From the President [ C h r i s Wo o d ]
DEPUTY EDITOR
When I went to Cape Cod to tour the Quashnet River this summer, I kept hearing the name “Fran Smith.” I learned how Fran returned from the Vietnam War searching for a cause, and the Quashnet River is better for it. The Quashnet is a five-mile prayer of a river that flows into Waquoit Bay in Cape Cod, Mass. Fishing the river is like walking in a verdant tunnel, as wide as a fly rod is long in many sections. Willows and other vegetation overhang the bank, making bow and arrow casts mandatory. Redwing blackbirds, heron, otter and aquatic life abound. Salter brook trout run into the river from the bay. The river is remarkable for a variety of reasons. Chief among them is that it ceased to exist 70 years ago. For many decades, the Quashnet was part of the largest cranberry bog in the world. Cranberry bogs are devastating to rivers and fish. To turn a river into a cranberry bog, the streamside trees and vegetation are removed, and tons of sand and gravel are dumped into the riverbed, essentially reversing its flow. Dams are constructed every thousand feet or so to control the water levels appropriate for cranberry growth and harvest but not fish habitat. Consecutive hurricanes hit in 1954, which led to the abandonment of the Quashnet cranberry bogs, but by then, the river was long since dead. Enter Fran, and the southeastern Mass and Cape Cod chapters of TU. Before it was a cranberry bog, the river had sustained the Wampanoag people for millennia, and was famous for hosting anglers such as Daniel Webster and President Grover Cleveland, who fished the water in search of its large sea-run brook trout, known as salters. For nearly 50 years, chapter members have gathered about once per month for “work parties” to help heal the Quashnet. The river lost connection with its streambanks, so the members removed the old dams to help re-channel the flow of the river. They installed hundreds of deflectors and other large wood installations to recover the natural sinuosity of the river and to accelerate the removal of the sand and deposition that had been added to create the cranberry bogs. They planted almost 4,000 trees, learning how to plant atop large mounds of peat and compost to keep the roots from rotting. Nearly 450 volunteers donated 26,000 hours of hard labor to help recover the river. Amazingly, all the work accomplished by the Cape Cod chapter and its volunteers was done by hand. Never once has a backhoe, tractor or anything larger than a bush-hog or chain saw been used! You cannot walk up the Quashnet and not notice the work of the chapter. Every 10 yards are vegetation and trees they planted; structures they created; dams they removed. Fran is the undisputed leader of the pack, which is why we honored him with this year’s Mortenson Award, the highest honor bestowed by Trout Unlimited. When I returned from the Cape, and spoke to Fran a few times, I called Beverly Smith and Jeff Yates, and asked “have you heard of this guy?” They both shrugged. I asked how could you not know him? Their response was “he never complained.” Every TU chapter has a home water they work to care for and recover, but I have seen few with the sustained commitment made over a long period like the efforts by the Cape Cod chapter on the Quashnet, led by a wry, unassuming master plumber named Fran Smith.
F A L L
2 0 2 3
EDITOR
Kirk Deeter
Simply Amazing
T R O U T
FALL 2023 • VOLUME 66 • NUMBER 4
6
Samantha Carmichael E D I T O R - A T- L A R G E
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To conserve, protect and restore North America’s coldwater fisheries and their
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