April - Bear Creek Planting
CCTU’s efforts to help restore the creek through planting trees, shrubs and grasses continued in 2022. The Chapter provided $2,000 to the City of Lakewood to purchase the plants and necessary materials. 17 CCTU members attended the event and completed the work in 4 hours. Thanks to the city for providing lunch before we departed for the day.
June - Orphan Boy Mine Site Visit
John Egan met with Lauren Duncan, the Trout Unlimited abandoned mines coordinator for the Orphan Boy Mine site above Alma Co. The mine is leaking water from the adit that flows over pyrite and becomes rather acidic. This drainage eventually flows into Mosquito Creek and ends up in the South Platt River. Lauren is working on the engineering to route this drainage around the mine tailings in an effort to keep the water’s PH at a more acceptable level for the aquatic species that live in the creek and river. John finished the day fishing the creek and bringing a few brook trout to the net.
August - Urad Lake Clean Up
Urad lake is a place that sees a lot of activity from anglers, hikers and picnicking. As such, the amount of trash that can build up requires a concerted effort to clean up. CCTU took on that challenge and made a fun day of it, learning about lake fishing, then fishing and finally cleaning up trash in the area. Our day started in the parking lot listening to Ron Belak discussing fishing on lakes in Colorado to include some of the items he takes to hike into the lakes. Most notable was his use of a lightweight belly boat so he can get out on the water and find more fish.
The day continued with people heading from the parking lot to the lake to find fish for a few hours. As you would expect, some anglers did better than others but everyone had a good time. We concluded the take picking up trash and hauling the bags to our homes for disposal.
September - Bear Creek Lake Shocking
Once again CCTU assisted Paul Winkle and CPW with the annual fish survey of O’Fallon Park and upstream of the Evergreen County Club. Over a two day period, 10 of us netted fish and put them into a holding tank we pulled up the river. Once a section was completed, the fish were transferred to a confined space in the river to be identified, weighted, measured and checked for disease.