Members of a hunting club in northeastern Wisconsin assist with stream restoration efforts on the Upper Middle Inlet. - FWS photo

Crews use an excavator in preparation for placing a rootwad near an outside bend on the Upper Middle Inlet. - FWS photo

A hunting club and a private land owner in northeastern Wisconsin contacted the Green Bay Fishery Resources Office in 2005, inquiring about the restoration potential on their land.  The Upper Middle Inlet, a coldwater trout stream, flows for over a mile through their property. 

Past land use included the clear cutting of timber near the stream and cattle grazing for over 40 years.  These practices caused the stream to change from a historically productive trout stream to one that has few trout, a high width/depth ratio and a high sand bedload. 

Meetings between the landowner, hunting club, Marinette County Land and Water Conservation Division and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources led to a three-phase/three-year approach to address the degraded conditions in the stream. Before project implementation, various parameters were measured over two seasons including temperature, GIS coverage, flow regimes, and channel morphology. 

Fishery assessments were also performed to obtain a "before" snapshot of relative abundance of fish species within the stream.  Restoration efforts began in 2006 and included the placement of rock footers on outside bends, corrected stream width/depth ratio, placed brush bundles on inside bends, and used rootwads, logs and large boulders to create habitat and stabilize stream banks. 

The project was a successful partnership with more than 800 feet of stream restored during phase one.  Hunting club members were extremely pleased with the results and contributed over 290 hours of labor to the project.  Additionally, they supplied a back hoe, a couple of dump trucks, a bulldozer and several tractors.  All partners are eager to begin the second phase of the project in 2007.  Monitoring will continue throughout the project to document effects on the stream.