SWTU, P.O. Box 45555, Madison, WI 53744-5555
president@swtu.org
Conserving coldwater fisheries
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Newscasts – October 2026
Posted: October 7, 2026 by Drew Kasel Leave a Comment
This issue is filled with great information, including:
Last Updated: October 7, 2026 by Drew Kasel Leave a Comment
To Serve Youth
Join our chapter gathering on Tuesday, October 13, 2026
Please join us for a fun, informative and extraordinary meeting on Oct. 13, at Schwoegler’s on Grand Canyon Drive. PLEASE NOTE: THE MEETING WILL START AT 6:30 because we have several wonderful presentations.
Leading off will be Camille Kilburg and Alexis Bridges of UW Platteville. Camille is the intern SWTU sponsored on the DNR Fish Management Summer Survey of Trout Streams, and Alexis worked as an intern on the DNR Water Quality Survey Team that works on a variety of streams and rivers in our area, including trout streams and streams which would, should. or could support trout. Camille has received rave reviews and thanks from the DNR; she has also revived the Environmental Society at UW-P. Alexis was similarly essential to WQ’s efforts; her academic record is amazing. Major in environmental science, minor in biology, and a certificate in GIS.
Joining us from UW Hoofers will be Calvin Hruby, who will bring us up to date on their fly fishing, and AnaGracia, who heads the Hoofers Conservation Team. The fly fishers have had some fun and education with Henry Nehls-Lowe and other SWTU folks and some have attended the TU spring gathering for college students at Avalanche. AnaGracia and friends have attended several work days and been hard, productive workers and lots of fun.
The UW-P interns will be joined by the biologists they assisted, Justin Haglund, Kim Kuber and Camille Bruhn. BTW, this will be your chance to ask Justin about three new easements. Read More
Posted: October 6, 2026 by Drew Kasel Leave a Comment
Go Team!
SWTU does fantastic things for cold water resources, and we appreciate and need involvement from all like-minded folks. Pitch in with our Teams and workdays and you will get more good feelings in return for your support. Step up and share a stake in our collective success for trout.
Here’s your opportunity: The SWTU Board unanimously approved the creation or revitalization of some Teams and we need people to join them. More to come, but we are starting right away with two Teams.
Please consider helping. Contact Dyan or Don at membership meetings, work days or with the contact info at the end of this newsletter.
Last Updated: October 7, 2026 by Drew Kasel Leave a Comment
Help Inspire the Trout Enthusiasts of Tomorrow
Tuesday, October 13, at Token Creek
The Sun Prairie East High School Conservation Class will release their Trout In the Classroom trout in Token Creek on Tuesday, Oct. 13. Joshua Capodarco, their teacher, and his students have now completed three years of TIC. As part of the celebration, SWTU will host a fishing clinic for the students after the release. We need some help. If you can assist, please join us about noon at Dane County’s Token Creek Park. Look for the large shelter near the south end of the pond.
New and Old at Gordon Creek
Posted: October 6, 2026 by Drew Kasel Leave a Comment
By Topf Wells
SWTU provided Gordon Creek and the DNR’s Justin Haglund and Lloyd Meng with 16 volunteers on our first work day of the fall on the easement downstream of Brue Road. The issues today were access and prevention. Young willows were making access difficult and big, older, dying willows were about to inter themselves in the creek. Some timber in the stream is good for trout and all the other life in the stream. Big, whole trees, however, can cause major blockages and streambank erosion.
We’ll probably return in the spring but we made great headway with one willow jungle tamed and two of the giants substantially reduced. One that was felled might be as big a tree as we’ve taken down lately. The boom as it hit the ground was certainly the loudest. That crash reminds us of the need for safety on these days. Joshua Reilly, our Secretary and the leader of our efforts to provide first aid training and equipment, conducted a brief but helpful safety lesson at the start of the day. Read More
Join us! SWTU Workday on the Upper Yahara River, DeForest
Last Updated: October 6, 2026 by Drew Kasel Leave a Comment
Saturday, October 10, 2026
By Jim Hess, Conservation Chair
The DNR has determined that the trout population in the Upper Yahara River, as it flows through DeForest, is healthy enough to be classified as a trout stream. With this news, the Village of DeForest is restoring this stream – including streambank improvements and removing invasive woodies – and SWTU has made a significant donation to the Village toward this goal. It’s not often you find a new trout stream, so we will be working with the village staff clearing buckthorn, honeysuckles and other invasive woodies. We need a big turnout to show our support for this project. If you are interested in carpooling to the workday, contact Dyan Lesnik (dmlgriffin@gmail.com) and she will try to find a contact for you. Read More
Peeking Caddis
Last Updated: October 7, 2026 by Drew Kasel Leave a Comment
by Rusty Dunn
Stoneflies are named as such for the stony-bottomed, well-oxygenated streams that the insects prefer. Mayflies for the month of May, which is when hatches of historically important English species reach their peak. What about caddisflies? How were they named? Today’s term ‘caddis’ originated in the middle ages from the root word ‘cod’, which is a husk, bag, or pouch enclosing various contents. Larvae of many caddisfly species live within such cods, which are known today as ‘cases’. Dame Juliana Berners recommended use of cased caddis larvae as live bait (“put on thyn hoke a codworme”) in her 1496 manuscript A Treatyse of Fishing with an Angle. ‘Cod’ and ‘cad’ were often used interchangeably in Middle English, and by the 1600s, common names for cased caddis were various permutations of both words, including ‘cad bait’ (1620, Secrets of Angling), ‘cados worme’ (1634, Theatrum Insectorum), ‘Cadis-worme’ (The Compleat Gentleman, 1622), and ‘cadice’ (The Art of Angling, 1651). The modern spelling ‘caddis’ appeared as early as 1653 in the first edition of The Compleat Angler by Isaac Walton, whose entomological naiveté was evident when he wrote that a trout “especially loves the Mayflie, which is bred of the Cod-worm or Caddis”. Read More
Posted: October 6, 2026 by Drew Kasel Leave a Comment
“Figure Eats” Continues a Musky Fool Special
Posted: October 6, 2026 by Drew Kasel Leave a Comment
Learn What Your Board’s Been Up To
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.)
Recent minutes note our contribution to Project Green Teen at Malcom Shabazz City High School to which we received a warm thank you:
I can’t tell you all enough how much your support means to our programming. I really appreciate the additional funds. As you all may be sensing from afar, our funding from the district has continued to dwindle over the past three years, so an additional couple thousand dollars is more of a lifeline than you may even realize. On top of that, sustaining partners (not to sound too much like NPR 🙂 like you all is extraordinarily valuable to assuring that we can offer really unique and valuable learning experiences for our Shabazz students year after year. We will put it to good use!
Brian Counselman, Malcolm Shabazz City High School
Posted: October 6, 2026 by Drew Kasel Leave a Comment
New Members – October 2026
We’re pleased to announce the addition of the following new member to our ranks!
We are honored to have you among us. Please join our next meeting. We’d love to get to know you better, answer any questions and give you some free flies! If any questions about the meeting, please contact Dyan Lesnik.
* Note that some longer-term members may be captured in the list above. A glitch in the excel file has made it harder to sort … but it’s better to be inclusive and we’re happy to have your continued support!
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