A lot of people think Trout Unlimited is just a social club dedicated to fly fishing. Erik Heikkenen, president of the Cheyenne Mountain Chapter of Trout Unlimited, says the organization is much more. “We do love to fly fish but for the last 25 years we have worked on numerous watershed conservation and restoration projects,” he said. “We’ve concentrated most of our work on the South Platte in Eleven Mile Canyon on the Trees for Trout project. We use trees taken from the Hayman Fire burn area and use them to stabilize the banks. Some of the timbers are placed in the stream bed to provide more trout habitat.”
The first project for the local Trout Unlimited chapter was work on Trout Creek north of Woodland Park in 1986.
“Grazing cattle had destroyed the banks and we did a lot of work restoring them,” Heikkenen said. “Later the beaver moved in and undid some of our work but much of it is still there.”
