TimU

Congrats Steve! Glad to see all that "Experience" pay off! Good luck and good fishing!

Kevin, I think your misunderstanding the $10 per day fee. If you have the $15 annual pass you will not need to pay the $10 every time you go into a park. The $10 per day fee would be for someone who hasn't already purchased the annual pass. Atleast that is how I am reading it, anyone else see it this way?

We are going to postpone this outting. We are waiting for additional signs to be finished by the supplier and will reschedule towards the end of April. I have a couple of signs(5) and Scott F. has a few more. If you are aware of a place that just needs a sign and no post, please contact one of us and we will work to get you some signs. I will work on a new date this week and post it by Friday. Thanks, Tim

Hi All, I only have 1 response for volunteers so far. Please let me know if you can make it as soon as possible so we can put a plan together on meeting places and sign posting areas. The idea behind doing the posting this early is to get the signs up before the Catch and Release ONLY season begins on April 1st. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, Tim

Scott, I am in Schaumburg so it is no problem for me to pick the signs up. Let me know when they will be ready and what info I need to pick them up. Mike, Thanks for making the call! Eugene, I will be at the Blowout so I can pick up the post pounder. Also, I look forward to meeting you, I hear we share a friend in Steve Hartzos. Thanks All, Tim

Jim, You mentioned the slide show during the Blowout in another post, is someone collecting photos for the slide show? I might have just missed the post, but I have a few photos I wanted to send in. Thanks, Tim

Hello All, We are going to put a date of Saturday April 29th on the books to try and get out and put up new ISA Yellow Conservations signs. Plan on meeting at 9am. The plan is to have two meeting points, one to the south and one to the north. Jim B will be spearheading the run south(Fox, Dupage, Kankakee) and I will be coordinating the run north(Fox, Kishwaukee). We have also talked about hitting places along the Illinois River, this will depend on the number of volunteers and their locations. What we need from members: 1. Volunteers - We are going to try and make this as quick and painless as possible, by having the two meeting locations we hope to save as much driving time for volunteers as possible. We will try to centralize the meeting points as best as possible based volunteer location and sign posting location. Even if you can only give an hour or two please come out and help the cause. 2. Locations - Our members are our eyes and ears on this one. Please send a PM to Jim B or myself if you know a location that needs a sign. Again, we are not looking for your honey hole, just any forest preserve, park or access point that has enough fishing traffic to warrant the need of a sign. Even if you can't volunteer to put up the sign, please send locations. This is the key to making this as easy and time efficient as possible. If anyone has a list of existing sign locations that would be helpful as well, if not, I will create a spreadsheet based on locations this year and continue to update it as locations come in. 3. Tools and Materials - This is my first year doing this so I'm not sure what we have in inventory as far as materials go, can someone please let me know what we have and where they are located? From talking with Jim B., I know we need more post pounders. I'm assuming we can wrangle up enough sockets and ratchets for each team to be able to attach the signs to the posts. Please post here if you can volunteer, we will arrange the meeting points as we get closer to the date and have a better idea of the number of volunteers and the locations. Of course you will be more than welcome to wet a line while your out posting signs, but please keep safety as your top priority. Depending on snow/rain in the coming weeks you can expect high, fast and cold water. Any other tips or suggestion are welcome!

Glad to see so many people are watching out and paying attention to the yellow signs. Jim B and I are trying to get a date together for putting up new signs and replacing missing/damaged signs. If you are aware of a location that needs a sign replaced or a location that just doesn't have a sign please PM the location to Jim B or myself. Again, we are not looking for your honey hole, just a forest preserve, park or access point that has fishing traffic that you believe needs a sign. I will get the date up in a separate post shortly.

Jim, Can you give me more specifics on this? My company is doing a home show at Pheasant Run in St. Charles this weekend and I have to go there Sunday at 5pm to help pack up all of the displays. If the timing is right, I can stop at the fairgrounds before that and pick up the painting. I have several other items for the Blowout raffle as well. I could drop everything off to John L. sometime in the next week or so when I visit my parents in Lombard. Let me know. Tim

Too funny Eric! I have a buddy who pulls that thing out once or twice a year on slow days and gives it a try. He has never caught anything on it either.

I forgot to mention that someone from I believe Trout Unlimited came up to me at the Rosemont show looking for the most recent edition of the BronzeBack Bulletin because he had submitted a story on Door County Smallmouth(I think the story was actually in the last edition). Anyway, he would like a copy of the newsletter that has his article in it. I know I am not giving a whole lot of info, but hopefully someone knows the person I am talking about.

