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nater

Inter-Alliance Participant
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Everything posted by nater

  1. The Indiana Smallmouth Alliance will hold its annual 'Stravaganza on Saturday, February 25, in Zionsville, IN. Save the date if you're interested in learning about Indiana smallie fishing. More details to follow. Looking forward to attending the ISA Blowout the next weekend!
  2. From what I understand, entities in that part of the state are the ones who pushed the logjam removal/permit change through. They've basically created their own flooding problems and now are trying to solve them by further manipulating the regional ecology. It will get worse unless we do something about it. I don't know who the "we" is at this point. While that area concerns me, my home waters (Sugar/other Wabash River tribs) are my primary focus. It's a problem that needs Indiana-Illinois coordination though, because the recreational value/public interest in those waterways is limited on the Indiana side. Or so it seems.
  3. I had a meeting in Rensselear last night about watershed planning in the Iroqouis River watershed (Jasper and Newton counties specifically). I decided to drive up and spend the afternoon checking out the feeders, fish scouting, and maybe throwing a tube or two. I was warned by a friend that several of the major tributaries had just been "cleaned." I had an idea what this meant, but I did not expect this: Slough Creek: Curtis Creek: The combination of the meeting topic and the situation on the ground was absolutely absurd. You can't have any type of coordinated watershed effort when surveyors/farmers are allowed to do that. I didn't bother fishing in either of those two creeks, choosing instead to hit up the Iroqouis itself. It's a freakin canal. V-shaped channel, virtually no cover, difficult to wade, thin riparian corridor with low quality trees at best (cottonwoods, sassafrass, sugar maples). Fished for an hour without a sniff. I originally planned to drive around the Kankakee a little too, but I didn't have the heart; I know it's substantially worse up there.
  4. I believe the issue will be investigated further this summer. We need to keep pressuring for a more favorable ruling. The biggest issue that Arnold et al seem to be missing is that channelizing in one section doesn't eliminate the risk of flood damage, it just moves it downstream (and makes it worse). Mike--this is a good chance for us to work together. I'll be in touch.
  5. The issue caught us a little off guard over in Indiana. We lobbied pretty hard in the ~2 weeks leading up to the Senate vote but it was clear from the onset that support for the bill was widespread among the politicians. See the letter I wrote below and the response BT got from sending that same letter: http://indianasmallmouthalliance.org/members/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1184
  6. A paid staff member or two is key to getting started. There's so much potential for a warm water organization that it would take flight quickly with the right one or two people working 40+ hours a week. I don't think it would be out of the question for one of the larger national organizations to provide seed money if the right business model/plan was proposed to them. I recognize that a lot of work would be needed for such a plan and that I'm being entirely optimistic about the potential for seed money. Maintaining and supporting the other state chapters is key while that plan is being developed. I agree about waiting for post Blowout/Stravaganza to discuss further. We will be talking about a national group at the INSA Stravaganza, even if it is a far-off goal. In the mean time...50 degree highs on Saturday/Sunday in Indiana. You probably won't see me back here for a few days
  7. The domain registration for smallmouth.org lists the Missouri group's postal address...
  8. I posted in the Inter-Alliance board but this thread has a little more activity. Look at the national hook & bullet conservation scene: Ducks Unlimited [Wetlands] ($263 million in annual revenue; 676,000 members) Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation [Mountains/forests] ($55 million; 158,000 members) Pheasants Forever [Prairies] ($26 million; 120,000 members) Trout Unlimited [Cold water streams] ($20 million; 140,000 members) Notice what's missing? Angler-backed conservation for warm water rivers/streams. There's no doubt in my mind that significant potential exists for a national organization. There is essentially no nationally-active warm water fishing/conservation group in the U.S.--and we have a hell of a lot of warm water. I read that intersex smallmouth bass were found in a third of male bass at almost half of the sites examined in the Columbia, Colorado, and Mississippi River basins,or see personally that our streams are overloaded with sediment and nutrients, and know that there is reason for widespread concern. To me it's not a matter of developing a group of interested conservationists; that group already exists. It's a matter of activating them. Obviously that's an extremely challenging task; I'm on the board for two nonprofits and fully recognize the struggles of running volunteer-based organizations with limited funding. Burnout is the elephant in the room. But I can sense that the vision is there. I can sense that the motivation is there. You're making it happen in Illinois and we're holding our own over in Indiana. There are promising reports from Wisconsin and Missouri. What will it take to reach the next level? What are we doing to take us there? How can the state groups support each other establish a base that can be mobilized to eventually create and fund a national organization?
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