Wednesday, October 22, 2008

"inland waters kayak fishing" has been released

After a few months of virtual heavy lifting as well as watching some very talented people do their own heavy lifting while filming and editing, we would like to announce that Quietwater Films' fourth movie, "inland waters kayak fishing" is now available.
Poling an Ultimate kayak
Jimbo Meador (front) and John Reinders (back) navigating a stream while poling their Native Watercraft Ultimate kayaks
Jimbo Meador, John Reinders, Wendy Williamson, and Larry Mann provided the paddling, poling, and fishing while we were out on the water. Damon Hennessey and Christina Smith did a wonderful job behind the scenes working the camera and editing our footage. And of course there are the boats. Even though they are inanimate pieces of plastic, those Ultimate kayaks are worthy of thanks for the wonderful job they did floating everyone around on the lakes, rivers and streams of the Chippewa Flowage, a slice of paradise in northern Wisconsin. The two muskies, numerous smallmouth bass, northern pike, along with "all the ones that got away" also made for some nice days fishing as well!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

What happens when you impulsively buy canoes

An Arkansas canoeing friend relayed this set of pictures showing the outcome of his purchasing four canoes from Wenonah, in Winona, and then road tripping the four boats all the way to Arkansas on a Subaru Forrester. One trip.

Friday, October 10, 2008

A Field Day at Gordon Creek

As part of an ongoing documentary film project, we spent a gorgeous fall day out on Gordon Creek this week. With blue skies and some quiet, I could not ask for a better day to be out on a creek. Having a third grader at home who loves bugs and worms and other cool things, the pleasures of small things close to the ground are front of mind for me. With both still and video, I almost always am lucky enough to find something small and up close that I used to just pass by. Today was
Fuzzy Caterpillar

The Farmer's Almanac says something about fuzzy caterpillars and the oncoming winter
no exception. Thanks to my third grader's gift of perspective I saw this little black and orange fuzzy caterpillar on a road trip. Not sure where it was going but it was putting the energizer bunny to shame.


My fuzzy 100 leg friend was just the start of a great afternoon. We were out on Gordon Creek to walk it with Kathleen Falk, the Dane County Executive, and an enthusiastic caster of flies. Jim Gentry and Mike Schmidt from the Southern Wisconsin chapter of Trout Unlimited were along for the walk as well. Today was a big day for Dane Country as they were announcing another land purchase along Gordon Creek. It was a big day for SWTU and Quietwater as it was a chance to get some time with a major player in the stream restoration activities in western Dane county. I continue to be impressed with the effort that goes on behind the scenes in stream restoration. It looks to me like about 95% of the effort happens between people and across tables, sometimes even coffee is involved.
Stream Restoration
Two critical pieces of stream restoration - people who care about the land and the machine that does the last 5% of the work.
Jim Gentry and Mike Schmidt, from SWTU, have spent countless hours writing grant proposals, learning their way through the vast spaces of restoration infrastructure, meeting landowners, and working with numerous levels of government. Finally they swing a hammer and get to build a few lunker structures, although not as many as one might think. The end result is a stream left in better shape than it was when they started.