PI_PROGINDEX/SPECIAL_SECTION/PAGES [T01] | 04/16/10
13:34 | SUPERIMPPB
AP PHOTO
This photo shows a view of Jefferson’s Rock, a scenic overlook where Appalachian trail hikers can view the confluence of the Shenandoah River and the Potomac River near Harpers Ferry, WV. The NPCA, which is pushing to have the trail listed on the National Register of Historic Places or labeled a National Historic Landmark, says development also increases access for illegal motorized vehicle use, which can damage the trail and encourage both poaching and vandalism.
Development threatens Appalachian Trail BY VICKI SMITH
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — From power line projects to planned subdivisions, development is threatening the narrow but resource-rich Appalachian trail, and the National Park Conservation Association says more must be done to protect it. Please see TRAIL, Page 3
T2
Sunday, April 18, 2010 The Progress-Index, Petersburg, VA
PI_PROGINDEX/SPECIAL_SECTION/PAGES [T02] | 04/16/10
14:41 | SUPERIMPPB
Development threatens Appalachian Trail Continued from Page 2
In a report released Wednesday, the association said threats also include quarries, wind farms, racetracks, illegal all-terrain vehicle use and mountain bikes. All along the 2,178-mile trail, the report says, decisions about projects must consider “the special and fragile character” of the trail, its resources and its landscapes. But the West Virginia-based group that helps manage and maintain the trail says that’s a daily challenge. “When you run north-south in the eastern U.S. for almost 2,200 miles, you’re kind of in everybody’s way,” said David Startzell, executive director of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy in Harpers Ferry. “Our objective is not to be the Great Wall of China to everything that might be proposed,” he said, “but we do try to influence the siting and design of projects.” The Appalachian Trail stretches through 14 states, from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine, and encompasses more than 250,000 acres. Yet the average width of the protected area around it is just 1,000 feet, making it vulnerable to pollution, invasive plant species and projects that can compromise both habitat and the wilderness experience. The NPCA, which is pushing to have the trail listed on the National Register of Historic Places or labeled a National Historic Landmark, says development also increases access for illegal motorized vehicle use, which can damage the trail and encourage both poaching and vandalism. “There is good physical protection in both the Deep South and New England,” says Ron Tipton, the association’s senior vice president for policy. “In the middle, the threats are very intense.” Subdivisions are probably the single greatest threat, Tipton said, particularly in high-density population areas such as Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey. In 2008, Pennsylvania passed legislation requiring some counties and townships to pass zoning ordinances aimed at protecting the trail from incompatible uses. Tipton would like to see similar action in at-risk areas. “It’s not as important when you go through one national forest after another in the South,” he said. The association wants more money to pursue protective designations, to continue studying the health of the trail’s natural resources and to buy more high-priority adjacent lands. Only about 10 miles of the trail are still privately owned, and the association wants to acquire about 150 properties to make it entirely public property. Buying adjacent lands as well would ensure people feel like they’re in the wilderness, not just next to a subdivision, Tipton said. Though best known as a hiking path used by about 2 million people a year, the trail also is a living laboratory that could help warn the Eastern Seaboard of looming environmental problems. In 2006, a diverse group of organizations began long-term monitoring of the trail’s environmental health, relying on volunteers to collect data about plants and animals, air and water quality, visibility and migration patterns.
AP PHOTO
People walk along the Appalachian National Scenic Trail crossing the Potomac River in Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. In a report released March 31, 2010, the National Park Conservation Association said more must be done to protect the trail. All along the 2,178-mile trail, the report says, decisions about projects must consider “the special and fragile character” of the rail, its resources and its landscapes. The Appalachian Mountains are home to one of the richest collections of temperate zone species in the world, and the trail has a natural diversity nearly unsurpassed in the national park system. It also has different ecosystems that blend into one another — hardwood forests next to softwood forests next to alpine forests. An inventory completed in 2001 identified more than 2,200 rare plant and animal species, including six that were threatened or endangered and 360 considered rare in their states. But a 2005 survey documented invasive, nonnative plants at 250 locations between North Carolina and Maine, with the highest percentages in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy says threats to the trail generally fall into three categories, including those
that occur on trail lands, such as ATV use, illegal dumping and the theft of timber. Then there are major development projects such as power lines, highway expansions and wind farms that cross the trail or would sit on adjacent lands. Finally, there are long-term threats including air pollution, acid rain deposition and global climate change. “At any one time,” Startzell said, “there are probably 30 to 40 issues we’re dealing with.”
