Green Bay Trout Unlimited | Take care of the fish and fishing will take care of itself
July 16 – Work Project Summary and Pics
Article written on 2022-07-23 by: Adrian Meseberg
Back in September of 2020 we held a work day on our Trout Educational Trail where we removed our physical structures (non-sign) in preparation of an eventual trial replacement (CHECK OUT THE LINK TO THAT DAYS SUMMARY AND PICS HERE). In many cases these old displays were worn, outdated and one was falling into Haller Creek. That day we also removed the rundown fence and invasive buckthorn. During that time we were a couple months away from creating a Trout Educational Trail Committee with the goal of also removing the old signs and replacing them with something bold and new.
On July 16th six volunteers from Green Bay Trout Unlimited (GBTU – Paul Kruse, Dave Ostanek, John Ostanek, Pat Hill, Doug Seidl and Adrian Meseberg), one from Oconto TU (Wayne Czypinski) and four representatives from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WI DNR – Kyle Kossel, Brady Bartels, Joe Fishingbauer and Brent Ritter) teamed up to take the next step in making this re-vamp a reality.
This days’ work was comprised of removing the old signs, cutting and treating invasive buckthorn and inserting our new signs.
I think I speak for the entire group when I say the day was a big success !
The next steps in this grand vision will be to reconvene as a Trout Educational Trail Committee to design the remaining signs with a goal of putting them in place next summer. We also look forward to working with our partners in this effort to restore the ponds and replace the roof on the covered bridge.
We would like to thank Jason Petrella (Brown County Program and Natural Resource Coordinator) and Jeff Ott and Ben (Park Rangers, Brown County Parks Department) for all there help and cooperation.
Check out the story in pictures below…
The arrow points the wayVolunteer filing inThe good ol’ GBTU built, covered bridge leads to the trailThe pole remover was amazing…just ask GBTU Work Project Chair Paul Kruse.However, there was one pole we really struggled with…just ask the WI DNR’s Kyle Kossel (it turns out there was a cement foundation underground)Pat Hill showing off the muscles (those signs were NOT light…believe me !)Not to be outdone…here comes John O with a pole of his own 🙂Signs starting to fill up around the Park Ranger’s truck11 of the 15 signs officially dropped offTime to remove some invasive buckthorn…the County marked the ones for removal in orangeBye-Bye buckthorn !WI DNR’s Brady Bartels, Joe Fishingbauer and Brent Ritter did an AMAZING job removing almost all of the tagged buckthorn !Our old friend “Buckthorn Blaster” made an appearance…stopping any potential re-growthYou know what ? It would be a great idea if we marked our tools Wait a minute…Chapter VP Doug Seidl has already marked them with “stolen from GBTU” 🙂Has anyone operated an auger like this one before ? We have post holes to dig !…nope…but that didn’t stop our crafty members from easily figuring it outWayne Czypinski…keeping things on the level 🙂Paul and Kyle drill the final hole…now for the signs…The first of the new signs to go into the ground !Here is the 2nd sign to make it inWow…these new signs are sure looking good 🙂Work day crew with new and old entrance signsPaul is truly becoming a master of our “blackstone grill”Volunteers gather for a well-deserved grilled lunchHaller Creek…up close…and now for our feathered friends…Well what do you know…Green Bay has Geese 🙂If you don’t think this is cute, you may need to check you pulse…barn swallow chicks (ready to leave the nest) in our covered bridgeThe icing on the cake…our old peacock friend made a “surprise” appearance at the end of the day (notice the volunteers in the background drilling out the final sign hole)
Thank you for all you do for the coldwater resources of NE WI !!!
