In
December 2010 Tom Allen, President of the
Madmen Chapter of Trout
Unlimited copied Joe Nagel, Editor of Tightlines,
The Monthly Newsletter of the
Miami Valley Fly Fishers,
on an e-mail he'd sent to Ethan Simmons, the Fisheries Biologist with the
Ohio Division of Wildlife. Tom was relaying catch information to Ethan
gathered from the Madmen's fishing day on the Mad held the previous
September. Ethan was trying to get an idea of numbers / size of fish
caught on different sections of the river.
Joe considered that a lot of the
MVFF members fish
the Mad and that perhaps data collected from their individual fishing
trips could help Ethan as well. So, Joe contacted Ethan directly to see
if there was interest in setting something up. There was.
Initial thoughts were of of collecting information into a spreadsheet, but
the idea soon took on a life of its own. With the help and encouragement
of a coworker Joe was able to pull together a prototype of the survey
on-line. We realized having the survey on-line also would broaden the
potential base of participation, to all fly fishers and non-fly fishers
alike. After a few tweaks, Joe and the team came up with the survey in
its present form, which can be seen at:
http://www.mvff.us/formpage.html
The data
from the survey is collected and sent to Ethan, for the purpose of
assisting the
Ohio DNR Division of Wildlife in the management of trout populations
in the Mad. If you fish Ohio's Mad River, you should make a habit
out of filling in the survey after each outing. Your observation and
assistance will help manage the Mad River and make it a better fishery.
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