So much to learn and so little time

This past weekend I was one of 18 Trout Unlimited members from Georgia who attended the SE Regional TU Rendezvous in Asheville, North Carolina. I think that this was my fourth or fifth I have attended. This is not what I can call a pleasure trip but I can call it a journey and quest for knowledge.

I was happy to meet up with old friends from across the area and especially to see some familiar faces of TU personnel that I communicate with online. There were 14 TU staff members who were teaching the many work sessions of the weekend. Overall, there were in excess of 200 TU members from the southeast.

Throughout Saturday there were two 1-hour or longer sessions for all attendees and five 1-hour groups of four sessions to choose from in each. I chose to attend the following: Strategic Planning, Hosting an “All Kids Fish Event,” The Next Chapter for TU’S Approach to Engagement, Getting Into the Eventgroove: Hands on Training for TU’S Fundraising & Events Tool, A Look at Private Water Conservation (Noontootla) and Office Hours for Chapters with TU Staff.

That was a whole lot to absorb in less than six hours, in addition to the four sessions for the whole group. There were also speakers during Saturday’s dinner as well as one at Sunday’s breakfast and another two before the Sunday lunch. If there had been two of me I could have attended twice as many and learned twice as much.

One presentation was exceptional: All Kids Fish, made by Becca Sue Klein. She is part of the Chattahoochee River Keeper group as well as a director of Georgia Women’s Fly Fishers, which started the All Girls Fish event that now includes All Kids Fish. The annual Becca Sue Klein All Kids Fish events inspire the next generation of fly anglers and conservationists through three full-day fly fishing retreats. Kids ages 10-18 spend the day in the headwaters region of the Chattahoochee River watershed, or in the heart of Atlanta at Piedmont Park, learning to assemble and cast a fly rod, how to tie knots and proper gear use, safe fish handling and conservation, and how a healthy river sustains life. Becca is an awesome person who is very inspiring. Not only is she using her love of fly fishing to teach kids the joy of the sport. In March 2020, Becca was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer and learned that, after surviving two cancer diagnoses in 2015 and 2017, the cancer had moved to her bones and liver. In honor of Becca’s long-time service to Chattahoochee River Keeper and as a commitment to her mission of empowering youth in the fly fishing community, the event was named the Becca Sue Klein All Kids Fish, which will be hosted annually.

All the sessions I attended were very informative and the ones on engagement, eventsgroove and strategic planning could be very beneficial for the chapter. It may take some time for the chapter to assimilate the info and apply it.

♦ The dogwoods are blooming and white bass are on the move.

Every year about the time dogwood trees bloom, the midsized members of the Temperate Bass family, Morone, migrate from the lakes and find their way into many of our rivers and the tributaries. When water temperatures reach the mid-50s and higher, the male whites begin to head upstream to spawning areas, and a week or two later the larger females join them. White bass collect in staging areas before spawning. “They school up and wait for the right conditions and then they move into the tributaries to drop their eggs.” These pre-spawn fish provide superb angling opportunity because of their dense concentrations.

I got word from Terry Zieger and Charles Murphy that white bass were being caught a couple of weeks ago but suddenly stopped. The drop in air temperature over the past few weeks caused the water temperature to fall. Water temps at the Lock & Dam on the Coosa from Feb. 24 to March 7 were between 56 and 60 degrees. But they have been falling ever since and now the temperature on March 16 is about 52 degrees. I think the fishes’ biological clock has reset and they are waiting on the water to warm again.

White bass spawn just above or below riffles, and for a very specific reason. When the females drop their eggs and the males fertilize them, the eggs then settle to the stream bottom and stick to rocks, debris, brush, etc. During incubation, these eggs need oxygen to remain healthy. Faster-moving water around riffles carries more oxygen than slow water in deep, quiet pools. Eggs deposited in areas of little current are likely to suffocate.

Best live bait for white bass and the yellow bass that join them are minnows. Small crank baits and inline spinners work well and streamers on a lightweight fly rod can supply more fun than you can imagine. By the way, keep and eat all the yellow bass you catch. They are tastier than the whites and are an invasive species in the Coosa drainage basin.