FOGR eLetter

Winter 2007

From the President's Desk:

FOGR has had a couple of easy months, now the hard work begins. Don’t you hate those words?

Already we’re starting to plan for Grand Opportunities. It’s only six months away (June 2, 2007).

The Sage rod draw is in hand once again. Remember, if you buy a ticket when you renew your membership, we discount your membership by $5.

To save arguments, and as we’ve gone to all family memberships, buy two tickets and have one for your significant other.

We should be doing more research in 2007: possibly temperature studies in some Conestoga feeder streams, and maybe the Grand tribs.

We will probably go ahead with our support of a PIT tag study. What is a PIT tag you ask? It’s a small economical device that is inserted into a fish that allows researchers to trace its movements.

It’s somewhat like those things in stores that always trip the alarms at the front doors of WalMart and set off loudspeakers that say “We failed to removed an inventory control tag….”

CREW got their trees in for a fall planting, which is good news.

The Township of Centre Wellington is looking at starting work on the rebuilding of a bridge at Wilson’s Flats in 2007. FOGR intervened during the planning process and the township has accepted our suggestion that there should be provisions for parking close to the river.

This is an important community recreational asset used by hikers, walkers, canoeists, as well as anglers.

The road will be set a good bit higher so it won’t wash out in the spring. Without a parking area, cars would be left on the side of the road on a grade, and users would have to scramble down a steep embankment and possibly cross the 80-km/h-road with impaired sightlines caused by the height of the bridge.

FOGR will assist with efforts to provide a chip-covered trail to the water and generally dress up the area with plantings. This was one of our earlier tree-planting sites.

Steelheading is finished for now. Ice fishing bores me silly, so we’ll just work out what we’ll be doing this spring. Tree planting in early May and fish stocking will keep us busy.

Keep your stick on the ice. See you in the spring. Come and help with some of these chores. We’d be pleased to see you.

Larry McGratton
President 

William Tosh Hooks Memorial Award

For a number of years, Friends of the Grand has sponsored a bursary for a student attending the Centre Wellington District High School (CWDHS). A final-year student who was going on to post-secondary studies in a field associated with the environment was selected by teachers and received $100.

The 2006 award went to Emily Simpson of Belwood. Emily is attending the University of Guelph, Ridgetown campus, enrolled in the Bio-Resource Management degree program.

Our congratulations go out to Emily.

The amount of money available now would allow us to offer the bursary for one or two more years. But as CWDHS is well endowed with bursaries of this size (the annual listing fills two pages of the local paper), the board is considering a different option.

Rather than providing money directly to a single student, we will look at ways of benefiting the larger population, perhaps by supporting environmental field trips. This matter is being discussed with staff at the school. •

Did you know?

Ontario’s fishing regulations have been undergoing a review for two years. New regs were intended to go into place effective January 1, 2007.

The Ministry of Natural Resources announced that they would not be able to meet that deadline. Their news release can be found on their web site (www.mnr.gov.on.ca).

The existing regulations, as described in the 2005-2006 Fishing Regulations Summary booklet will remain in force until further notice.

That begs the question of how the h..l they expected to meet that deadline when they only recently announced their proposed brook trout and lake trout toolkits which have an open-to-comment period that ends early in the New Year.•

When are our dues due?

Although our financial year ends December 31, however, our membership dues are not required until April 1.

In our generosity, we thought that it would be better to give members a bit of breathing space after the holiday season. Nice, eh? Actually our first meeting where we decided to form the organization was in February 1995, so April 1 was the logical choice.

Quite a few members will recall that first meeting in the old high school building. It was a miserable stormy day, but we had a wonderful turnout. And a very large proportion of those folks are still members.

When we started, we decided on a lower-cost membership: $25. But it looks like we are going to have to increase our dues every 10 years or so.

We are changing both the cost and type of membership available. In future, we will not have separate individual memberships. We will just offer only family memberships for $30, and seniors/students for $25.

We have done away with the “single” rate. Include your spouse or significant other’s name and they’ll get cards as well -- also your offspring. That will also beef up our membership numbers.•

FOGR's privacy policy

Yes, we do have one. Our membership chair retains your personal information in order to maintain our mailing list and print labels/envelopes.

E-mail addresses are forwarded to the president and secretary so we can communicate with our members.

Our membership list is not supplied to any other person or organization. •

Winter Hatches Fly Fishing Club

Although Winter Hatches is based in Mississauga, this well-known club has donated $200 for use on the river. They regard the Credit as their home stream, but their president, Greg Herring, says a lot of their members fish the Grand and they wanted to show their support. Well, Greg, it’s appreciated. •

You received this report because you are on the Friends of the Grand River’s e-mail list. If you would like to be taken off it, contact us

Larry McGratton: mcgratton.mcgratton@sympatico.ca

Ian Martin: idmartin@golden.net

John Dadds: jdadds@golden.net