TU's Lower Illinois River Clean Up is Saturday 13 Dec

[flyfishermann1955]

The 89er Chapter of TU (OK City) is hosting a clean up on the Lower Illinois River on Saturday (13 Dec).  Members of the Tulsa TU Chapter will join us in this twice a year event.  We will meet in the big parking area downstream from the dam at 9 AM.  The public is welcome to join in this event.  We should be finished by noon and then eat some chili in the parking lot at the Watt's Property.  After lunch, you can fish if you have some extra time. 

Thanks- Ken   

[wardw]

Sounds like a cool event - hope there is a great turn out.

I haven't spend much time on the LI, Any clean ups on the books for the LMFR?

[flyfishermann1955]

The OK City TU Chapter hosts the winter Lower Illinois cleanup and the Tulsa TU chapter hosts the summer cleanup.

I only fish the LMF 1 - 2 times a year, but it seems much cleaner to me than the Lower Illinois.  Sure, there is some trash where people park and at the heavily fished places (Cold Hole).  I'm not aware of any groups that schedule a cleanup at the LMF.  It would be a good project for the LMF River Foundation or perhaps some local Boy Scouts.  I've heard there is some interest in starting a TU Chapter in Broken Bow, which would be great!

In a perfect world, each person would clean up after themself.  Until we get there, we can just carry out what we find along the stream and then have a cleanup project every now and then.

Thanks- Ken

[dannys]

A TU chapter in Broken Bow? That would be a real good start to broadening (with LMFRF) education efforts and promoting stewardship of the river across anglers using any method. We do annual river cleanups of the Guadalaupe, but we still find a lot of trash in the river; mostly leftovers from the summer tubing season. There was an effort to ban alcohol on the river (including beer) but that did not fly very far. LOTS of Bud Light cans. Sometimes I take an onion bag with me and pick up cans and other trash; others do the same--clean up as they fish.

[flyfishermann1955]

We ended up with about 15 people supporting this twice-a-year event. The guys from the Tulsa TU chapter showed up at 8 AM (instead of 9 AM) and got an early start up by the powerhouse. We broke in to groups with some of us going to the next parking area (what some call the crapper hole) and the rest going farther downstream to the Watt's property. There was less garbage this time, so perhaps we're making a difference!

Edsel made chili for lunch at the picnic table at the Watt's Property and Wanda brought some chocolate chip cookies. There were quite a few people fishing that morning. After a chilly start, the temperature warmed up and it was comfortable if you were moving and out of the wind.

There were a lot of people fishing at the Watt's area, so Rick and I went back upstream and fished above the rock wall upstream from the bathroom. The micro jig in olive or brown worked and I caught some on midges too. I stopped at 3:30 PM and 10 minutes later the horn was sounding and not long after they released water.

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The Tulsa chapter will host another cleanup day in June/July; please join us!

Thanks- Ken