French's Creek Project Portage

After a long discussion over a cup of coffee in the duck boat, with my duck hunting partner,Reel Finnny, it was decided that something needed to be done about the cattail invasion at French's.Over 60% of the water area has been lost in the last 15 to 20 years!! Phone calls, personal visits, etc were made with Sara Kehrli, DNR Biologist, Kurt Calkins, Land Water Conservation Dept of Columbia County and Jason Hill, Regional DU Biologist. Everyone got on board. The project is set to start this month with the draw-down. The cattail mats will set down and root systems exposed. Come spring, spray will be applied and the mats flooded over. Then comes the Swamp Devil, a piece of equipment from the Fed's to chop up the dead mats and open up the water areas. French's has the potential to get back to what it once was, a thriving duck and goose mecca. Sara's project description can be read on Bear Solis.com. Donations are still coming in with lots of support for this project! If anyone would like to contribute to the project, you can send your contributions to; Kurt Calkins, LWCD Director, Columbia County Annex, 120 West Conant St PO Box485, Portage WI 53901. I will post updates later. Also just recieved official word from DU that Wisconsin will now have it's own Biologist from DU. Things are looking UP!

Well ,looks like the project is nothing more than a bungled mess on the part of our DNR . As one of the private donors, I feel that mine as well as the other private donors monies have been wasted. The only positive is the possible eradication of several acres of cattails. Almost no shootable water was created and little was added to the refuge,which were two of the main objectives . Someone from the DNR has some explaining to do and needs to be held accountable for the mismanagement of this project.

Change of plans!!!! The Swamp Devil is to start work today! Project should be complete sometime in the next week or two. Looking forward to the accomplishment and some happy donors that wanted to see the project complete, including myself!!!

The spraying was pertty much a sucess. If I was a little more "computer savy", I would put up the photo taken by airplane over the area. Where the cats are brown, and I mean brown completely, is where they have sprayed and they covered quite an area in different locations. The problem is the water level for the Swamp Devil to get in. The boards are in and with the rain that has occured over the area, the water is coming up nicely. The person in charge from the DNR has informed me that they will not be doing any chopping because of the up-coming duck season and wants to wait until spring. I have voiced my opinion, along with others, that they could be in there during the week, before freeze up, and could get this done with out much impact on hunting. After all, waterfowl will fall right in behind farm equipment running in the field and feed. The other concerns were of course, waiting until spring and dealing with any nesting that is going on. Hopefully, they will still try yet this fall. As soon as I know more, I will post it up.

How is the project going?

Happy to report that work on the site starts tommorow!

The Time-Line for the project is about set. The project is slated to start late May, first part of June. I am going to ask Bear Solis to see if we can get some footage/ documentation up on the Website to "see" the project in action

FYI- Ducks Unlimited sent their signed contract in to LWCD this week for the project

Just recieved word, moments ago, that the Grant money and State money were deposited today, into the account for the Project!!!

and what a ducking hunting place french creek USED TO BE. 30 years ago i hunted there alot and sometimes we just watched the raft of ducks decoy in, mallards,black mallards,teal,cans, blue bills, ring necks, they were all there and in great numbers.

Today a copy of a letter from Rep. Fred Clarks Office was handed to me, asking for the support of the State on funding for the project. The drawdown is still on-going. Everything is still progressing very nicely for the project. Just a little FYI

Just wanted to take a moment to THANK EVERYONE who has contributed to the project so far!! The amount of support for this has been OUTSTANDING!!! Contributions are still coming in. Thanks again!

Woody, I will believe that when I see it with regards to the refuges. I hope I am wrong, but history has taught me well and that is when the DNR, and DU get together on a project the only winners are the southern boys. Because up here we are refuge insane. I do not support DU any longer and it might be a very long time before they will see one red cent of mine. Oh and the dnr..............well just look at Horicon as the evidence with "it will be only a refuge for a few years". Best of luck with the project, I hope that the hunters of our state are not on the short end of the stick again.

I congratulate guys like you three, honestly. I am glad this is all working out and hope it will maintain for the future generation. Any improvement done right in nature, especially for ducks, is good in my opinion. I just don't support DU for reasons of my own. You guys should take before and after photos of the project, would be cool to see.

It should be noted, along with the original post, that another person who was very instumental in helping to get this project off the ground, is woody river. He is one of the predecessors to myself, after running the Owen J. Gromme Chapter of DU, for 13yrs. He is now the new chair for that and is also the Zone Chairmen for DU. He is responsible for helping to make the appropriate contacts with the DU people needed to make this project go correctly. Members of that Chapter have always worked hard and have dedicated themselves to getting projects going and getting the kids involved as well

In regards to the du biologist in wi. This is a good thing for us. He isn't out there to create more refuges. He will be out there to spend more time in the field and spend more money on our state. Jason Hill our current DU biologist covers 4 states. Which means he can't be in all of those states at the same time. With the new biologist he will be able to find more projects here in our state. In regards to the (CATCH) If it wasn't for DU, DNR, or the us fish and wildlife services. Nothing would get done or accomplished. Also without people like gander and real finney or myself projects like frenchs would not get started or done. And then what, let frenchs go to a full blown cattail marsh which no one can hunt. The big picture is we all need to work together to get things done. Without any of us what would we have then.