Our Tuesday, June 25th meeting speaker is Jerry Hamon, hope to see you there at 7:00 at the New Braunfels Public Library.
Jerry Hamon grew up in a family that enjoyed fishing and joined in that passion when he was 5 years old. He has fished coast-to-coast for much of his lifetime, but he still prefers to fish freshwater lakes and streams in Texas with a fly rod.
The Van Alstyne, Texas, resident is the President of the Texas Council of Fly Fishers International (FFI.) In September 2013, he started the Mariner Sails Kayak Fishing Club and serves as its president. In 2018, he was appointed to a second term and Chairman of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Freshwater Fisheries Advisory Committee, and also serves as an Area Chief/Angler Ed Instructor for Texas Parks & Wildlife.
When he’s not working as a Police Officer for Collin College, Jerry enjoys traveling, speaking at fly fishing club meetings and expos as well as volunteering with Heroes on the Water (DFW Chapter,) Casting for Recovery and Reel Recovery Texas. Currently active on the kayak fishing tournament trail, Jerry took first place big bass, and first place big panfish in the 2014 World Championship Bass on the Fly Tournament on Lake Fork, Texas.
Jerry and his wife, Patty, love to travel all over Texas with their two dogs, camping, kayaking and fishing.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) at Canyon Lake will close the parking area between the Guadalupe Blanco River Authority (GBRA) Hydropower Plant and South Access Rd. from today through June 8 due to work activities needed to accomplish the routine inspection of the outlet works stilling basin.
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Work activities include the placement of a temporary water-filled dam, stilling basin water pump out, fish recovery and relocation in the river below the temporary dam and inspection of the stilling basin. The fish recovery and relocation will be accomplished in accordance with the Aquatic Resources Relocation Plan and permit approved by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
Throughout the process, GBRA will make water releases through their Hydropower Plant as directed by USACE. We understand the parking area closure may cause some inconvenience and we appreciate the patience of everyone impacted while USACE performs these necessary work activities to accomplish this routine inspection
The volunteers, partners and staff of Trout Unlimited believe in a future where native fish swim in cold, clean headwaters. This vision benefits fish, of course, but it also provides a vital resource for every living thing that depends on water. Which, last time I checked, is every living thing.
While the benefits of what TU does with on-the-ground projects and at statehouses across the country can, and do, have an immediate impact on protecting our country’s resources, the greatest benefactors will be future generations.
Our goal is to make things better than they are now so the children of today, and those born in the decades to come, will know the wonder of wild places, the thrill of watching migrating salmon and the joy of helping someone catch their first fish, among other things.
The importance of the TU mission is always on my mind, but each spring the significance of our goal is driven home when I head to local waters with elementary students to release trout they raised in their classroom.
Most people familiar with TU know about the conservation work we do on landscapes across the country to restore and protect habitat. A fair number know TU works with government officials on local, state and federal levels to form land and wildlife management policies and address environmental issues.
Fewer still are aware of our determined efforts to connect youth with the outdoors on a personal, recreational, and environmental level. The Headwaters Youth Program provides programs for students from kindergarten to college to help them discover, enjoy and learn how to help protect nature.
Dave Allison, president of the High Country Fly Fishers Trout Unlimited Chapter in Park City, Utah, helps students prepare a Trout in the Classroom release.
I help coordinate Trout Unlimited’s Trout in the Classroom program in my home state of Utah. Each January I gather with other TU volunteers at the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources offices to pick up trout eggs. We then head off to schools in our communities and are quickly mobbed by students when we arrive with the eggs. The eggs are placed in a specially prepared aquarium that will become home to the hatched trout for the next four months.
Volunteers stick around after the delivery and are often joined by state fisheries biologists to talk about what the students can expect during their time with the trout and to answer questions. Volunteers handle tank maintenance and teachers use curriculum provided by Trout Unlimited to educate students about the life cycle of wild trout and the challenges the fish face – natural and human-caused.
Jill Buchsbaum’s 4th grade class from Uintah Elementary in Salt Lake City, Utah, celebrate releasing their fish as part of the Trout in the Classroom program.
Near the end of the school year classes schedule a field trip to a state-designated fishery for the release.
The class I volunteer with in Salt Lake City released their fish this week. I have always found the naming of the fish and the farewells at the release touching, but this year I picked up on something else.
As I watched the students gather to watch the release I realized Trout in the Classroom had bonded these students in a way that may not have happened without the program.
“We did it,” one of the students yelled in celebration after all the trout swam out of the cooler and into the pond.
They did do it. Sure, they lost plenty of fish along the way – that’s part of learning how nature works. They checked the water temperature and quality daily and worried about the fish over long holiday weekends. These were their fish and they celebrated this success as a team.
There’s a lesson there for Trout Unlimited. One I feel our organization already understands.
Together “we” can do it too.
Brett Prettyman is the Intermountain Communications Director for Trout Unlimited. He is based out of Salt Lake City and is currently making plans to help get a straggler left behind in the classroom when the trout were taken for release to the pond so it can join its buddies.
I have added a tab on our the New Braunfels Fly Fishers page titled for now, conservation. Under this tab you should find a link to the PDF file of last nights presentation from Tim Birdsong,Chief of Habitat Conservation for the Inland Fisheries Division of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. It was a very informative meeting. Many I am sure are not aware of the time and effort that our TPWD puts in to conserver and restore in this case what many I would say take for granted. As we get more info for how we and our club can help I will post that info both here and under that tab. Attached are a few pictures from that meeting. There also were a few donations to our fly raffle other than fly’s. Thanks to all.
