Wheatland Twin Lakes Sportsmen Club hosts cleanup, seeks new members

Nearly every day since moving to Montgomery from Missouri, Brian Callis drives his truck to the Cody Lake fishing pier just to enjoy the view.

Callis also said he’s going to soon join the Wheatland Twin Lakes Sportsmen Club, which maintains and advocates for Cody Lake, Phelps Lake, DuBon Lake and Duban Lake, known colloquially as the Twin Lakes. The group is seeking new members to help with their clean-up projects and fundraising.

“I retired and I moved to the area,” Callis said during his daily visit Thursday. “This has been a lifesaver. I’ve identified, there’s no tellin’ how many birds.”

The Wheatland Twin Lakes Sportsmen Club was formed in 1988 by Elmer Flicek Jr. and Ben Barta. A year later, they purchased an aeration system, which adds oxygen to the water and helps prevent winter kill of the fish in the lake.

They regularly clean the areas around the lake, take care of their many wood duck houses, bought a $14,000 fishing pier for Cody Lake and even decorate with some natural additions like boulders.

The club’s president, Greg Busch, said he can remember a not-so-distant past when the lake was thriving. Things have changed, especially since the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources convinced them to shut off the aeration system.

“The DNR suggests that we not aerate the lakes because it could keep rough fish alive. But then if we don’t aerate it, and you have a bad winter, then all the fish die. You know, the rough fish and everything.”

Due to a lack of fish, the lake’s popularity has been on the decline. At the same time, the group’s members are aging.

“The other thing is we were losing members,” he said. “The older members were dying so then we’re losing members and there wasn’t a lot of support. I say we’ve got about 100 members, but actually we’ve got about a dozen active members.”

These factors spelled disaster for the club and subsequently for the lakes, he said.

“So you know, when you don’t have many active members and now the DNR is saying they don’t recommend using the aeration system, you don’t have the manpower to put up the nice signs and stuff,” he said. “Then you let it go and see what happens, you know?”

Toward the end of April, the Sportsman Club started seeing some additional interest. Busch said this is due to an increasing number of people moving to the area.

But, alongside that increased interest and use, teenagers causing trouble have also begun to cause issues. To find an example, one needn’t look further than the night of April 20.

“In the middle of the lawn on the grassy area, they were burning pallets,” Busch said. “There’s a few pictures on Facebook. The Rice County Sheriff came out there to disperse it. He made them put out the fire and clean it up and stuff.”

The club’s Facebook page posted that it’s been an ongoing issue.

“There have many incidents, burning the portable toilets, shooting the lights out, destroying the parking lot and access,” reads the post. “We are a small volunteer group and can’t afford the efforts. We want a nice place to take our kids fishing, have a picnic and go swimming.”

Callis wasn’t alone on his Thursday visit. He brought a friend with him, Jody Blumhoefer, who said she was impressed with how serene and clean the area was.

“You’ve talked about how they keep it nice and clean,” she said next to him. “Kids come out and they might mess it up, but then they’re right here the next day and they’re putting it back together.”

Blumhoefer assumed the area was maintained by the county or some other public entity. But it’s all volunteers.

“It gets frustrating,” said Busch. “I’d (clean) for hours. The kids come up there and spin their tires one night, then you you do it all over again. You clean it up for somebody that doesn’t destroy it. I mean, if it’s clean when you get there, chances are you’re going to leave it clean when you leave. You know? Most people are good about that.”

Busch and the other members hope to get some attention through their recent Facebook posts, which they said are meant to attract new members.

On that Facebook page, prospective members can find a form to fill out and mail with the $5 annual fee to join the club. Another way to join is to attend a meeting, which happens at 6 p.m. on the third Tuesday every month at the American Legion Post 79 in Montgomery.