

Club Meetings

Arizona Flycasters Club (AFC) is holding its monthly meeting on Tuesday, February 10th at 6pm. Speaker is Alex Martinez, AZGFD Invasive Species Discussion and Michael Farrar VFC Safe Boating/Aquatic/ Activities.. Meeting is at the Arizona American Italian Club, 7509 N 12th St, Phoenix, AZ.

Desert Fly Casters Club (DFC) DFC's monthly meeting is February 11th 6:30pm. at the Elks Lodge in Chandler.

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.

January Meeting Summary

The AZ Council of Trout Unlimited Public Policy Committee (AZTU-PPC) held its normal monthly meeting on January 8, 2026, at 7:00 pm. Our speaker was Meghan Smart with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (AZDEQ) Meghan discussed the importance of community science in environmental data collection. Since 2017, over 180,000 water quality records have been collected, 75,000 pounds of trash removed, and 2,600 Arizona Water Watch submissions made. Volunteers have donated 42,000 hours. Meghan highlighted projects like Fossil Creek, where microbial source tracking de listed E. Coli, and Butcher Jones, where community efforts reduced E. Coli levels. She emphasized the use of tools like the Arizona Water Watch app and Survey 123 for data collection and the importance of recognizing volunteers' contributions. Meghan was unaware that TU was conducting trash pick up on the Salt River and requested that we start providing AZDEQ the amount of trash collected so that it could be included in their trash collection numbers.

Legislative Update

The state legislature opened its regular 2026 session on Monday, January 12, 2026. The lawmakers are working on bills. The rumors now circulating suggest to anticipate nearly 2,000 bills from the legislators and numerous bills supporting public land sales that will be forthcoming in the 2026 legislative session. TU will be engaging and educating certain legislators about TU's objection to public land sales and to the rescission of the Roadless Rule by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In June 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced its intention to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule. The rescission notice was posted on August 27, 2025, in the Federal Register. Without the Roadless Rule, 45 million acres of National Forest land across the country, impacting fish and wildlife habitat, will be open to harmful development! TU National is now encouraging all state Councils and chapters to start a mailing campaign from TU members to congressmen and congresswomen to stop the discontinuance of the Roadless Rule.

The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) reported in a recent newsletter that in December 2025, the Modernizing Access to our Public Water Act was signed into law by the President. The TRCP stated that the "MAPWATERS Act A Big Win for public access".

The National Office of Trout Unlimited has created a new TU Advocacy Champions online community group. If you are interested in receiving the periodic emails from the Advocacy Champions, please email Doug Agee at doug.agee@tu.org and request to be put on the email list.

Groundwater Management in Rural Arizona

Tom Osterday - Past Chair AZTU PPC

The Rural Water Working Group will be hosting our annual Lobbying Day at the Capitol on March 11th. We will be meeting with state senators and representatives to advocate for legislation that will protect groundwater in rural Arizona and opposing legislation intended to make it harder to enable rural communities to manage their groundwater.

Here are three bills that we are opposing:



SB 1197: Subsequent AMAs; groundwater portability

Summary: Subsequent AMA water right transfers, poorly constructed, no aquifer reducations included.

HB 2758: McMullen Valley; eligible entities; groundwater

Summary: Authorizing McMullen Valley Basin groundwater transportation to Phoenix, Tucson or Pinal to benefit the multi-millionaire private equity firm - Water Asset Management 

HB2097: irrigation non-expansion areas; withdrawal; maximum

Summary: Initial and Subsequent INA changes. Prescribes withdrawal limits on INAs. Allows a person to substitute irrigated acres or replace non-exempt wells for irrigation uses in subsequent INAs. Massive new administrative requirements for a mere $125 annual penalty.

Upcoming Public Policy Events

The next regular scheduled AZTU-PPC monthly Zoom meeting will be held on Thursday, February 12, 2026, at 7:00 pm. Our meeting will have a speaker: Patrick Sigl with the Salt River Project.

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



For February we have two Salt River Saturday Clean ups scheduled. One on the 7th (which will be co-hosted by Arizona Fly Casters) and the other on 21st (which will co-hosted by Desert Fly Casters).

We've set our dates for the cooler season! Please come out and join us for some coffee, camaraderie and clean up! Bring your fishing rod you don't want to pass up a chance for some great fishing, do you?

The Arizona Council consolidated the Arizona Trout Unlimited chapters. Effective January 1, 2025, much of eastern and southern Arizona, Kingman and Navajo County east and south including White Mountains: Show Low, Greer, etc., is becoming a part of the Old Pueblo Chapter based in Tucson.

The Mogollon Rim, and areas west of Kingman, including Flagstaff, Lees Ferry and the Colorado River down to Yuma become part of the "new" Zane Grey Chapter based in Phoenix. The below map will give you some idea of the new alignments. The Green areas are the new Zane Grey Chapter, while the Blue areas are the Old Pueblo Chapter's new alignment. The non colored areas are National parks, Military reservations, or other government areas, do not have postal delivery Zip code, and few if any residents.

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 thirteen years to support the Annual Native and Wild Trout Conferences, Fish Camp, Trout in the Classroom program and various 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. 

Social Media: 

Check out our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/zanegreytu Check out the Instagram page for

Arizona of Trout Unlimited: @Trout_Unlimited_Arizona

If you're more traditional, try signing up for the private Facebook group: Arizona Women of Trout Unlimited.

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:

Make sure to follow our Instagram @Trout_Unlimited_Arizona