Angler Education- Gill Lice

I am in the second week of an "Angler Education" class teaching 3-5 graders about fishing and encouraging young anglers to join the sport of trout fishing. I have taught them the different types of reels and rods, casting, tying fishing knots, giving them a basic understanding of fishing regulations (all of my students now understand what the different color trout streams mean as far as bag limits and minimum size), first aid, water safety, and fish identification. Today, the topic was invasive species and gill lice which are threatening our trout streams here in Wisconsin. I pulled up Len's "Stream of Time" blog and showed an example of what gill lice looks like. The students were so attentive and curious to learn more about gill lice and I even had several students give their input on possible solutions. One of my students told his grandpa who is the head of a local fish and game agency and is bringing it up at the next meeting (he had not heard of gill lice). I also played 10 or so minutes of one of the Len's trout fishing videos developed by Pronghorn productions. Throughout the video, I had to stop it nearly every 30 seconds because I needed to answer a question or a student wanted me to rewind the video so he could hear Len's advice on various fishing practices and strategies. I had a sign-up the first week of class for taking each student and their parent/guardian to an area trout stream. I had 6 of the 21 students bring in their signed slip and after learning about gill lice and watching Len's video, I had an additional 8 students request a sign-up sheet to be sent home! I am looking forward to taking each student out on their own trout fishing adventure and learning everything there is to know about trout fishing. Thanks Len for all of the insight and getting all of the students excited about a sport that needs more young anglers!

Father's Day

      This past weekend was the first time in nearly a month that I was able to go fishing for more than an hour straight. I decided to take my dad trout fishing for Father’s Day and have some much needed bonding time. He won’t go fishing by himself and will often shoot me down because he has work to do. We went out Sunday evening from 6:30-8:00 and had an amazing time. The Brookies were hitting every cast and several eager brookies would barely let it hit the water before making an attempt at the #6 Panther Martin. I managed to land the two biggest fish of the evening which were caught within 10 minutes of one another. The first brookie was a real plump 13” brookie with vibrant colors that had his nose right where a small feeder stream fed into the larger river. After the catch and a quick photo, I took a water temp (59 degrees). We worked our way upstream and came across a deep bend in the river that had a step drop. I casted it directly upstream and drug it along the outer bank and a quality fish caught me by surprise nearly 10 feet from my feet.  After a short battle and clean scoop of my net I was surprised by yet another 13” brookie. I was curious to see the temperature differential from the my last 13" brookie. The thermometer read 63 degrees a 4 degree difference in a matter of 50 yards. It just go to show the positive role small feeder streams have in giving brookies places to navigate to during the hot summer months. Even though I catch more than enough fish throughout the season my dad enjoys walking the stream and taking in all that nature has to offer. He doesn’t necessarily care about catching all the fish but the chance to spend time in the great outdoors and navigating his favorite trout stream. 

Pictured below is the first 13" brookie.

Pictured above is the small feeder stream and the tree on the right is where we hooked up.