Little Elkhart Chapter of Trout Unlimited

Meeting Minutes – January 13, 2010

Mike Beachy called the meeting to order.

Meeting Attendees

Wayne Andrews, Bob Hagin, Kevin Curtis, Mike Beachy, Brandon Rasler, Michael Flowers, Wayne Andrews, Lee Troyer, Larry Beachy, Mike Gibbs, Josh King, Leonard Gustin, Adam Wallace

Meeting Minutes

The minutes from last month were approved.

Fishing Reports

There has not been much activity by club members.  Some of the ice on the lakes is suspect, so be careful if you venture out.

Treasurer’s Report

Don Fiwek reported our balance at $7,200.  He has not received an invoice for the hats that were recently purchased.

Don explained that our chapter needs to file a Business Entity Report to the Secretary of State on an annual basis.  The fee is $7.00.  Don filed the report for our chapter in December 2009.

Indiana on the Fly

Indiana on the Fly was at the state fairgrounds this past Saturday.  LECTU had a booth at the event with about six chapter members in attendance.  Attendance at the event was not great, however, we were successful in selling 53 Adopt-A-Trout raffle tickets.  However, we sold very few caps and T-shirts.

We received a lot of traffic in our booth.  A number of people asked about the availability of a guide service on the Little Elkhart (which there is none).  Also, some asked about steelhead, which are limited to the St. Joseph River.

We also met folks from Central Indiana TU.  They had tried to get catch and release on the Brookville tail water, but were not successful.  That leaves the Little Elkhart with the only C&R trout water in Indiana, which probably increased the traffic at our booth.

Communications

The updated web site looks good.  Brandon stated that he implemented new technology, making it easier to update.

Mike suggested that we get a newsletter out soon so that we can advertise the selling of Adopt-A-Trout raffle tickets.

Adopt-A-Trout Raffle

Mike Beachy passed out tickets for chapter members to sell.

Mike will also sell tickets at the SJRVFF meeting next week.

Brown Trout Stocking

Jim Phillips was not at the meeting, thus no report on the status of the permit and ordering process for this year’s trout.

Habitat Improvement Ham Project

Mike and Wayne delivered hams to Little Elkhart landowners.  The hams went over real well.

Youth Education

Plans are to put on a program with the 4-H fishing club in March. We want to focus on fly fishing.  Both fly tying and fly casting were discussed as possible activities that we could involve the 4-H youth in.

Carmel Orvis Program

Mike Beachy will be giving a presentation at the Carmel Orvis store on our Trout Unlimited Chapter on Saturday, February 27th.

Asian Carp

Mike Beachy was contacted by a TU coordinator to get a grass roots initiative in Indiana to stop the Asian carp migration into Lake Michigan and ultimately the rest of the Great Lakes watershed.  Mike did some research and found that Bill James is very active on this issue and deferred to him.

Annual Spring Outing

The outing will be at River Bend Park in Middlebury on May 1st.  Brandon will reserve the pavilion.  We plan to have the stream access tours as well as some on-stream fly fishing pointers for those not familiar with small stream fly fishing.  And of course, we will have our cookout and raffle.

We also plan some new activity this year.  We are looking at setting up a casting skills course with a golf type score keeping system.  In addition, Mike Beachy will ask Jeff Stanifer if he can do his on-stream Czech nymphing demo.

Also, Tom Parks has expressed an interest in attending.  He was one of the fly tiers at Indiana on the Fly and he ties beautiful soft hackle files.  We will try and get him to do some tying demos.

Mike also stated that we need raffle items for the outing.  We will explore Bass Pro, Cabela’s and LL Bean.

February Meeting

The chapter meeting on February 10th will spend a fair amount of time discussing a proposal by a chapter member to feed the trout in-stream on the Little Elkhart.  We encourage attendance at this meeting in order to get a consensus (if possible) from as broad of an audience as possible.

Next Meeting – February 10, 2010 at 7:00 PM at the Middlebury Library

Lee Troyer – Secretary