June Meeting
The June meeting will be held Thursday June 14th at 7PM at the Edgewater Inn. Topics include the upcoming brook trout habitat project on Kelso run June 27-30th (volunteers needed!) and the re-scheduled river bank clean up to be held Saturday July 21st. Denny Johnson will update us on Juniata College’s projects in the watershed. Hope to see you there.
President Bill Anderson was interviewed on the Open Air Project Podcast
President Bill Anderson was interviewed on the Open Air Podcast. Bill’s interview starts at 17 minutes into the podcast. If the clip does not load in your browser visit: http://theopenairproject.com.
May Meeting
The May meeting was held May 10th at 7PM at the Edgewater Inn near Alexandria. Meeting minutes can be downloaded by clicking May 2018 minutes
New Enterprise update
May: LJRA is attempting to obtain a public fishing easement lease on these valuable stretches. PFBC is writing a lease proposal which will be presented to NES&L. Work is being done, but there is no timeline for a resolution. In the meantime please respect the postings.
President Bill Anderson met with the person in charge of land management for New Enterprise today. She was attentive and receptive to ideas to increase angler access to the J, including fishing easements and land transfers. She will present our ideas to the company soon. Conversations will continue. We should not expect immediate resolution, but the response from NE today was encouraging. In the meantime, it is important that we honor the postings and not trespassing on their land.
A section of the J opened up to fishing
Members of the LJRA conducted a clean up recently on previously posted land on the upper J. The clean up, and other actions, led to the opening of 0.6 mile of the river to fishing. A major goal of the LJRA is to improve landowner relations to increase access. Landowners are encouraged to contact the LJRA and see if we can mitigate problems before deciding to post your land. Fisherman can maintain access to open waters by cleaning up when you see trash, reporting vandals and thanking landowners when you see them.
April Meeting
The April meeting of the LJRA will be held Thursday April 12th at 7PM at the Edgewater Inn. Hope to see you there.
Annual Riverbank Cleanup- Canceled!
Unfortunately, Mother Nature is playing dirty tricks on us again. The Little J watershed is predicted to receive 2-4 inches of snow late Friday night into Saturday afternoon. Out of concern for the safety of the volunteers and the effectiveness of the clean up (can’t see trash under inches of snow) the directors decided to cancel the River Bank Clean-up. We are considering scheduling a low water clean up this summer. Check back to the website for more information or visit the Facebook Page. We appreciate your willingness to participate. The next project will be habitat restoration at Kelso Run in June.
February Metting
The LJRA will meet on Thursday February 8th, at 7:00PM at the Edgewater Inn. Topics will include Brown Trout Behavior Study, the status of posted properties, upcoming projects and plans for the river bank clean-up scheduled for Saturday April 7th.
Winter Banquet
The LJRA held its annual Winter Banquet at the Edgewater Inn on Jan 19th. Approximately 55 were in attendance. Mike Grimm from the American Eagle Paper Company was the recipient of the first “Friend of the River Award”. Mike is pictured next to Bill Anderson (left panel). Mike was recognized for his adoption of practices that greatly reduced water consumption, eliminated the discharge of heated water into the Little Bald Eagle (trib to the J), releasing a major cold water spring at the headwaters of the J and supporting efforts to construct a fish passageway around the mill’s dam in Tyrone.
Keystone Cold Water Conference
The Pennsylvania Council of Trout Unlimited will host the 13th Keystone Coldwater Conference February 23-24, 2018 at the Ramada Inn Conference Center in State College. More information and a link to register online can be found here. The LJRA will reimburse its members for the cost of registration if they attend.