Financial Support for Fishing Conservation Projects

Expo Sign1

Some of the proceeds from the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo flow right back to the source – Michigan’s Trout, Salmon, and Steelhead rivers. That means better recreational opportunities for fly anglers all across Michigan.

The Michigan Fly Fishing Club is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The Club has funded close to $500,000 worth of conservation projects since the Expo began. In this decade alone, thanks to you attending the Expo, we have contributed over $95,000 to conservation. Most of those funds have been donated to groups here in Michigan to improve our fishing.

A sample of the projects that proceeds from the Expo has helped to fund include:

  • Clinton River Watershed Council
  • Gallagher Creek data collection, monitoring, and restoration to allow for the return of Brook Trout and its habitat
  • Upper Black River Council
  • In-stream habitat enhancement project for the Upper Black River by installing large woody debris ad stream bank stabilization
  • Au Sable River Property Owners Association
  • To plant Cedar trees to help with stabilization of the riverbank and to provide needed shade for the fish environment
  • Upper Manistee River Association
  • Repairing, creating, and maintaining woody debris structures in the river and along with bank stabilization in the tree farm area of the Upper Manistee
  • Anglers of the Au Sable
  • Analysis of insects at six sites on the North Branch for a baseline data of the macro invertebrate population
  • Conservation Resource Alliance
  • Mitigate bank erosion and the placement of large woody debris in the Pine River near the Silver Creek Pathway in Lake County
  • Mason-Griffith Founders Chapter of TU
  • To pay for the analysis of the water above and below the Grayling fish farm for total phosphorus and suspended solids
  • Vanguard Chapter TU
  • To build a stairway at the Gallagher Road Bridge parking lot from the lot to the usual high water mark of Paint Creek
  • Coldwater River Watershed Council
  • Planting of shade trees and the placement of seed buffer strips for erosion control along with the placement of woody debris into the Coldwater River to improve fish habitat