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

2021 – The Year Without an Icebreaker

You’ve probably already guessed that we will not all be gathering indoors for our Icebreaker event – our largest annual gathering and fundraiser. The Board is talking about some manner of outdoor event once the weather is better and we know a bit more about the pandemic.

Tremendous News from our Friends with Alaska TU!

Hi TU friends and family,

Pebble Mine DeniedI am so excited to share this news with you and feeling especially grateful going into Thanksgiving!

Today, the Army Corps of Engineers announced their decision to reject the Clean Water Act permit for the Pebble Mine. While there is more work ahead to defend the decision and to work toward long-term protections…this is the news we’ve been working toward for the past year (plus)!  Please join me in celebrating this BIG news – we absolutely couldn’t have done it without you and your chapter and we are so grateful for your steadfast support for so many years!!

More soon – and happy thanksgiving!

Meghan Barker
Bristol Bay Organizer – Trout Unlimited

Click. Order. Give. With Amazon Smile


Amazon Smile

Amazon Smile is a website operated by Amazon with the same products, prices, and shopping features as Amazon.com. The difference is that when you shop on AmazonSmile, the AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price of eligible products to the charitable organization of your choice. Set “Trout Unlimited” with the Madison location as your charity and you will be giving to the SWTU with every purchase. It adds up over time, and the Chapter has already received $433 through this program!

A Gift For the Future

(This message was emailed to members on November 30, 2020)
Our first and foremost hope is that every SWTU member and his or her family are staying healthy. With the COVID challenges in mind, we wish you a safe holiday season. 2021, we hope, will bring a return to normal as soon as possible.
While Chapter income is down, so are expenses. For now SWTU is in excellent financial shape. We have enough reserves to fund our programs when they resume and help our partners with worthwhile restoration projects next year. Let’s look a bit further down the road.
With a donation to our Endowment Fund, you can help SWTU improve and expand our conservation work in the coming years.

Read More

New Members – December 2020

We’re pleased to announce the addition of the following new members to our ranks! Read More

Newscasts – September 2020

This issue has lots of great information, including:

 

Watch for virtual meeting news

Recordings and live virtual events in the works
We’ll stay fish-ically (physically) distant but socially connected through a variety of virtual events we’re developing for fall into winter. We of course hoped we’d be able to physically come together in some way, but that’s not in the cards and so we’re excited by some of the ideas and we’re exploring to bring to you.

Raise your virtual hand!
If you have any burning questions about the local watersheds, ecology initiatives or other outreach, please send them along to Topf Wells at topfwells@gmail.com and we’ll do our best to see they are addressed in an upcoming presentation.

Watch your email and we’ll “see” you soon! You can also keep connected through our website, Facebook page and Instagram.

Message from our new President

By Jim Hess

Please let me introduce myself. I have been a member of SWTU for 20 years, joining the chapter after moving to Madison in 2000 to be the director of Monona Terrace. Since retiring in 2010, I have focused my efforts on conservation issues, including volunteering at our workdays. I have been the Conservation Committee Chair for the last six years and really enjoy planning and organizing these events and getting know everyone. I previously served on the SWTU Board from 2013 to 2019. Read More

Good news comes in twos

There are two huge wins for conservation you may have heard about from SWTU or on your local news that we don’t remind repeating … and hope you don’t mind hearing about again. Read More

Klinkhåmer Special

Klinkhamer Special

Fountains of Youth – Classic trout flies that have withstood the test of time … flies that remain “forever young”

by Rusty Dunn

Emergence is a time of great peril for mayflies, as nymphs must ascend to the surface in full view of ever-watchful trout.  Nymphs that survive the ascent accum­ulate just under the surface, where they molt and tran­sition from the juvenile to adult stage.  The nymph’s thorax pierces the surface film, its skin splits, and the winged adult crawls atop the water, leav­ing an empty shuck behind.  Adults then expand their wings, wait for them to dry, and fly off to the safety of stream­side bushes.  Hatching can take several min­utes or more, and emergers are highly vul­nerable to trout the whole time.  The layer of water extending from the sur­face to a few inches be­low the surface is emerger coun­try.  Trout know it well, and so should you, for it is the most productive place to be during a hatch. Read More