2004 Yearly Activity Update

The board lost two long-standing members, Reg McClelland and Jim Rafferty, at the beginning of the calendar year.

Board elections at the January 31st “Cabin Fever Symposium” membership meeting replaced the board positions by membership vote with Bud Hanselman and Dick Rickert. In May Bob Shuey was elected to the board as an additional “at large” member. The board currently consists of:

• Aaron Monroe – President
• Jeff Kremis – Treasurer
• Dick Natoli – Secretary
• Tom Jochman – Membership
• Dick Rickert – Youth Coordinator
• Jim Mondok – Watershed Management
• Nick Loprire – Banquet Chairman/News Letter Editor
• Bill Fay – At-large member
• Bud Hanselman - At-large member
• Bob Shuey - At-large member

Munnell Run Nursery

Pete Anthony and his staff of eight volunteers operate and maintain the nursery in Mercer, Pa. The nursery is part of the cooperative nursery program with the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission. During the year the group battled two 50-year rainstorms and various trout illnesses to successfully raise 2004’s class of trout. Last year Pete and his staff raised approximately 1600 brown trout and 30 Golden Trout. They stocked these in various streams in the local area including Neshannock, Cool Springs, Yellow, and Wolf Creek.

Watershed Committee

The watershed committee organized workdays on April 3rd, August 14th, and Oct 23rd. The work on April 3rd was held at Neshannock Creek to repair a washed out culvert on the old railroad bead and make the path acceptable for the passing of the PA State stocking truck later that month. The parking lot in that area was also leveled. Also a crew was dispatched to Cool Springs to clean up the roadside adjacent to the TU parking area in the Adopt-A-Highway program. At a later date the chapter hired additional private contractors to complete work at the Neshannock site that was out of the scope of the club.

The August and October workdays were held at Cool Springs to complete in stream projects and repair high water damage due to the late summer storms.

Youth Activities

The newly elected board member and youth coordinator completed many fact-finding visits to local schools and other organizations to formulate an effective youth involvement plan.

The youth committee initiated contact with the local Boy Scouts of America troupe to aid in offering a Fly-Fishing Merit badge. All board members completed forms to allow them to be Boy Scout advisers.

The chapter will be sponsoring two youths for the Sam Aubel Youth Conservation Camp.

The chapter also sponsored and coordinated a youth fishing derby at the newly created Wolf Creek special regulations youth and handicapped fishing area in Grove City on May 29th. This event was a big hit in the fishing area that the chapter was instrumental in helping create and will become an annual event.

Spring Banquet

The 26th annual Neshannock TU Chapter spring banquet was held at the Hickory PA VFW on march 20th. This is the chapter’s main fundraiser for the year. The banquet featured a socializing, dinner, and many fund raising activities, including bucket raffles, silent and verbal auctions, as well as numerous door prizes and “give aways”. Gross proceeds from the banquet were in excess of $10,000.

The chapter provided financial support to the following conservation minded groups in 2004.

In addition to the financial support of local conservation groups the chapter also spent $2,700 on chapter projects for habitat improvement and maintenance. The chapter also provided in excess of $1000 for the Munnell Run Cooperative Nursery in Mercer, PA.

• The Munnell Run Farm Foundation
• PATU
• 3-C-U
• Lawrence Co Chapter of PA Clean-ways
• Shenango River watchers

Wolf Creek Project

A section of Wolf Creek, a tributary to Slippery Rock Creek, was selected as the best area for a project to provide a special regulation fishing area for youth and handicapped persons. The selection was based on its accessibility for youth and handicapped persons and the cooperation of the local community.

The in-stream improvement project was completed August 23, 2003. The project included the construction of five in-stream deflectors and stream bank restoration. The section will be stocked next spring by both the PA Fish & Boat Commission's regular trout stocking program, and the Commission's 'all volunteer' Munnell Run Cooperative Trout Nursery staff.

Also completed in October 2003, as part of the project is a ramp for handicapped people. This project was the result of excellent coordination and cooperation of numerous community organization and local citizens. WCO Joe Morris was the main driving force and coordinator of the project, which was over two years of effort involving concept, planning, and execution. The NESHANNOCK TU chapter nominated Joe Morris for Cold Water Conservationists Professional of the Year Award 2004. The PA Trout agreed with the chapter and awarded Joe with that honor this past fall.

The chapter supports through attendance and participation numerous local outdoors theme events. This support involves promoting TU as well as demonstrating various fishing and outdoors related skills. A partial listing of these events is below:

• Community Harvest Festival
• Adopt-A-Highway
• Laurel High School “Sportsman’s Night Out”
• Gander Mountain Spring Outdoors & Fishing Expo

The chapter sponsors two “fun” outing for the membership each year.

The May 8th “Mother’s Day” fishing outing at Oil Creek State Park involves meeting in the picnic area at Petroleum Center in the morning for coffee and doughnuts then fishing until lunch. The chapter provides lunch of burgers and hot dogs and then it’s off for more fishing. The weather cooperated this year and it was a great time.

The first weekend after Memorial Day, June 5th & 6th John Gavalier opened his camp in Potter County, PA to the club for fishing the local streams and socializing. The weekend started Friday evening and ended late in the afternoon Sunday. This year’s event was very nice with better weather than in recent years.

John Siebert expertly administers the chapter web-site, www.neshannock-tu.org. The chapter was solicited by outside observers to nominate the site for PA-TU’s award of “Website of the Year” in 2004. This alone was recognition of the fine work John continues to perform for the chapter. Though the site was not selected for the award the fact remains that it is one of the best information sources of chapter activities in the state.