Wow where did the summer go? Seems like just yesterday we were fishing the Green Drakes. Too bad this summer turned out like last years with no rain. Now that September is upon us hopefully we will get some rain and the cool weather we’ve had will lead to some great fall trout fishing. Just because the chapter didn’t hold a regular meeting doesn’t mean were not busy, here is a quick wrap up.
Jefferson County Youth Field Days
Matt Marusiak and Les Wilson were on hand to teach fly tying and casting to approximately 200 youth.
Big Brothers Big Sisters
Once again we were able to host 7 children on our annual fly fishing day at the Tannery Dam in DuBois. Despite a fish kill the week before everyone caught fish. Orwin Srock, Ken Undercoffer, Ed London, Bud Thomas, Kim Lanich, Samantha Kutskel, and George Kutskel. After a good morning of fishing a picnic lunch was provide for all to enjoy.
Sandy Lick Creek News
On June the 9th Orwin Srock and I met with the PA Fish and Boat Commission and the Army Corp of Engineers to look at building some habitat structures in the flood control. After looking at the creek and the Corp not believing that trout lived in the creek a 12” rainbow rose and took a fly. Dave Keller and the Corp will be working on the details of what can be built in the flood control. In the mean time the trout appear to be doing ok.
p.s. this was a extremely hot week not too bad for a marginal stream.
The clean up of the mine discharge at the DuBois Mall has been making progress. With the help of Dr Blakeslee and others it looks like we have the land needed to build the treatment facility. We have met with the DEP and learned what was needed in the way of permits and Dr Blakeslee has filed the grant applications. We are now getting the final design and if all goes as planned we could be breaking ground sometime in the early spring of 2009.
We recently received the permit for our habitat project on the creek behind the movie theater. We have been waiting to get started. David Zimmerman donated the trees and he and Orwin Srock cut them up. We had Joel Bundy deliver the logs to the mall for us. The bad part of all this is that we have run out of time to do it this year. The PA Fish and Boat Commission have no free weekends and since a lot of our members work we will have to wait till next year.
We also want to document the progress that the creek makes as it cleans itself from all the iron. I have been talking with Amy Wolfe from National T U and she said that we could apply for Technical Assistance Grant (TAG). This would allow us to get the baseline data before the cleanup and see how the stream recovers through regular monitoring.
Also on October the 3rd the PA Fish and Boat Commission will be restocking the stream. It would be great if you could come out and lend a hand in getting the fish in the creek.
Trout Run
Ken Undercoffer reported that the Growing Greener Grant for Trout Run has been completed and sent to the state. We have made several recommendations on ways to treat the acidic water caused by acid rain. Trout Run was once a great trout stream with most of the drainage in special regulation by the PAFBC.
Cooks Run
We met with the Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation on the 14th of May up in Shintown. The number of people surprised me in attendance wanting to see this beautiful stream reclaimed. BAMR stated at the meeting that they didn’t know how much water was coming off the site and now wanted to monitor the flow as well as build a collection system. This revelation didn’t set too well with the people in attendance as the Fran site has been causing pollution to Camp Run since the late seventies. As short as last fall this project was set to bid. Now we were going to start all over. Prior to the meeting we had gotten word that the system that we built in 2003 was having some problems due to the amount of water that was going in. Orwin Srock and Bud Thomas went up and “set” the system to treat the one-gallon per minute it was designed to do. BAMR did agree at this meeting to monitor the system we had built and keep us appraised of the results and to let us know when their collection system was ready to bid. (I received a email from Dave Fromell stating that it was ready to bid). Turns out that chapter member Samantha Kutskel who did her internship with National TU and the Clinton County Conservation District collected the water sample. We are in the process of looking over the samples and deciding what the next step by the chapter should be. To say this news was not what we expected would be an understatement.
I’ve been told by Becky Dunlap (TU) and Steve Keppler (PA F&B) that they along with Samantha and Megan Keppler will give a overview of the Cooks Run drainage, what they found and how thing are progressing. This is the October membership meeting to be held on October 15th at the DuBois YMCA. Please plan to attend.
