KAMO – January, 2025 Newsletter
For comments related to this document, contact Mike

President?s message – Hello to all KAMO members and friends,
This is Kids And Mentors Outdoors President Mark Walters with my monthly update. On March 29th we will be holding our annual members meeting in Stevens Point, please make sure that at least one member from each chapter makes this meeting and hopefully more. No one wakes up and say’s I want to spend the day at the state meeting. On the other hand, we meet once a year and on that day accomplish a years worth of decisions and everyone walks away with a very good feeling that they attended. On that same note, the state meeting is also the only experience that many of the KAMO members are able to actually get to speak with each other in person.
KAMO is going to create a position for a paid facebook page manager. This will be hammered out at the state meeting and it is a must, like it or not facebook can accomplish more for an organization than any form of advertising if the page is managed well. This is all new, we will figure it out on the 29th.
We do have one problem, a KAMO member ran the page and over the years the energy for that lapsed. We do not have access to our fb page and are trying to see if someone has it or how to restart it. I am sorry for this inconvenience but it is a simple reality. On the 29th, we want to go forward with this project so we need input on what to do.
I received a great phone call this last week about probably the best recognition that KAMO has been given and we will be presented it on the 19th of March at the Radisson Hotel in Lacrosse. This award, which is from a five state organization picked KAMO as their only recipient, is monetary and Mike Brown and I will be giving a 20 minute presentation on the 19th.
I will be more descriptive in the next newsletter but everyone will be impressed and realize just how much we have achieved. This has been a busy and prosperous winter for KAMO and we can all pat ourselves on the back for that.

Mark

KAMO 2025 State Convention – An agenda has been sent to those members expected to be there. Anyone else wishing to see the agenda – let me know and I?ll send it to your email.
If your chapter needs any brochures, let me know soon. We are getting low on them and new ones may have to be printed.

Wisconsin Interscholastic Fishing Association (WIFA) Ice Fishing State Championship – Pools 7 & 8 of the Mississippi River on Saturday, 15th, 2025. It was obvious the weekend of the 15th/ 16th and the Friday before that 82 teams from all over the state piled into the area. They were greeted by a snowstorm on their arrival.
79 teams registered fish. Each team could measure and submit: 10 bluegills/ pumpkin seeds, 10 crappies, 10 perch, 5 bass total either large or smallmouth, 5 northerns.
Osceola took first place with 527.5 inches. Slinger, Winneconne, Kaukauna, Kiel, Appleton North, North Fondy, Neenah, Ameery, Milton were in the next 9 places. A local Onalaska school came in 45th.
Largest northern – 38.5?, 3 bass 20 inches or over, largest bluegill – 9.75, crappie – 14.25, perch – 13.75. Each fish is measured on a Rapala Magnum Bump board, mouth closed, tail pinched, with an accompanying photo.
Why is this in the KAMO newsletter? Not only is it interesting, but it demonstrates the attraction youth have towards nature and fishing. Over 120 schools in WIFA?s nine years of existence! It is also a testimonial to the capacity of the Mississippi River to yield impressive catches of fish week after week, even to those who have never fished it before. These pools of the river have had unusually heavy fishing pressure this year, especially through the ice.

New or exiting members? – Please let Mike know if someone leaves your chapter so that they can be removed from the directory and mailing lists. If you have added members, Mike needs to know this as well – those new people need to be put in the directory and added to the group mailing list. First and last name, phone number and email. Why is this brought up? Your chapter reports indicate you are getting new members, but corresponding name and contact info is often not forwarded.

