Clean water & sustainable fisheries with Black Hills FlyFishers

This interview originally aired on In the Moment on SDPB Radio.

Everyone has a stake in conservation. Buddy Seiner joins In the Moment to dive into the importance of cold, clean water for us all - whether you have gills or a fishing rod.

Seiner is the president of the Black Hills FlyFishers. His organization is offering a new option for membership: A no-cost one.

He discusses why he and his fellow fly fishers are inviting more people to enjoy South Dakota's rivers.

The following transcript is auto-generated:

Lori Walsh:

What does it mean to take collective responsibility for clean cold water? The Black Hills FlyFishers are expanding membership options. The group focuses on advocating for clean water and sustainable fisheries. Buddy Seiner is president of the Black Hills FlyFishers, and he's with me now on the phone.

Hey Buddy, welcome back.

Buddy Seiner:

Lori, it's always great to talk to you.

Lori Walsh:

I've kind of missed hearing your voice. How are the fish biting?

Buddy Seiner:

Well, the fish are always biting for me, which is always a good sign. But it's tomato season and it's peach season, Lori, so I couldn't be any better right now.

Lori Walsh:

Right. It's not a bad time to live in South Dakota — those two things.

Buddy Seiner:

That's right.

Lori Walsh:

So you're expanding membership to a no-cost option. Tell me a little bit about the Black Hills FlyFishers and why you've decided to make this move.

Buddy Seiner:

Black Hills FlyFishers is a 43-year-old cold water conservation advocacy organization. So we're dedicated to advocating for clean water, sustainable fisheries, and access to each of those things. And we've been around for a long time. It's been our members that have kept this mission and vision alive for so many years — supporting the work that we do every single day.

But, the writing's on the wall, times are changing a little bit with membership organizations trying to engage people and get them really excited about the work that's being done is always a constant challenge. And we just feel that in order to find more people that believe in our mission and want to support the work we're doing, we need to make it more available to people.

And that's why we expanded the membership options a little bit just to make it easier for people to become a part of it, fewer walls to get in, and that's really been working well for us lately.

Lori Walsh:

And the interesting thing is it doesn't necessarily have to be somebody who has a tradition of fly fishing in their family. It can be someone who is interested in conservation, someone who is interested in wildlife and connection, and biologists interested in ecosystems.

Say more about how people with different viewpoints come together around this idea of fly fishing that is not just an activity, but a concept, really. An ethos, if you will.

Buddy Seiner:

Yeah, I appreciate you saying that, Lori, because it is a mentality amongst more people than just fly fishers who believe in preserving resources that are important to so many people.

And really it's about water. When it all comes back to it's about cold clean water and the Black Hills and South Dakota in general, we have some of the best water resources on the planet. A lot of times it's taken for granted.

But it's not just fly fishers that appreciate it, it's paddlers and it's hikers and it's bird watchers and wildlife viewers. Anyone who loves being outside and enjoys nature is going to really have an appreciation in some way, shape or form for our mission.

And the projects that we are pursuing enhance not just fisheries, but habitats for all wildlife and for public spaces and for natural spaces. That's really what we're working to preserve. And there are so many people that want to be a part of it, we're very appreciative for all of our partners and for all of our members for helping us do it.

Lori Walsh:

Let's explore some of those projects. Where would you like to begin with some future goals?

Buddy Seiner:

Well, I would like to give some recognition for our project that we've recently completed with the support of South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks and the National Wild Turkey Federation was a partner, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and the US Forest Service, helped us put a big fence project in down at Castle Creek below Deerfield Reservoir.

This was $130,000 project. Game, Fish and Park stepped up and said, we'll take care of half of it if we can get the other money and Black Hills Fly Fishers chipped in 30 and the other entities chipped in some money also.

And that recently completed the project and basically blocked off the riparian zone to cattle traffic. Cattle can be so hard on the riparian zone, which is the area from the water, from a creek to the forested area, I suppose the in-between area, that holds such valuable habitat in an area and we just want to protect those areas more. And this fencing project does just that.

So we're really proud of that and very excited about it.

Lori Walsh:

Kevin Wooster came and talked to us about that project as well, so people can find more about that on our website already.

But what I love about this is, it's a fence. It seems pretty simple. It is not simple. There is nothing simple about it. But it also seems tangible and doable in a way to say it's just a fascinating solution.

And when you list the partners, I think sometimes, especially on the radio or if you think you're trying to talk about an event and you got to quick list all the partners, it can go unnoticed that those are real partnerships, those are real relationships that you have built.

Not everybody in those different organizations sees life the same way. There's a lot of compromise in here that has to happen. Talk a little bit about the importance of partnerships and relationship when it comes to preserving some of these precious and frankly, fairly fragile areas.

Buddy Seiner:

Well, it really goes back to what you said earlier, Lori, in that everyone has some kind of a stake in this.

So really you're considering all stakeholders in this process. It might not be the same stake. Our stake is for fish, and the habitat surrounding a creek is beneficial to our fish. But that habitat is also beneficial for turkeys and for elk and for deer. So all those other partners coming into the zone have a different stake in the game, but we all have an appreciation for it one way or another.

And then of course you have landowners in this case, in the fencing case, it was the US Forest Service. So that might be the biggest partnership opportunity for us in the future, is building those partnerships with private landowners, with the US Forest Service to take a really strong look at, okay, what areas can we really make a big impact on these properties and really help areas and the wildlife around there that people might not see every day, but it's going to make a bigger impact.

So that's going to be one of the big opportunities for us moving forward and we're really excited to pursue that.

Lori Walsh:

All right. In our remaining minute, tell me one project for the future that you're looking forward to developing those partnerships around.

Buddy Seiner:

We are partnering with Mr. Jason Alley Jackalope Productions to create an educational video surrounding the hydrology of the Black Hills.

I'm so excited about this because we are going to use this video to educate not only the public, the people that will be utilizing these resources, but administrators and city officials and the people who are working to manage these resources.

To let them know that, hey, this is a really big priority, this is why it's so important to our communities that we take care of this resource and we manage it properly and do it in a really professional way.

A video that can be used forever, that will inspire people, that will move people to want to act, clean up the creek, keep the creek clean. Just all creeks in the Black Hills and beyond. And we're really excited about that. So that that's an ongoing thing. We're kind of middle of the road. We're going to start filming soon and recording conversations and can't wait to see the final product and share it with you guys.