Author

Chris Wood

  • Conservation

    Where skill, joy and service unite

    By Chris Wood After I graduated college, my older brother, John, introduced me to a friend who was a Jesuit priest. At the time, I was a somewhat aimless bartender, ice cream maker and assistant high school football coach. One night after dinner and drinks, Father Donald asked me three questions: “Chris, what do you…

  • Conservation

    The future offers hope

    By Chris Wood Jake Marshall, whose Dad helped to organize TroutFest, a huge TU event in Texas that raises a lot of money for youth education through the Tomorrow Fund, said he was there “to help conserve our water s.” Laurel Smith, a graduate of the amazing Georgia Trout Camp, said she was there “to…

  • Conservation

    Red light — Green light

    By Chris Wood The other morning, my friend, Brent Fewell, an attorney who worked at the EPA under President George W. Bush, wrote: “Had dinner and a very encouraging conversation last evening with seven prominent GOP Senators who want to make the environment and conservation a greater priority for the GOP, a return to Teddy…

  • Conservation

    Wild and Native: Rules of the River

    Last week, Trout Unlimited posted a clip describing the proper way to de-bone a trout. Perhaps predictably, this was met by a few howls of outrage. “How can the organization that practically invented catch-and-release advocate eating a trout? Shame. Shame!” The fact is, however, that not all wild fish are equal, and whacking one can…

  • Conservation

    New science promotes trout recovery

    By Chris Wood Some define conservation as overseeing loss. Loss of wetlands; loss of open space; loss of water quality; loss of species. Aldo Leopold harkened to this when he wrote in the Sand County Almanac that “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.…

  • Conservation

    Keeping up the fight for trout

    By Chris Wood I went to see Art Neumann a few months before he passed away. As I left, he punched me on the leg, and asked, “What are you going to do to keep up the fight for trout?” He died later that year after nearly 100 years of life and almost 75 years…

  • Conservation

    Sportsmen key to cleaning up abandoned mines

    Trout Unlimited began organizing sportsmen and women in a coordinated manner in 2001–largely in response to my observation when I worked at the Forest Service that the voice of hunters and anglers was largely missing from the development of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule—an initiative that protected nearly 60 million acres of some of the…