From The Mountain Mail (Nancy Best):
Trout Unlimited, a national conservation organization, is active in the local area through its Collegiate Peaks Anglers chapter. The chapter serves the Upper Arkansas Valley from Leadville to Cotopaxi and boasts some 300 members. Despite its name, Trout Unlimited is not a fishing club; indeed, there are members who do not fish. However, what is common among them is a love of the outdoors and natural settings.
One project that TU spearheaded was the creation of the Buena Vista Wildlife Area on CR 361 just off CR 306, from what was an inaccessible marshy meadow and a section of Cottonwood Creek that was too straight and shallow for fish to thrive in.
Local TU member Bob Gray explained what was involved. A year was spent writing and presenting a grant to the federal program Fishing Is Fun. A wetland mitigation plan was submitted, and many different aspects of the project that needed to be coordinated were put in place. Then, it took only the month of August 2006 to actually construct the BV Wildlife Trail and rebuild the section of Cottonwood Creek running alongside it.
Led by TU, it truly was a town effort. ACA Products donated gravel and boulders. Town trucks hauled gravel, local graphic designer Sherry York researched and wrote informational signs, and Weston Arnold and Zeke Farber, two students in the high school metal shop program, constructed a handicapped guardrail to make fishing accessible to those in wheelchairs. The Department of Corrections heavy equipment program, led by Tom Foreman and Tom Bowen, provided machines and labor.
Rod van Velson, before his retirement from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, mapped out a new stream, designing where rocks should be placed and how they should be oriented in order to direct the water flow, create holding pools, undercut banks, speed up or slow down the creek and stabilize banks, all to make an inviting home for brown trout.
The concerted effort of those mentioned, plus other businesses and many volunteers, led to the rewards of having a trout stream close to town and a trail with interpretive signs that has the potential to expand. Gray said, “I think of the future of this area and how spectacular it would be to one day see open space and a trail all along Cottonwood Creek.”
The brown trout living in other parts of Cottonwood Creek have realized what a nice home this specifically designed area is and have migrated to it, increasing in size and number, making this a naturally reproducing brown trout fishery.
For fishermen, what makes for an ideal habitat for the trout also makes for technically challenging fishing. At the same time, the area has been improved for animals and birds, with elk wintering in the town-irrigated meadow and bluebirds nesting in the locally made birdhouses.
Members of TU continue to monitor and maintain the area. Some members, like Boys & Girls Club Board President Karen Dils, pick up trash, while others transplant willow trees to keep the shoreline as it should be.
More Arkansas River Basin coverage here.