Annual Meeting

The 2023 Annual Meeting is being planned for Tennessee. Check the calendar for planned events.

The 2022 Annual Meeting was held at Lake Shelbyville, Illinois once again.

2022

The Reservoir Fish Habitat Partnership held its thirteenth annual meeting in Shelbyville, Illinois, on October 1, 2022.

2021

The Reservoir Fish Habitat Partnership planned to hold its twelfth annual meeting in Illinois, but the in-person meeting was cancelled due to pandemic concerns. The meeting was held virtually on October 1, 2021.

2020

The Reservoir Fish Habitat Partnership planned to hold its eleventh annual meeting in Illinois, but the in-person meeting was cancelled due to pandemic concerns. The meeting was held virtually on October 7, 2020.

2019

Highlights of this year’s meeting were a dredge demonstration on the DINO6  by GeoForm International and  a presentation on Envirotubes as a means of disposing of fill material. The morning presentations were followed by the Reservoir Fisheries Habitat Partnership Business Meeting. The Briefing Book and Minutes are available for download. A half-day workshop on reservoir habitat restoration Best Management Practices. Topics covered were:

Instructors include many of the individuals that contributed to the Reservoir Habitat Management Manual https://www.friendsofreservoirs.org/science/best-management-practices-manual/ .

An expanded version of this workshop will be held at the 2020 Southern Division AFS Spring Meeting in Little Rock, AR on 21 February 2020.

Technical Sessions

Reservoir Fisheries Habitat Restoration is too Big a Job for Any one Agency to Tackle: Partnering and the Friends of Reservoirs Role in its Promotion-Jeff Boxrucker, RFHP
Open Discussion on Microplastics-Dave Terre
The value of sharing knowledge – Queensland’s experience with reservoir fisheries habitat management-Andrew Norris, Dept. of Agriculture & Fisheries, Queensland, Australia
Water Injection Dredging (WID) Demonstration at Tuttle Creek Lake-Josh Olson, Kansas Water Office
Conserving Water Quality in Kansas through the WRAPS Program-Travis Sieve, Kansas Department of Health and Environment
Habitat Restoration at Harris Lake, North Carolina-Clinton Morgeson and Mark D. Fowlkes, NC Wildlife Resources Commission
Friends of Lake Livingston: New Approaches to Restoring Aquatic Plants to a Turbid Reservoir-James Langley, Lee College
Rockport Reservoir Habitat Augmentation-Kent Sorenson, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources
Watershed Protection – How It Is Being Approached by the Beaver Watershed Alliance, Clell Ford, Beaver Watershed Alliance
Status of the Watershed-Upper White River Basin-David Casaletto, Ozarks Water Watch
Sediment Management in the Desert-Earl Conway, Sun Country Outdoors
A Summary of Habitat Enhancement Efforts at Reservoirs Within the Lone Star State-Michael D. Homer Jr., Texas Parks & Wildlife Department
Lessons in Establishing Aquatic Plants in Lakes and Reservoirs- Michael J. Mounce, IL DNR
The Lake Shelbyville Fish Habitat Alliance: Year 2 update- Michael J. Mounce, IL DNR
Indiana’s Reservoir Habitat Enhancement Program:  Four Lake in Four Years-Sandy Clark-Kolaks, IN DNR

Friends of Reservoirs Small Projects Grants ($1,000 cash) were awarded to Friends of Barren River Lake, Kentucky; Tri-County Bass Anglers, Indiana; Friends of Lake Livingston, Texas; Lake Fork Sportsman’s Association, Texas and the City of Cherryvale, Kansas.

Mossback once again sponsored a grant that awarded $1000 (wholesale) of product to the Virginia B.A.S.S. Nation, Ft. Worth Fly Fishers (Texas), and Friends of Horse Thief Reservoir (Kansas).

 

2018

The Reservoir Fisheries Habitat Partnership (RFHP) held its 9th Annual Meeting 5-7 October 2018 at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center https://tpwd.texas.gov/spdest/visitorcenters/tffc/ in Athens, Texas. Seventy-five attendees were treated to a half-day workshop on reservoir habitat restoration Best Management Practices. Topics covered include:

Instructors included many of the individuals that contributed to the Reservoir Habitat Management Manual https://www.friendsofreservoirs.org/science/best-management-practices-manual/ . Pdf. versions of the workshop presentations are available by clicking on the topics above. An expanded version of the workshop is being presented at the Southern Division AFS meeting in Galveston, Texas on January 25, 2019.

The technical program featured presentations from professional fisheries managers and Friends of Reservoirs project leaders. Pdf. versions of the presentations are available by clicking on the titles below.

The Awards Banquet honored the 2018 Friend of Reservoirs recipients. Recipients of the 2018 Small Grant Awards were announced.

Participants were extremely complementary of the meeting content. Ed Swenson from the Lake Fork Sportsman's Association (LFSA) was quoted as saying, "I just want to send along a big thank you for your efforts in organizing the conference last weekend. As one that is new to this whole topic and having an acute interest it learning more it was an awesome experience. The organization of the topics and their content helped me to better understand the overall requirements and opportunities going forward. I look forward to learning more and am willing to contribute in any way I can to help the efforts. Carolyn West (LFSA) emailed saying "The conference last weekend was one of the best I have attended throughout my business and volunteering life.  I learned so much and witnessed amazingly intelligent people willing to share their knowledge. Thank you for all the work I know goes into a successful workshop/conference.  You held a conference that gave so much to the attendees.  I am so impressed with FOR and equally glad we are members. "Scott Ball from the Lake Livingston Friends of Reservoirs said "thank you so much for hosting Beth and I so we  could attend our very first FOR conference.  It provided an extraordinary opportunity for us to see how other FOR projects are handled, as well as allowing us to put faces to names.  The networking contacts just with TPWD will pay dividends.  Before the conference, we had never met Rick Ott, Dave Terre or several others.  We now also have new friends at Lake Conroe and the Lake Fork partnership!

2017

The 2017 Reservoir Fisheries Habitat Partnership/Friends of Reservoirs Annual Meeting was held 10-11 October at the Days Inn-Penn State in State College, Pennsylvania. State Fish and Wildlife Agency staff and Friends of Reservoirs members gave technical presentations on projects and programs on the 10th. Meeting abstracts are available for download. The RFHP Executive Committee met on the 11th to conduct the business of the Partnership. The Executive Committee selected recipients of large project grants for funding in FY2018 and made selections of the 2017 recipients of the Friends of Reservoirs Small Projects Grants and the Inaugural Mossback Grant Program. The meeting Briefing Book and Minutes are available for download. Attendees were treated to a tour of Beaver Stadium and a site visit to F.J. Sayers Reservoir to view that habitat enhancements funded in part by RFHP grants.

2016
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2009

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