President’s Corner
Mike Bryant (mjbryant1954@hotmail.com)
I wanted to start this month’s article with a several huge THANK YOU’s. We had another very successful semester with Trout-in-the-Classroom, including eight different schools releasing trout into the Little River. My first THANK YOU goes out to the Samantha and Mark, owners of the KOA Campground in Townsend. They have totally embraced the TIC program, providing a location on the Little River for all of our releases since we started the program a year and a half ago. We had over 400 kids involved in the release this spring! Samantha and Brian run an impeccable campground. So please support them by staying at their facility or have your friends and family stay there. My second thank you goes to Matt Kulp, Caleb Abramson and other Park employees who helped make the TIC releases a great success. Their ability to show and explain to the kid’s what’s living in our waters and why it’s important to have clean water was a perfect element to the release. The third and most important THANK YOU goes to our TIC volunteers and overall Volunteer Coordinator Joyce Frey. What can I say except that without their leadership, skills, dedication and enthusiasm, there would be no TIC program in our area. Many, many thanks for another great semester!!!
As I write this article, Trout Camp is only weeks away. All the planning is in place and all the volunteers are ready to go. I can’t wait. I’ll be a river helper when the kids are fishing in the Park and coordinating the nightly fly tying program. As you can imagine, this program takes a lot of volunteer time and commitment and I am proud that our Chapter continues to support Trout Camp.
Work on the Anthony Creek restoration has started. Our volunteer base continues to play a vital role in this and past restoration efforts along with all the other activities, i.e. water sampling. Many thanks to all of you who have volunteered your time and talents. You can be proud knowing your efforts are making a difference.
On a personal note, this year’s fishing has been nothing to write home about. After a terrible month of basically no fishing (i.e. no catching) in the Florida Everglades, my time on the water back here at home has been little to none. Heavy travel, a death in the family, multiple out-of-state visitors staying with us somehow kept my fly rods stacked up in the corner of my tying room. Then the dreaded kidney stone decided to move out of my kidney, which brought my fishing (and just about everything else) to a dead halt. But I’m improving and the month of June is usually kind to me. So, like most of you, I’m the eternal optimist when it comes to the next trip to the river.
June Meeting / Program – The legendary Walter Babb will be our guest tier at the June meeting. Walter will be tying and talking about his experiences in the Park. It’s a great way to see a legend at work and learn a thing or two. We meet at Calhoun’s in Maryville.
I hope you will be able to make the June meeting. Be safe and enjoy the summer.
-Mike
