Putting on a Joint Conclave Sept. 19-21

The Wisconsin flyfishing message board I administer along with two
other Midwest based flyfishing websites are hosting a joint Conclave
in Avalanche, WI on Sept19th - 21st. While the main activities will be
fishing and drinking around campfires, the guiding purpose behind it
all is to raise money via a resale table and raffle for the West Fork
Sportsmans Club. They experienced two 100 year floods in the last
year, with the last in June being especially devastating. Not only
were the club grounds, camping, meeting room and cabins ( open to the
public, BTW) severely damaged but many of the stream improvements were
washed out. In one case the stream itself dug a new, shallow channel a
hundred feet away from the old one.

So some of us got together a month ago and started to organize this
thing. Since the repairs to the buildings are mostly complete my guess
is that most of the money raised will go for stream repair and
improvements.

For those who aren't familiar with the area, the West Fork of the
Kickapoo was a put and take, low quality cow pasture stream 20 years
ago. Through the work of the Sportsmans Club it was deepened and
improved to the point where it is supporting natural reproduction of
both browns and brookies. The man behind it all was a guy named Roger
Widner, a self taught stream technician. Roger died of cancer two
years ago.

So I'm sending an invite to all ROFFians. Come over to the Driftless,
fish the streams, come sit at the campfires and BS and generally enjoy
yourselves. Its a fantastic time of year to be in the area. Fishing is
picking up (the browns are going into their pre-spawn binge) and the
local orchards are usually in full swing with the year's harvests. And
if you decide to drop a few bucks on raffle tickets, all the better.

Here is the event website:

http://sites.google.com/site/2008avalancherendezvous/

Here is the West Fork clubs website:

http://www.westforksportsmansclub.org/

Show up, find me and tell me you're from ROFF and I'll give you a
beer. Such a deal.

Geo. C.