Wednesday, Feb 25, 2015 at the State Capitol, Denver, Colorado

This rally aims to educate public lands users about the problems with transferring ownership of federal lands to states and the importance of public lands to sportsmen and women. Several western states have introduced bills in their legislatures to transfer federal lands to states despite its illegality, fiscal realities and just plain irresponsible nature.

January 7th; 6:30 PM – Upslope Brewery

1898 S. Flatiron Court Boulder, CO 80301, Boulder, CO

Stephanie Scott of Colorado Trout Unlimited will be joining us to discuss CTU’s recent accomplishments and ongoing/upcoming efforts.

Stephanie is the Outreach Coordinator for Colorado TU. At this role she works with the chapters throughout the state to engage TU members and their surrounding communities in conservation. She comes from the National Audubon Society where she coordinated their grassroots efforts and managed all of their conservation programs in Colorado. She graduated from Metropolitan State University of Denver with a BS in Biology with an emphasis in Zoology. During her undergraduate work she has also taken wildlife management courses in South Africa through the University of Pretoria, studied zoology and field research techniques in Australia at the University of Tasmania, and studied forest ecology in Costa Rica. For her senior research project she studied the correlation between climate change and the transmission rate of West Nile Virus in the raptor species of Colorado, and also designed a lab at her University to study mate selection behavior in Convict Cichlids; which students are still conducting research in today. She is also a certified geographic Information Systems (GIS) Analyst. Stephanie lives in Thornton with her husband Tyler and their 95lb lap dog.

Last weekend, some Boulder Flycasters journeyed to North Park and fished a number of rivers and streams in the area.  These included the North Platte, Illinois and Michigan rivers and some small stream tributaries.  The trip was provided by North Park Anglers who were very accommodating and took us to several of their great fishing areas on these rivers.  We hope to organize another trip next year!

BFC John LoPorto and Dave Clark with North Park Angler guide Joey.  Getting ready to fish!  NPA guide Drew with BFC Vince Kotsubo and Ron AndersonBFC Dan Miller and NPA guide Bob with a nice rainbow.That’s a nice fish, John! 

BFC Rob McCormack sneaks up on a fishNice Brown Rob!

BFC Chad Pettrone and NPA guide Tim show off a beautiful Brown trout.  “We had a great time” says BFC Bob Head!

On Saturday, October 11th, Boulder Flycasters hosted a clean-up of Boulder Creek.  We were greeted with wonderful weather and by 30+ eager volunteers.  We successfully cleaned-up Boulder Creek from approximately the mouth of Boulder Canyon to Barker Dam.  Countless orange colored trash bags now sit along the Canyon waiting for the Colorado Department of Transportation to pick them up (big thanks to CDOT)!

A very BIG thanks to all of the volunteers!!!  Also, as an added bonus to the day, the Boulder Fish and Game Club took the opportunity to stock some fish in the creek.  This added to the satisfaction of making Boulder Creek a fun place to visit (and fish)!  Here are a few pictures.  We look forward to seeing everyone next year.

Boulder Flycaster Marian Clark waits for the rush of eager volunteers

BFC Chad Pettrone helps with the fish stocking

Eager Volunteers!!

BFCs Greg Nelson and Mark Riley enjoying lunch after a morning’s hard work.

Christine and Sasha are happy volunteers!  Job well done!!

Boulder Flycaster’s annual creek clean-up will get underway Saturday Oct 11th at Boulder Flycasters Memorial Park approximately 2.5 miles up Boulder Canyon. The park is about 150 yards past the tunnel on your left.

We’ll meet between 8:00 and 9:15 a.m. for registration and clean-up beat assignments. Bring gloves and waders if you’d like to pull out trash from in the stream. An old rake can do wonders to help with in-stream work. We’re planning on cleaning up both the stream and along the highway from the mouth of Boulder Canyon up to Barker Dam if we have enough volunteers.

Each volunteer will be responsible for about 1/2 mile of stream and we’ll have teams of two so bring a buddy or another family member to help us!

We’ll have plenty of trash bags and safety vests provided by the county and they’ll pick up all trash we gather later on during the week.

Boulder Flycasters will provide coffee, snacks, lunch and beverages for all those who help. You can sign up right now, email: [email protected]

It’s a sad day for all of Boulder that one of our own past away on September 18th.  Gordon Wickstrom was 88 and was a native Boulderite who lead a full and storied life across many rivers.

I was hoping that the cancer treatments he was given would be successful but, alas that was never to be.

Gordon grew up in Boulder, going through all the public schools here and then on to a number of colleges and was Professor of Theater at Franklin & Marshall College. He went on to achieve his Ph.D at Stanford University as he continued in everything theater. Over the years, he directed over 100 plays including directing and acting at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Gordon loved Shakespeare and played the role of King Lear a number of times.

We all knew Gordon, “as one” with the English language, and he was forever fun to be around. When he and his wife, Betty, moved back to Boulder after his retirement, Gordon became a Boulder Flycaster and was a member until his death. Gordon wrote two angling books; “Notes from an Old Fly Book” and “Late in an Angler’s Life”. I had Gordon sign both my copies. He made many contributions to the distinguished The American Fly Fisher, which is the journal of the American Museum Fly Fishing.

My connection to Gordon began many years ago when my father and Gordon’s father were business associates. My dad owned a coffee shop/drive inn called Bushes Drive Inn and Gordon’s father, Percy Wickstrom, owned Boulder City Bakery where my dad bought all his bakery goods. I was too young to remember much about both the bakery and Gordon, but in later years, we shared many memories of those times growing up in Boulder. That Boulder childhood connection carried on as the years became decades.

I remember when Gordon gave a speech to Boulder Flycasters when we dedicated the Boulder Flycasters Memorial Park (just past the tunnel, up Boulder Canyon). He was a superb speaker with his deep voice and commanding stage presence.

Gordon was the only one I ever knew that could tie a fly without a vice and he demonstrated it to me on more than one occasion . . . Amazing!  Gordon just loved to fish and his uncle gave him a bamboo fly rod as his first fishing rod.  He just loved to fly fish and his books showed that, and we shared one lake that he called ghost lake just north of Boulder . . . the lake dried up in the late ’60’s making it true to its name. The DOW stocked it for a number of years and my dad took me there often.

Gordon was a collector of all things fishing. He was the first person I went to when the Boulder Library asked Boulder Flycasters Board to prepare a history of fly fishing in the Boulder area. He contributed so many interesting fishing items that we weren’t able to show everything.   Gordon got into the internet with his monthly and/or weekly blogs the Boulder Creek Angler. If you go to: http://bouldercreekangler.blogspot.com he posted his last essay, “The Fisherman” written on September 5, 2014. In it he wrote on . . . “all matters of art, life, love and angling” and I believe he lived by those words.

If one could describe Gordon’s life, it would be about a full a life as anyone I have ever known. I bet he and Betty got more out of the 88 years than anyone could have ever imagined.   I will miss that guy and will never forget him as long as I live!

FYI: His services will be held on Wednesday, September 24th at 12:30 p.m. at Ryssby church at 9000 N. 63, Longmont . . . hope to see you there.

Bob Bush