KIDS JOIN THE FUN!!! Phoenix Summer Learning & Enrichment Program
The Children’s Home of Virginia Baptist, Inc. Petersburg,
6900 Hickory Road • Petersburg, Virginia 23803 A summer enrichment program will be offered to children ages six (6) to thirteen (13). The program begins on June 21 and ends on August 6, 2010. The Phoenix Program will operate from 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM. Monday - friday. The cost is $60.00 per week (tuition $480 for the summer). The program will enroll 30-50 children. This summer program will be educational and fun-filled to include activities and field trips for the children enrolled. REGISTER TODAY 804-590-2080 The Progress-Index, Petersburg, VA Sunday, April 18, 2010
PI_PROGINDEX/SPECIAL_SECTION/PAGES [T03] | 04/16/10
16:41 | SUPERIMPPB
T3
OUTDOORS 2010
Salmon fishermen ready their reels BY JASON DEAREN, ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SAN FRANCISCO — Recreational salmon fishermen will again plunk their lines in the waters off the California coast this year after a two-year break because of a decline in the number of fish returning to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. However, the short sport season that begins Saturday is currently scheduled to last only through the month of April, a short respite for a struggling industry. “I’m thrilled to have this opportunity and hope there’s more,” said Marc Gorelnik, a recreational fisherman from El Cerrito, Calif. Gorelnik, like many sport salmon anglers, hopes the season is extended. “It’s sort of like asking a hungry man if they want a morsel instead of a full meal,” said Gorelnik of the shortened season. “We’re thrilled to get out and wet a line but think we should have a full season.” The season’s window could be extended by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, which votes on the issue April 15. The council also will vote on whether to allow a short commercial season, also for the first time in two years.
Traditionally, salmon season is best off the northern California coast in June, after northwest winds in May roil the ocean, stirring up nutrients from the deep that help create healthy conditions for numerous species. Under current restrictions, fishermen can keep two salmon per day caught off California’s coast, except north of Humboldt Bay, as long as they measure 20 inches or more in length. Endangered coho salmon hooked off the state’s coast are still off limits and must be released. Following record low numbers in 2009, federal biologists are predicting a larger return of fall-run chinook salmon to the Sacramento River and its tributaries this year. Salmon from the Sacramento River are a prime source of the fish that are caught off of the California and southern Oregon coasts. While the estimate of 245,000 fall-run chinook returning this year is promising, only a third of the fish predicted to return last year were recorded by federal biologists. The large declines in recent years have forced the cancellation of any salmon fishing since 2007, prompting the federal government to issue $170 million in disaster
AP PHOTO
David Torres, 3, checks out salmon as he walks past fisherman as the first day of recreational salmon fishing opens, Saturday, April 3, 2010 in Moss Landing, Calif.
VISIT US ONLINE @ PROGRESS-INDEX.COM T4
Sunday, April 18, 2010 The Progress-Index, Petersburg, VA
PI_PROGINDEX/SPECIAL_SECTION/PAGES [T04] | 04/16/10
15:00 | SUPERIMPPB
relief over the past two years to help fishing communities in California, Oregon and Washington. Some have blamed changing ocean conditions for the chinook’s decline, but most fishermen and federal regulators cite the vast series of pumps and dams used to move water around the delta as the main reason for the decline in the Sacramento River. Even with cancellations the past two years, commercial and recreational salmon fishing contributed $17 million to the West Coast economy in 2009, according to the council. For recreational charter captains like Dennis Baxter, who operates his boat, the New Captain Pete out of Pillar Point Harbor near Half Moon Bay, the short season is welcome revenue. Baxter said, despite the short season, a lot of customers are waiting to book space on boats like his until there is proof of good fishing. “With the prices we’re charging now and the economy, it’s putting a damper on it,” Baxter said. “I have a feeling that before sportsmen decide to spend their recreational dollar, a lot of guys are holding off to see what kind of season we’ll have before they commit.”
