Patterson Lake Aeration Fund 2006
By Bob Morenski
At the 12-10-05 Dakota Fly Fisher meeting, club members voted to continue aeration funding on Patterson Lake which just north of Oakburn, Manitoba. Last year through personal donations, the Dakota Fly Fishers raised $1,000 for Patterson Lake aeration. The check was presented at the 2005 FLIPPR Trout Festival which was held in Rossburn, Manitoba. It is the Rural Municipality (RM) of Rossburn which pays for the aeration costs on Patterson Lake. After a disastrous year of farming in the region in 2004, the check was extremely well received by the people of Rossburn. I checked with Rudy Krystolovich who is the RM of Rossburn’s representative on the FLIPPR Board of Directors. He showed me an accounting of what it cost to aerate Patterson Lake during the winter of 2004. The total came around $2,440 Canadian. Our donation with the exchange rate came to $1,200 Canadian or roughly one half of the total.
Like I mentioned last year, I was never prouder of the club than when the club answered the call. Prior to our donation, I know for a fact that Rudy Krysrtolovich was taking a lot of heat from his local constituents about the special regulations on Patterson. For those unfamiliar with the regulations, Patterson is “artificial only” and has a one trout limit. There was a lot of pressure to open up the regulations and increase the limit on Patterson Lake. Our donation set this opposition back on its heels. In fact, the people of Rossburn were quite taken by our gesture. They could not believe that we would, not only, be willing to come up and spend money in their community, but also, be willing to help share the burden to maintain it.
I can not overstate the trophy potential of Patterson Lake. At the beginning of last year, I predicted that we would start seeing 25 plus inch fish by autumn. I was correct. I landed four rainbows and one brown trout over 25 inches last fall and lost two more rainbows that were at least 25 inches or better. I know that Mike Andreasen caught a brown of around 27 inches there and I heard of two more 27 inch rainbows being landed. Based on this, I believe that we will start seeing the odd fish up to 30 inches by next Fall and so many 25 inch trout that it will take a trout better than 27 inches before anyone will even take note of it. That was how things were on Silver Beach Lake back in 1996. Silver Beach Lake is the standard by how we judge trophy trout lakes and Patterson Lake is going to be better than Silver Beach ever was.
At the meeting, I kicked off the personal donations with a $100 check and requested that the club contribute $100 from the treasury like we did last year. That was denied and increased to $200 from the treasury by the membership. My goal is to reach at least what we did last year. If you would like to make a contribution to this fund, send a check to
Jim Harris
1837 6th Street SW
Minot, North Dakota 58701
Make all checks payable to the Dakota Fly Fishers.
Trophy trout lakes are a rare commodity these days. Most people have to drive or fly a thousand plus miles for the opportunity to fish one. In Patterson Lake, we will soon have one of the best trophy trout lakes on the continent. Best of all, we can drive to it in just a few hours. By contributing to this fund, we remove the biggest argument that anyone has for relaxing the regulations on this lake. If you can afford it, please contribute to this fund.
Thanks,
Bob Morenski