KAMO April, 2024 Newsletter
For comments related to this document, contact Mike

President?s message –
Hello KAMO members and friends,
This is KAMO President Mark Walters with my monthly update. I have lots of good news, first We have worked out our 50/50 raffle and Bob Brodeur is getting the tickets made. I may be wrong but it goes something like this, 1st prize $2500.00, 2nd $1500.00 3rd $750.00, 4th
$500.00 5th $250.00. In a perfect world, KAMO will clear almost $5000.00. Originally we said we would pay out a small sum to each chapter but it was agreed that since the state has become so proactive that it will keep the entire amount to fund more investments such as
“The Joe” and a new one would be helping with the funding for next summer’s Florence County camping trip which is for all chapters.
I spent 2-days fishing with Coulee President Mike Brown and mentors Fritz Funk and Fred Nicholaus as we helped kids to get out and fish on board The Best Dam Fishing Float which is located across the river from La Crosse at Dresbach. About all I can say is what an impressive way to take kids fishing. Thefloat operators pick up fishermen on the hour and KAMO gets a deal of $10.00 per participant..A very unique way to spend a day. Thursday the 9th, the Meadow Valley Chapter is hosting the area with a fire, hotdogs, smores, games and my litter of golden retriever pups. I understand Coulee is having one as well.
If you want to do something simple, on a weeknight and have great potential to bring new people to your chapter have fires, I strongly suggest doing this, you can informally hold your monthly meeting as well. Key to the fire is to spread the word beforehand and keep it simple.
KAMO is on a roll, let’s keep it that way.

Mark

Joe Hunt Update – We have received word that the Mackenzie Center?s LTH pheasant hunt on Saturday, December 7th may not be going. If so, this might open the property for hunting that day for our group.

Background checks – Keep in mind that Rick is still working on each chapter?s 5 year renewal of background checks until done. If you receive an invitation to do a background check, it needs to be completed promptly – they are time sensitive.

Picture Project – Recently, April 5th, I (Mike) sat down at the computer and started the long put off and dreaded task of going through pictures taken at outings from the Coulee Chapter and those sent from other chapters. Pulling them up out of a variety of locations,deciding which ones to save, labeling them, and storing them on an external drive. This resulted in the storage of 175 captioned photos on the device so far..
Now that this is set up, dealing with pictures in the future will be more efficient. Restoration of a slideshow on the homepage of our website has been one outcome of this project. The drive was taken over to Walgreens to view and select and order a couple dozen prints. These prints were mounted on poster boards and will now be used to display at events.
Sifting through hundreds of photos taken over a dozen years was a trip down memory lane and offered some insights of the scope of the impact our work has had in our communities.

Website – Have you looked at your chapter?s webpage lately? Do you have someone in your group assigned to the task of keeping it up? If anyone out there would be willing to join me in improving it, please let me know.

Golf Shirts – Here?s how the golf shirt order looks at present. Please review it. Being the clothing order person is not something I?m good at (Mike). The order will be placed the week on May 13th, so if you have anything to add, please let me (Mike) know soon.

Coulee – Xl?s for M.B., T. C., T. G., Jo K., M. G.
Larges for F.F,Je K…Coulee needs to decide on colors.
Dodge – 1 – 3xl charcoal, 1- 2xl blue, 1 – 2xl berry, 1 xl – blue, 2 – m charcoal.
Meadow Valley – M.W. – large blue.
Northwoods – J. J. – 2xL – charcoal

Chapter Reports –
Baraboo – The Baraboo River Chapter held our monthly meeting on April 8, 2024 at the Rivers Edge. Rick Miotke attended the State Meeting on March 23rd and gave us updates. We discussed fundraiser ideas for the State and came up with a donation form for our club. It was decided that the Joe Hunt 2024 will be one weekend earlier this year (December 6?8th, 2024) due to overbooking of the MacKenzie Center. Rick?s website administration access was reinstated, and he updated some pictures to our website (Thank You). Rick was also involved in a Hunters Education class as an instructor at the Reedsburg Outdoor Club this Spring. It was good to hear that 40 youth graduated from the class. Our Chapter has paid our annual State dues and sent out Scholarship funds to University of Wisconsin?Stevens Point. This year Ben Muran from Reedsburg was chosen to receive our Scholarship. One of our newest members?Craig B. gave a presentation to the Lake Delton Sportsmen’s Club about KAMO and possibly getting some future donations/support.
In the past month, our club had 85 hours involved with getting Kids Outdoors with fishing, hiking, skiing, and safety training activities. Two of our members have plans to mentor kids for the Youth Turkey Hunt. Our next meeting will be May 13th at the Upham Woods Outdoor Learning Center. In June we plan to meet at the outdoor pavilion at Newport Park in the Wisconsin Dells.