Sounds of waiting for turkeys BY MIKE LEGGETT 2010 COX NEWSPAPERS
large pack of animals. Maybe that’s a territorial thing, an auditory chest bump to fool other packs into thinking twice about trying to encroach on territory already claimed by the big boys. Just listening to the sounds, you’d swear there were 15 or 20, when five would be a big number. Usually it’s only a pair of adults and maybe one or two pups. That’s how coyotes roll. Regardless of the number of animals in the pack, this communal morning concert lasts longer than most, ending in a final yip that bookends the opening note. Then they’re gone, at least from hearing range, disappeared farther back into the woods to rest up around whatever den they’re using. Over here, across the wheat field and into the edge of the woods, Knight and I are trying to find the spot we think our gobbler might pitch down to strut. Sunrise is a little after 7 a.m. and it’s clear, so gobblers will hit the ground probably by 6:50. We find a perfect glade not far from his roost, with a little uphill run toward where we’re hiding back in the brush. And we wait. Knight breaks out a box call and sends up a few quiet yelps. I’m 10 yards behind him with a video camera, and I wait maybe five minutes before yelping with a mouth call, just to give the illusion that two hens are back here waiting for lover boy to arrive. There’s no response, though we still
can hear at least that pair of gobblers to our north, breaking up the morning with gobbles, tinny sounding through the woods. Thirty minutes after we sit down, a gobbler much closer cranks up and for a moment it sounds as if he’s answering us. Then, over the sounds of his urgent gobbles, we can hear plainly the sound of another call. Somebody, from somewhere, has gotten between us and that bird. The gobbler is going crazy when the caller, maybe on a small out-tract just a few hundred yards away, hits his box call with a cackle designed to send his quarry into a frenzy. Instead, the gobbler never makes another sound. There’s no gunshot either, so we know the hunter has failed. As have we. Though we were close to our bird when he gobbled, he never gobbles again. Perhaps he saw us as we moved along the fence line across a couple of hundred yards of open pasture. Perhaps he just flew down and strutted at the opposite end of the woods and then hot-footed it northward to join some hens we couldn’t even hear. And perhaps, just maybe, he spooked at the sound of the coyotes and figured any place they were on the ground was no place for him. He would have simply dropped out of the roost, glided several hundred yards in the opposite direction and set himself down with a turkey sigh in a place where he felt safe.
OUTDOORS 2010
RED RIVER COUNTY, Texas — Cardinals and crows, mockingbirds and meadowlarks. The woods are waking and those birds, and many more, are providing the wake-up call. Standing on the edge of a 20-acre parcel of woods — where, the day before, we saw a mature eastern gobbler strutting for a pair of hens — we are just waiting for a gobbler to reveal himself. Then we’ll try to slip into position to call him straight off the roost and into shotgun range. Barred owls, the real turkey alarm clock, begin their morning songs, relaying positions and other territorial information their fellow raptors will need before they settle down for a morning nap. They’ve been up all night hunting, while the rest of the bird world was sleeping, and their haunting calls ring clear and loud through massive big timber on the Stan Graff Ranch in far northeast Texas. As the calls fade away on one side of us, owls on the other side pick up the round, repeating the sequence as if to summon up the sun to chase away the darkness, the same darkness that hid them from their prey. Far, far away to the north, in a different set of woods, a gobbler lets the world know he’s awake. That gobble shocks a second bird awake and into a full gobble. That’s two, though neither of them is anywhere
close to us. A third gobbler, this one maybe only 200 yards away, finds the resolve to gobble once, just once, on the north end of our motte of trees. Eastern wild turkeys are funny birds. They don’t gobble much. They are very secretive because of the terrain in which they live, and there aren’t many of them even in places where there are lots of them. Old Rio Grande hunters like me have to reign in our urge to chase them and learn to sit and wait, and watch, until the turkey makes a move. We have to be careful not to over-call and under-hunt. I look at Steve Knight’s face, and he returns the stare. It’s dark under the overhang and he’s wearing a face mask, but his eyes reveal the truth. He’s heard the same turkey, and we begin searching quickly for a way to creep closer to the bird without giving ourselves away. We’re whispering strategies and pointing to trees when the coyotes crank it up, all the way up. Across a fence and a narrow green field, a pack of coyotes is going beyond the call of duty to let any other dogs, any deer, turkeys or competing bands of predators know they’re in charge. It starts with a yip and segues rapidly into a series of long, mournful wails that go on and on, forever it seems. I’m always amazed at the other-worldliness of coyote songs. A single coyote sounds like a single coyote. But two or more can produce sounds that mimic a
