Gary Engberg Outdoors » Blog Archive » Local Column River Currents ...
by gengberg
The Restoration of Lake Delton and the Yahara Fishing Club’s Kid’s Day Two years ago, I was at Lake Delton less than 24 hours after torrential rains caused a breach and the saturated soil between the lake and the Wisconsin River collapsed sending the water from this 267 acre Lake Delton into the Wisconsin River .
What was left at this great Wisconsin tourist area was a dry lake bed with scattered logs, lost anchors, and a lake bottom of mostly mud. The many resorts, businesses, and local residents were left with a lake that had once attracted thousands and thousands of visitors every summer without one of its main natural attractions thus losing many million dollars of tourist income and revenue. Soon after the disaster Ben Hobbins, the inventor and President/CEO of Lake Resources-IronClads Soft Baits, called Wisconsin outdoor communicator and radio and TV host, Dan Small, to help him in a project aimed at restoring Lake Delton to the tourist-friendly lake that it once was providing recreational opportunities to locals and visitors alike. Ben and Dan ended up forming the Lake Delton Fisheries Restoration Project (LDFRP) Task Force with Hobbins, Small, retired DNR Fisheries Biologist and Lake Delton Village Trustee Gordon Priegel, and the then fisheries biologist for the area, Tim Larson, to head the project. Larson later retired and was replaced by Scot Stewart, another DNR biologist.
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