Website – We paid our hosting fee through March of 2026. $29.70

Chapter Reports

Baraboo – The Baraboo Chapter of Kids and Mentors Outdoors held our monthly meeting on February 10th at Rivers Edge in WI Dells. Our group reported 76 hours of getting Kids Outdoors in the past month. This was at a local Fisharee. Skiing and planning for future events. Our Chapter will again be providing a Scholarship at Stevens Point for the 2025/2026 school year and are proud to support a student in an Outdoor Area of Study. The State KAMO meeting will be March 29th and Rick M. will be representing our Chapter. We discussed upcoming events such as the Poynette Game Farm Outdoor Expo May 13?15th and WI Waterfowl Expo August 22?23. Both events are looking for volunteers.
We will be holding our Mentor Appreciation Meal as a Thank You during next month?s meeting on Monday March 10th 2025 at Rivers Edge. Reservations are set for 7pm. All active Baraboo River Chapter Mentors can bring a potential new Mentor and are encouraged to attend. As part of next month?s meeting, we will be starting a ?Where They are Now? board to show some of our prior KAMO Kids who are now adults/parents. Please bring along photos you have of prior KAMO Kids. All members in attendance voted to continue with our annual Chapter dues and decided on $10/year. Everyone present paid their annual dues. We are looking at doing a fundraising dinner on Saturday May 10th at a local campground. We also discussed teaming up with the Lake Wisconsin Chapter for a late Spring fishing event at Merrimac and Mark W. will bring this up when he attends their meeting. Our group discussed the meeting rotation and proposed meeting at Rivers Edge during the Winter and Spring while rotating in the Summer and Fall. We enjoy meeting at Upham Woods for the September gathering with other Chapters when the Joe Hunt is finalized. Our next meeting will be held Monday March 10th at Rivers Edge in the Wisconsin Dells.

Greg

Coulee – A few members of the Coulee Chapter met on the evening of February 17th and set some dates for both spring and summer events. Three mentors had the flu that week. Between mentors being ill, caring for aging parents, and traveling, we had a slow month. Turkey hunting looks like it will be for 1 – 2 kids. Set first trip to Fishing Float on Friday, April 18th.

Dodge County Conservation – DCC KAMO. Kind of a slow month for our Chapter. We took part in Waupun Ice fest, We were out at Marsh Haven located next to the National wildlife refuge of the Horicon Marsh. Our Chapter was is charge of Snow Shoeing. We showed over 70 people how to snow shoe, Kids and adults and we had snow so fun was had by all. 3 mentors and 2 KAMO kids participated in a LTH ( Learn to Hunt) put on by Pass it on outdoors at Cackle Creek Hunt club. Each hunter got the opportunity to shoot three pheasants and 8 hunters had a real good experience in Pheasant hunting. We will be working more in the future with Pass it on to get kids doing other things outside. We also received a very wonderful donation from Stacey Winkleman on behalf of her Brother Snoop . He was an avid outdoor person and taught a lot of kids in the Watewrtown area to Hunt and fish, His Memory will carry on for a long time and we will definitely put there donation to good use. We have a raffle that we are doing for the sportsman’s rummage sale in the first week of April and we also discussed future events that we will be doing as well. Hunters Safety class coming up at the end of March along with our Bowling event as well. Get a kid outside and see what happens.

Jim B

Lake Wisconsin – Kamo Lake Wisconsin had our monthly meeting on February 13th at the Poynette American Legion. We are still actively selling gun raffle tickets for funds for our chapter, at Gasoline Alley in Poynette.
I was able to go ice fishing once this month for a Fisherie on a private pond. I at one point had 5 kids in the ice shanty with me where I was extremely busy taking fish off their lines and re-baiting hooks and teaching them how to use a vexilar . We also had an underwater camera out where the kids could watch the different species of fish swim through. We are struggling a bit to get new members and would like to meet and talk to anyone interested in being part of our chapter.
Meadow Valley – KAMO Meadow Valley: Planning for the youth spring turkey hunt.Planning for the youth Bear Learn to Hunt. We have selected a participant.
We will be reviewing applicants for our scholarships for the next year. We expanded the schools that we are reaching (New Lisbon, Necedah, Tomah, and Mauston).
Also please remember to send me your chapter dues: James Rydmark, E11325 N Reedsburg Road, Baraboo, WI 53913
Thanks,
Jim
Northwoods – We had another wonderful fishing outing last month. We had really good advertising and had several groups of adults walk out to see what we are all about. We made some good contacts for potential fundraising opportunities also. We will be holding a meeting in March to discuss the mountain bike raffle at the school before Easter break.
March 8 we will be doing the Uphill Truck Drags 50/50 drawings in return for a $500 donation, last year the donation was bumped to $750 as we did so well selling the tickets. Trucks come from 5 states and Canada to drag race side by side up a 500 foot headwall at our local ski hill, last year over 4000 people attended.
Our next purchase/ donation request is going to be for kids folding seats or stools for ice fishing, We currently use 5 gallon pails but 30 of them are clumsy to deal with and pull apart. I believe 3 of us will be attending the state meeting coming up, see ya soon, good things ahead from the northwoods.

Johnny Johnson from Florence Wi..