AP PHOTO
A wild turkey walks along the side of Michigan highway 25 in Bay City, Mich., Wednesday, March 31, 2010. The Progress-Index, Petersburg, VA Sunday, April 18, 2010 PI_PROGINDEX/SPECIAL_SECTION/PAGES [T05] | 04/16/10
13:56 | SUPERIMPPB
T5
Crappie houses: simple rules apply for anglers BY DAVID CASSTEVENS
OUTDOORS 2010
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS (MCT)
LAKE EDDLEMAN, Texas — Sipping light beer and smoking a menthol cigarette, the woman wearing a blue NASCAR cap inside Peanut’s Crappie House pulled her line from the murky depths of Lake Eddleman. Not a bite. Nary a nibble. “They’re down there,” Debbie “Peanut” Reynolds assured. Catfish. Bass. White and black crappie galore. Hercules, half-napping, looked up and barked as if in full agreement. Three other mutts lay along the plank floor or sprawled on a dilapidated plaid sofa. On television the uniformed crew of the USS Enterprise faced another intergalactic crisis on a rerun of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” Reynolds, 49, inspected her hot pink tube jig. “I love sci-fi,” she said, nodding at the screen. Best of all she loves fishing and the ebb and flow of her uncomplicated life. Peanut’s Crappie House sits near the end of a winding, potholed dirt road, about 100 miles northwest of Fort Worth, Texas. The sheet-metal structure _ an enclosed dock _ isn’t much to look at, but from the comfort of her favorite swivel chair the owner can fish all day, watch TV, talk to her pets (“Beethoven, be-have!”) and welcome anglers of all ages as they renew their springtime pursuit of crappie, the most popular panfish in Texas. “It’s sad. There aren’t many places like this left,” Reynolds said. Her business, open every day, and similar operations are slowly disappearing from the landscape. Rocky Creek Marina operates a crappie house on Lake Benbrook. Lake Weatherford Marina has one too. “I’m told that as these places get old they aren’t replaced,” said Phylis McQuern, an employee at Lake Weatherford Marina. “Droughts and storms have taken a toll. There are very few to go to, now.” Lake levels have taken their toll as well, said Tom Hungerford, an assistant biologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in Fort Worth. “The water level fluctuations over the last five years probably have made business pretty tough for those (crappie house) folks,” he said.
‘BEST EATIN’ FISH’
Reynolds, an Amarillo, Texas, native, spent many years in Phoenix and held various jobs while living there. She managed a grocery store. She drove a taxi and a city bus. After her parents died, she moved to Young County 2{ years ago and, on a whim, bought the crappie house from Cloyce Shadwick. Cloyce and wife Lu now run C & L’s Bait and Tackle, which is just down the road a bit. Both are partial to crappie. “Best eatin’ fish there are,” Cloyce Shadwick T6
MCT PHOTO
Peanut's Crappie House is one of the remaining fishing houses on Eddleman Lake near Graham, Texas. declared. Reynolds enjoys the delicate flavor of the white, flaky fish, too. “You can deep-fry crappie. Bake crappie. Broil it. . . . I put crappie in a nice pot of tater soup.” The crappie house owner spoke in a measured cadence, like Benjamin Buford “Bubba” Blue reciting all the ways to prepare shrimp in the movie “Forrest Gump.” Under ideal conditions, Reynolds said, a person who drops a line in the 30-foot waters of her fishing house can hook a couple of dozen of the schooling fish in 90 minutes. “If you can’t catch them in here,” she said, “then the fish just aren’t biting.” In Texas, crappie are subject to a 10-inch minimum and a per-person daily bag of 25. White crappie weighing 4{ pounds have been caught in Texas waters, according to the wildlife department. On Feb. 3, Reynolds said, she and her customers caught 85 “keepers.” She watched a local supermarket butcher reel in a yellow cat using a lightweight rod. The fish weighed 13 pounds, 10 ounces. “It was like pulling a refrigerator up with a string,” Reynolds said of the 20-minute battle of wills.
THE SIMPLE LIFE
Fishing remains one of the least costly forms of recreation. Peanut’s Crappie House charges adults $5 to fish all day; $3 for seniors and children. “I don’t sell bait anymore,” Reynolds said. “But I’ll keep a box or two of worms around for the little kids. Some of these parents are clueless. They bring kids out here with bass lures and giant minnows. They’re not going to catch squat with that stuff.” Allen Shultz, 25, a self-described jack-of-all-trades, lives part time on nearby Possum Kingdom Lake. On a recent morning, before the wind picked up, he caught a string of crappie, enough to feed 10 people, including
Sunday, April 18, 2010 The Progress-Index, Petersburg, VA
PI_PROGINDEX/SPECIAL_SECTION/PAGES [T06] | 04/16/10
13:59 | SUPERIMPPB
himself and his uncle’s family. Reynolds sees the economic hardships. Near the end of each month, more seniors living on fixed incomes appear at the crappie house to fish for food. The owner offers them fish she has caught, her way of being neighborly. A pleasant woman with a husky laugh, she is a fixture there, arriving by dawn and staying until after dark. Her rules are simple: No running. No glass containers. No leaving hooks on the floor. Reynolds once had to dig a catfish hook out of Baby Doll’s paw.