Thanks,
Greg
Coulee – Tim Collins took mentee CJ out turkey hunting on the youth turkey Saturday.
Mark Walters joined the Coulee Chapter mentors as they took kids out on two consecutive blustery Days – April 19 and 20. We fished off the Best Dam Fishing Float below the Dresbach Dam. Fishing was tough, but every kid who tried had some fish. Some ducks (mainly coots) that were in the float area were ill and dying from the effects of an intestinal parasite found in faucet snails in the lake above. A close up view of the destruction having an invasive species in an area can bring about.
Mike (finally) developed some picture posters that were used as a display on Friday, April 26th at the Summit Elementary Earth Day Fair and Saturday, April 27th at the Outdoor Gear Swap at Green Island. The main intention of the displays was to interest passerby enough that they would come to a table where brochures and activity schedules could be taken. A side benefit of being at other groups’ events was the opportunity to rub shoulders with several people in the conservation world, to learn about how things are going for them, and to hear some ideas they have for collaborative projects.
We have a chapter meeting at Neshonoc Lakeside Campground on the evening of May 6th. This will be a face to face meeting for our group and several tentative volunteers may also be in attendance. We are going to plan some summer outings that are popular, but require extra help.
On Thursday, May 9th, we are having our third firepit/ outdoor activity night, the second one this year. We have gotten a lot of positive feedback about these and they are easy to run. We show up at a pavilion at the Pettibone Park Lagoon, light up a firepit, set up some food, spread some games out on the grass, and offer a fish pole to interested kids. The adults get a chance to talk with each other while the kids do their thing.

Mike

Dodge County Conservation – Dodge County Conservation KAMO has been busy this month of April. We had numerous Mentors and Mentees in the field for the Youth Turkey Hunting season and we had some very happy kids get their first Turkey. Check out our Facebook page or on the website for pictures. We also had a Bowling event where 17 kids came out and had fun bowling and enjoying some pizza and door prizes as well.
We are doing good at getting more mentors and are very excited how KAMO is becoming more popular in this area. A big shout out to The Beaver Dam Conservation Club, to Bayside Supper Club, To Cheri Brower and Dave Stephson from Frito lay. To Rob Radig at Pizza Ranch and to all The Volunteer Hunter Safety Instructors for another two successful classes and the students that passed . Thank you to everyone for you continued support of DCC KAMO, To The BDCAF (Beaver Dam Area Community Foundation ) for awarding us some Grant Money that we will be using for taking kids Hiking the first Saturday in May. And Last but not least, to Cierra Kuhn ( Our Treasurer) She was the recipient of The Beaver Dam Chamber of Commerce Under 40 distinguished individuals and well deserved. We are so Lucky to have her as part of DCC KAMO. Congratulations Cierra. More Turkey Hunting and Fishing begins, Get a kid outside and see how much fun you can have. Jim Braker Pres.

Meadow Valley – We had 8 members attend this month’s meeting. Jim and Mark provided a recap of the State KAMO meeting. All were very supportive of the Joe Hunt decision to keep it at the McKenzie Center. Many thanks to those who help coordinate this event.
We have decided to participate again this year in the DNR sponsored LTH Bear program. Last year we had 2 kids participate, this year we are going with one. We have 7 members signed up to help with the mentoring for the program.
We have one youth thus far who has entered into our Bow loaner program. Aaron is working with the youth.
We discussed ways to get the chapter more active within the community. Mark suggested a “campfire” outing. With that said, we have scheduled the evening of May 9th from 5:30-7:30 for our campfire night at Riverside Park in New Lisbon.
Chapter elections have been postponed till September and our meeting nights for the summer months have changed to Tuesdays beginning in May.

Bob
Northwoods – Hello From the Northwoods!
Things are happening up here. We received a $750 donation from the Ski Hill Committee for selling the 50/50 tickets at the uphill truck drags from March. We have also received 20 rod/reel combos from 9 Lakes Marine to give away at our summer fishing event. I literally just got off the phone with a VFW representative asking when our fall pheasant hunt date is because they want to offer all the participants free admission to their wild game feed the same day. I Went with October 12th which is a weekend after the youth deer hunt. We will be holding a meeting in May to discuss any new opportunities going forward. As always, good things ahead for the Northwoods chapter! Good luck fishing!

Johnny Johnson from Florence Wisconsin