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

New places to fish, thanks in part to us

By Topf Wells
About 6 weeks ago, the DNR obtained two new fishing easements from Gary Langfoss, a generous landowner: one on Kittleson Creek and the other on Gordon Creek.  The Kittleson easement connects two existing DNR easements on River Forks Road, both of which have been restored.  The Gordon easement is contiguously downstream of the Jorenby easement, accessible from CTH A, that too has been restored.  Together, these new easements offer 1000s of feet of public fishing on two excellent and nearby trout streams.

Want to know more?  Check out the exact locations and access points on Pat Hasburgh’s new smartphone map that he’ll debut and make available (free!) at the September meeting .  Better yet, attend our first work day of the fall that Jim Hess has scheduled on the Kittleson easement.

Both will need some tender loving care but both hold trout well worth knowing.

Both also resulted from the two landowner dinners that SWTU has sponsored with the DNR and Pecatonica Pride in Blanchardville.  Jim Hess and Pat Hasburgh worked long hours on these dinners and Pat wrote some very effective letters to landowners from the perspective of a local person who grew up fishing and loving those streams.  For Pecatonica Pride, a grassroots organization devoted to water quality in the Blanchardville area, Pride, April Prussia and Steve Fabos of Pecatonica Pride,  arranged for mailings and meals and called on all their local contacts.  Bradd Sims of the DNR had worked on these easements for years and Justin Haglund, the new fish biologist for Iowa County, brought the negotiations to a successful conclusion.  Dan Oele and Paul Cunningham of the DNR made major contributions to the success of those dinners.  And we think more easements are in the works.

Lots of other folks worked on these dinners and more landowner outreach in this area. We owe all these folks our thanks.  But, first and last on our list of thanks, is Gary Langfoss, who joins many other landowners in the Gordon/Kittleson watersheds, who have enabled us and many other to fish their beautiful streams.