Missouri angler’s life is the pits BY BRENT FRAZEE MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS (MCT)
The Prince George Parks and Recreation Department is sponsoring a Hunter Safety Course on Saturday May 22, 2010. The course will be held at Prince George High School in the Commons area from 8:00am – 6:00pm. The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries will instruct the class. Certificate is awarded. There is no fee. Preregistration is required. Space is limited. Please call 733-2646 to register and for further information. Bring your lunch, snacks and drinks.
OUTDOORS 2010
MONTROSE, Mo. — If you’re an angler, you would like the way Rick Jackson has decorated his house. The minute you step in, you’re greeted by mounts of a 4pound crappie and a bluegill that weighed just short of 3 pounds. Walk into the garage, and there’s a 10-pound bass hanging on the wall. All fish of a lifetime. And all caught just minutes from Jackson’s home in little Montrose, Mo. Head any direction out of town, he’ll tell you, and you’ll run into a place that is capable of producing some of the best fishing in the state. No, we’re not talking about Truman Lake. Or the Montrose Power Plant Lake. We’re talking about little bodies of water so obscure that they’re not even on a map _ strip pits. Once, west-central Missouri was at the heart of the state’s coal industry and was actively mined. But once that era ended in the early 1980s, a new era dawned. Those pits filled with water and were stocked with fish. Today, many of them are dream fishing holes _ places Jackson calls “a little slice of heaven.” “I only have to go a few miles outside of town to find all the fishing I’d want,” said Jackson, 59, who has been fishing the strip pits since he was a child. “The amount of strip pits in this area is unbelievable. “Most of them are on private land, but I have permission to fish about 50 of them. And I’m out on them every chance I get, especially in the spring.” That’s where Jackson was Tuesday. He rambled down the back roads in his truck, with his johnboat sticking out of the bed, and passed many good-looking pits, all filled with fish, he said. “I’ve caught fish out of all of these,” he said. “But we’re going to a better one.” He finally pulled his truck up to a gate to a pasture, then
drove through and bounced down a country lane until he reached the edge of a remote pit. He slid his boat into the water, attached a trolling motor and was off. It wasn’t long before he was casting a plastic crawdad imitation to the shallows along a rocky bank. He felt a tap, then a pull. When he set the hook, a 3-pound bass shot to the surface and exploded out of the water. The fish pulled hard, then made a run. But it didn’t take long for Jackson to take the fight out of the fish and pull it into the boat. “That’s a good, solid fish,” he said before releasing it. “But there are bigger ones in here.” Moments later, Jackson was holding the proof _ a bass he estimated at 5 pounds. We spent the rest of the day fishing two other pits and catching fish. By the time we were done, we had caught and released 63 bass, almost half of them 15 inches or bigger. We used everything from suspending stickbaits to jig-andpigs to tube baits to entice those fish. But that came as no surprise to Jackson. “March is the best month to catch a big bass on these pits,” he said. “The water’s just warming up, and the big ones are just starting to get active. “They’re usually shallow, and they’re looking for something to eat.” Jackson laughs when he labels his style of fishing as “primitive.” “I’m just out here in a leaky old boat with a handful of lures,” he said. But it’s hard to argue with success. Jackson has been around long enough to know which strip pits are the most productive and when they’ll turn on. And he knows the factors that will activate that fishing. For example, his log book indicates he always finds his best fishing three days either side of a full or new moon. Overcast days are usually most productive, and the wind plays a big part.
HUNTER SAFTEY CLASS:
Brenda’s Bait & Tackle Shop Open 7 Days & Nights
Complete Line of Fishing Accessories Fresh and Salt Water Tackle Headquarters
LIVE BAIT
Blood Worms • Nite Crawlers Squid • Shrimp • Minnows Crickets • License Serving the Petersburg Area for Over 50 Years MCT PHOTOS
Angler Rick Jackson fishes at a strip pit near Montrose, Missouri.
