Trout Unlimited More Than a Social Club
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By Norma Engelberg
April 8, 2011
Pikes Peak Courier View
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A lot of people think Trout Unlimited is just a social club dedicated to fly fishing. Erik Heikkenen, president of the Cheyenne Mountain Chapter of Trout Unlimited, says the organization is much more.
“We do love to fly fish but for the last 25 years we have worked on numerous watershed conservation and restoration projects,” he said. “We’ve concentrated most of our work on the South Platte in Eleven Mile Canyon on the Trees for Trout project. We use trees taken from the Hayman Fire burn area and use them to stabilize the banks. Some of the timbers are placed in the stream bed to provide more trout habitat.”
The first project for the local Trout Unlimited chapter was work on Trout Creek north of Woodland Park in 1986.
“Grazing cattle had destroyed the banks and we did a lot of work restoring them,” Heikkenen said. “Later the beaver moved in and undid some of our work but much of it is still there.”
The organization has also worked with the Fountain Creek Restoration Committee to restore the creek banks in Manitou Springs.
“We’ve restored the creek from Soda Springs Park to Memorial Park,” Heikkenen said. “We’ll finish up at Mansion and Fields parks.”
In the last few years, Trout Unlimited’s Trout in the Classroom program has also been very popular. Trout Unlimited provides large aquariums, training and trout eggs and students see what it takes for trout to go from eggs to fry to releasing size.
“They see the importance of clean water and cool temperatures,” Heikkenen said.
In addition, every year the Cheyenne Mountain Chapter works with the Catamount Institute on the Parent-Youth Fishing Day.
“We teach kids about environmental advocacy, the importance of preserving our cold-water resources, entomology, fly-fishing etiquette and, of course how to fly fish,” Heikkenen said.
The organization is looking for new projects and has embarked on a survey of Teller and El Paso counties’ smaller watersheds.
“Our watershed inventory will look at the smaller, often overlooked streams we might drive over without ever really noticing,” Heikkenen said. “We monitor and test for micro vertebrates and gather other data to get a picture of a stream’s restoration needs. We should know within a few weeks where our next project will be.”
Because this year marks the local chapter’s 25th anniversary, there are many local celebrations and fundraisers planned.
Coming up is the fourth annual Conservation Auction at 5:30 p.m. April 26 at the Garden of the Gods Trading Post. There will also be a series of monthly “Happy Hours” as local micro-breweries throughout the summer. A members-and-their-families-only fishing day is planned on June 4 at Rainbow Mountain Falls.
“Anyone who becomes a member before that date can come out for the fishing and barbecue and the $150 rod fee will be waived,” Heikkenen said.
For more information about Cheyenne Mountain Chapter projects, visit www.cmctu.org. For information about the national Trout Unlimited organization, visit www.tu.org.