Trout in the Classroom
We added two and a half schools to our growing number of schools participating in this program. We sent in for 3 grants and received three. We would like to welcome the DuBois Area Middle School (Sue Bollington), Curwensville Area (Amy Sutika), and Elk County Catholic (Kim Lanich, shared with Jim Zwald Chapter) This bring our total to 6 set ups.
We are in need of someone to help with this program, as I cannot take on any more. There is a training session to be held on October 4th at Lock Haven University’s Seig Center in Lamar. Anyone that would like to attend please call me. If you’re like many, you may not understand what this program brings into the schools. Let me explain, the students receive trout eggs and they are placed in the aquarium. The students then monitor the water for pH and other chemical that affect the trout as they grow. As the school year goes on they continue to learn how the environment affects the life of these trout. At the end of the school year the trout that survive are released in approved trout waters to “fend” for themselves. We usually are invited to the school for a program during the school year and that gives us a chance to connect with the student and show them what we do. Some of the schools around the state really get into it with web cams so the students can watch the trout while at home. English teachers have student learn to write obituaries for the trout that die. All this is in addition to the chemistry and biology that one would expect. Last year Jeff Tech had a power failure the day the eggs arrived and the teacher put the eggs in a stream on campus. When power was restored he didn’t think his eggs were still viable, but to his surprise over half did hatch. Since environmental science is now to be taught in school at some level why not reach out and teach these students to be good stewards. There is still many schools not in the Trout in the Classroom program and it will not be long till the next grant round. If interested in learning more or helping out please call or email me. The program has gotten so large the PA Council just hired an intern to help administrate this program. Council this year awarded 21 grants to Chapters. Last year the number was 13.
Coming Events
October 7th Board meeting @ DuBois Nursing Home
October 15th Membership meeting at the DuBois YMCA Status of Cooks Run plus election of officers and directors
October 25th State Council Fall meeting Stackhouse training school and pig roast
November 4th Reorganization meeting @ Hoss’s
November 12th Membership meeting Big Run: Tying Steelhead Flies.
December No meeting “hunting season”
January 6th Board meeting DuBois Nursing Home
January 14th Membership Meeting TBA
February Fly Tying Class call now if interested
Selling tickets at the DuBois Mall we need your help!!!!!!!!
We would like to have a Saturday program of fly tying and casting to be held at a site where this can be done during the winter in DuBois. I have lined up a professional fly casting instructor but we need people to help. If we have help then the program will happen this winter. Dave Rothrock has agreed to come and tie flies and is a fly fishing instructor. Please help.
Marcellus Shale
This may be something you haven’t heard about yet but believe me you will. The news will not all be good. This layer of rock lies about 6000 feet below the surface and is said to be a major source of natural gas. Beside being so deep it is also locked into the shale formation. People have been lining up to lease their properties for great sums of money, up to $3000 per acre. With heating our homes and the cost of gasoline you would think this would be a good thing for all of us. Unfortunately there is a major downside to all this, in a word WATER. In order to get this gas out of the shale approximately 3 million gallons of water is needed. That’s a lot of water not just to pump down the well but also to dispose of. This week I received an email from Pete Ryan from the God’s Country Trout Unlimited Chapter in Potter County. In this email was requests for water withdraw from the First Fork of Sinnemahoning amounting to 337 thousand gallons of water per day above Warton. In addition to that another 60 thousand gallons from East Fork would be withdrawn from there everyday. I was just up over Labor Day weekend and I doubt there was that much water at the mouth of First Fork let alone at Wharton. Pete told me of a creek in Northern Potter that was dammed up without any permits so the drilling company could have easy access to water. DEP has already said they don’t have enough inspectors to monitor all the drill site already in progress and now with this new boom look out.
I’ve spoken with PA Council about this and they are looking into what we can do. I feel we all need to keep our eyes and ears open because if we don’t then fishing in the northcentral will no longer be an option. Stay Tuned for more updates.
Allegheny Mountain Chapter of Trout Unlimited 
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