I will not be able to do the Sunday shift. The vehicle I need to make it all work will not be available to me that day. Sorry. Tim

The show was much larger than last year and the turn out seemed better as well. I worked Friday from 2:30-8:30 and all though we only signed up one person at the show, we had promises from several other people to sign up online. We had atleast one more person ready to sign up until they saw how we were processing credit cards, the gentleman was not comfortable with us taking an imprint of his card to be processed later.(Something to think about for future shows) I think the kayak on display brought in a few people who wouldn't have stopped otherwise, it was a great talking point in regards to the Blowout. I liked how our booth was setup this year compared to last, we didn't have the table in front of us this year so it was much easier to engage people. Jim J's email regarding how to approach people at the show was very helpful as well. On a side note, while I am used to being snubbed by some trout fisherman when approaching them regarding SM fishing, I was very surprised at the number of walleye fisherman that looked at me with total disgust when I mentioned SM fishing to them, with one person telling me they wouldn't fish for SM if it was the last fish on the planet. I guess they just don't know what they are missing!

I might be willing to do this. Show hours for that Sunday are 10am - 4pm. I would be able to drop everything off to Rich on my way back that evening. I will have a firm answer by Monday or Tuesday next week.

I see that know one has signed up for the evening shift on Friday, I will work the long 2-9 shift. I marked it on the sheet. We still need more volunteers for alot of shifts! Please give a few hours if you can, it's a great chance to get a preview of the show if you plan on going back over the weekend. This years shows is supposed to be more than double the size of last years show! Although the bikini ice fishing team is not coming out for this one(they will be at the Rockford show in a few weeks)there should still be a ton of new and interesting things to look at.

LOL...My first and only time I worked a show was this show last year. I worked it with Gordon... Put me down for the afternoon with Gordon, 2-6pm would be fine. If need be, I will work longer or switch to the evening shift. I hope we have the same wonderful booth placement as last year...lots of nice things to look at last time!

Hey guys, Can someone tell me who I need to talk to about donations for the Blow Out raffle? I have 2 rods that I won last year, plus 2 packages of lures that I want to donate. Thanks, Tim

I would prefer the afternoon shift on Friday, but would be availble for the evening shift if need be. Please let me know which shift would help the most. Thanks, Tim

Gregg, I am also interested. Please send pictures to tumj1@hotmail.com

Fully Employed???? Didn't you just retire about this time last year? I will be available on the Friday of the Rosemont show again this year. I can do the early or late shift with a little notice.

Looking Downstream The blue arrow shows the main current of the river being deflected by the barbs back towards the main channel and away from the eroding bank. Each individual barb is set at a specific angle deflecting the flow towards the next barb. The red arrow shows the backwash area created behind each barb, this is a low current area that will eventually fill in with silt further securing the bank and preventing the barb from being washed out from the backside. Looking Upstream Again the blue arrow shows the current being deflected away from the bank. The red rectangle shows the backwash area that has already been filled in with silt. I didn't catch how long ago this project was completed, but I believe it was sometime this year, so it doesn't take long for the changes to begin. Looking Upstream on the proposed area The orange lines represent where the 4 stream barbs will be on this extremely eroded outside bend which is only a few hundred feet upstream from the project that is already completed. All in all it was a very interesting presentation. Dan and Josh seem passionate about the project and very grateful for the ISA's support. It was also nice to put faces to a few more ISA members that prior to this were only names on the message board.

Bterril, I keep a similar spread sheet, except yours is much more detailed. Are you using the color coding for different streams? I currently separate my data via tabs in excel...each stream will have it's own tab, but I would like to bring them on to the same tab, I think color coding each line may accomplish that. I guess it might become a problem if/when I fish more than the 4 streams I currently fish. Also, I don't understand what you have under the water temp column on your sheet. 3-15"??? Is this a code that I am just not aware of? Scott F, I pull my data from the USGS site, I just record it on a spreadsheet for quick reference and comparison. I check the gauge before I go out, and then again when I get back. I fish the Fox often and depending with what they are doing with the locks coming out of the Chain that day this lets me record if the water was rising or declining during my trip.

I'm trying to work it out to be there, but I probably won't know until tomorrow evening. I have Kevin's number and will give him a call Saturday morning early to let him know whether or not I am on my way. I will bring a camera to take pictures and I'm interested to see the how the project effects the river.

I try keep an excel spreadsheet for each of my river trips. I am more interested in recording water levels, flow and weather for the day then actual numbers of fish. I do usually enter the number of fish and approximate location/hole the fish came out of. This is only the first year I have been keeping it, but I am hoping that it will help decide which river and location I hit during certain water levels and times of the year. With most rivers being an hour drive for me it is a real bummer to drive an hour just to have a river too high or too low to be fishable. I also photograph the first fish of each outing,(just in case it's the only fish caught)and any other fish that would be a keeper depending on species. I practice C&R 99% percent of the time, usually only keeping panfish once or twice a year.

Actually there is a band called Lucas McCain. But I also was not aware of this until I Google'd it. But who is Bobby Bittman?