Brenda Hutson • 804-732-2459 1119 McKenzie Street • Petersburg The Progress-Index, Petersburg, VA Sunday, April 18, 2010
PI_PROGINDEX/SPECIAL_SECTION/PAGES [T07] | 04/16/10
13:57 | SUPERIMPPB
T7
Blue ribbon Brule keeps its fans returning BY DENNIS ANDERSON STAR TRIBUNE (MCT)
ON THE BRULE RIVER, Wis. _ Like great artwork continually in revision, this river has retained its graceful lines forever, while also changing_if not its actual course, then its riffles and pools, colors and cadence. Precisely because he appreciates such changes, and is drawn to them, Dave Zentner, of Duluth, Minn., loves rivers, the Brule in particular. Come winter, he might be seen alongside it, on snowshoes. In summer, he paddles it in a canoe. And, as on a recent Wednesday, he fishes it whenever he can. “There’s a hen making her redd right there,” Dave said, pointing his fly rod to a shallow spot, midstream in the Brule. The day was atypically warm for late March, even hot, and we were looking for steelhead, migratory rainbow trout that live dual lives, for long periods swimming here in the Brule, while also, alternately, living in Lake Superior. About 8,000 of these fish swam up the Brule last fall to over-winter in the river before spawning now, in spring, then returning to the big lake. Mysterious fish, steelhead depend on rivers like the Brule, on which there are no dams or natural barriers to upstream migration. Steelhead here depend also on the pristine and wildly varied northwest Wisconsin watershed that gently cradles the Brule and its tributaries, like a mother might her baby. Dave waded into the river, his fly rod in hand. Like many North Shore steelheaders, including those who fish Minnesota streams north of Duluth, his reel was spooled not with fly line but monofilaT8
MCT PHOTOS
Dave Zentner, of Duluth, struggles to gain an advantage while fighting a huge steelhead migratory rainbow trout in the Bois Brule River, which empties into Lake Superior near Brule, Wisconsin. ment. On the line’s end was a No. 5 hook and a yarn fly. “It’s a method that has evolved up here over many years,” Dave said. “Fly lines work well, also. But the monofilament seems to make a better presentation for steelhead, and catch more fish.” Generally flat_even, in sections, languid_the Brule’s headwaters some 50 or so river miles upstream from its mouth are flanked by vast spring-fed bogs. Tamarack and spruce are common there, and brook and brown trout take residence, along with beavers, eagles, ospreys and insects so many and varied as to nearly defy definition. Farther downstream, the
Brule gathers itself in swifter currents. This is where Dave, I and my 16-year-old son, Trevor, fished on Wednesday. Standing now knee-deep in the Brule, Dave made one cast upstream, then another and another. Size matters to any angler, and the attraction here is the gargantuan nature of Brule steelhead. These fish might weigh 7 pounds or more. “There we go!” Dave had hooked up, and a powerful big fish of what seemed like 26 or 27 inches went quickly airborne, drawing his long rod into a deep arch. Spring steelhead that haven’t yet spawned aren’t feeding so much when they
Sunday, April 18, 2010 The Progress-Index, Petersburg, VA
PI_PROGINDEX/SPECIAL_SECTION/PAGES [T08] | 04/16/10
13:22 | SUPERIMPPB
take a fly. Rather, they intend more likely to dispense with its intrusion into their otherwise very specifically focused lives. So hooking such a fish in March or April is a fortunate enough occurrence. Landing them is a bonus. Steelhead season on the Brule is a tradition in the north among Wisconsin and Minnesota river anglers. Some, like Dave, fish monofilament on fly rods. Others favor fly outfits more conventionally rigged. Still others throw hardware, using spinning rods and reels. Described often as “the river of presidents,” the Brule historically has been fished not only by Midwest
anglers but by Calvin Coolidge, Ulysses Grant, Grover Cleveland, Herbert Hoover and Dwight Eisenhower. Whatever steelheading methods those bigwigs employed_if they fished steelhead at all, or instead cast only to the Brule’s resident brook and brown trout_it’s doubtful they ever were among the throngs who typically descend on the Brule on the season’s first day. This year’s opener was reported to be very good, with many anglers hooking up, and many of those actually landing fish. Curious, that, because success on opening day of steelheading on the Brule depends
not so much on the calendar_ as is typical with walleye fishing_as on a combination of often barely discernible conditions. Water temperature is one. Steelhead often begin spawning when river water measures in the 40s. Consistent weather counts, too. Like many fish, steelhead can shut down when cold fronts move through. “The hens, or females, look for the right situation to lay their eggs,” Dave said, “and the behavior of the bucks, or males, is tied to when that occurs.” Dave first fished the Brule in 1955, so he has a good idea of where female steelhead in the river prefer to spawn.