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Prairie Enthusiasts Field Trip @ Swamplovers This Saturday June 22
The Empire-Sauk Chapter of The Prairie Enthusiasts invites the public to celebrate the first day of summer with a guided walk at Swamplovers Nature Preserve this Saturday June 22 9:30AM - 1PM featuring remnant and restored wetlands, bluff and tall grass prairies, and dry hilly oak-hickory woodlands. Bring binoculars (close-focusing ones work best) along with your own lunch and beverages to enjoy when the trip ends at the bluff-top picnic shelter. Location: West of Cross Plains, 1/4 mile north of Hwy 14 on County Hwy. KP. Look for event sign.Trip leader: Lee Swanson, lswanson@sbcp.bank, 608-228-0743.
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Gateway Feature
True Confessions from Black Earth Creek
By Claude Clayton "Bud" Smith
AS A KID in Connecticut I went trout fishing once a year—with my older brother, father and grandfather—on Opening Day, April 15th. We got up at four o’clock, as sleepy as on Christmas morning, and were at the Pomperaug River by five, standing elbow to elbow in the cold and fog with hundreds of other fishermen, waiting for someone with a wrist watch to announce that it was, finally, six o’clock, and time to wet (and tangle) our lines. In all those years I caught but a single trout, tossing a goldfish lure with my spinning rod, a brown trout a measly eight inches long. Fast-forward sixty years, and I’m no longer an adolescent but a retiree, having downsized to a condo in Madison, WI, where I was happily prowling the local lakes for bass in my fishing kayak until a good friend, as pure a trout fisherman as the immortal Ted Williams, introduced me to Black Earth Creek, of which I’ve been a devotee ever since. Never mind that, unlike my friend, I still fish with a spinning rod and don’t wade in the water. I’m here to tell you that Black Earth Creek has some of the best trout fishing in America.
AS A KID in Connecticut I went trout fishing once a year—with my older brother, father and grandfather—on Opening Day, April 15th. We got up at four o’clock, as sleepy as on Christmas morning, and were at the Pomperaug River by five, standing elbow to elbow in the cold and fog with hundreds of other fishermen, waiting for someone with a wrist watch to announce that it was, finally, six o’clock, and time to wet (and tangle) our lines. In all those years I caught but a single trout, tossing a goldfish lure with my spinning rod, a brown trout a measly eight inches long. Fast-forward sixty years, and I’m no longer an adolescent but a retiree, having downsized to a condo in Madison, WI, where I was happily prowling the local lakes for bass in my fishing kayak until a good friend, as pure a trout fisherman as the immortal Ted Williams, introduced me to Black Earth Creek, of which I’ve been a devotee ever since. Never mind that, unlike my friend, I still fish with a spinning rod and don’t wade in the water. I’m here to tell you that Black Earth Creek has some of the best trout fishing in America.