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Brookies in Tennessee get a new, improved home
Several dozen wild brook trout are enjoying new home waters in Tennessee. Trout Unlimited and partners recently completed a project to move the brookies into a stretch of the Trail Fork of Big Creek in the Cherokee National Forest. A concurrent project that replaced a fish-blocking undersized culvert on the stream means those trout will have…
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Long road trip a journey through TU wins
“You’re driving?” The question came with an unmistakable tone of incredulity. I had just told a friend that I would be driving from my home in Virginia to a conference in northern Vermont. Their surprise was understandable. The shortest route from my home in Roanoke to Jay Peak Resort is 824 miles. There was a method to…
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TU expands Brook Trout Conservation Portfolio approach with new Great Lakes tool
Sage investors know that maintaining a diversified portfolio is a key to smart investing. Trout Unlimited is expanding on its application of that philosophy to the way it is investing in native brook trout restoration and protection to reduce risk and increase resilience in brook trout populations. TU recently developed a Brook Trout Conservation Portfolio tool…
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Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good
Wadering up on the banks of a Pennsylvania trout stream last week I faced a dilemma. Which rod? I had three choices. An 8-foot 6-inch 3-weight that’s perfect for dry flies. An 11-foot 3-weight Euro nymphing rod that is perfect for, well, Euro nymphing. And a 10-foot 3-inch 3-weight that is perfect for swinging wet…
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Whittlesey Creek National Wildlife Refuge gives hope to coaster brook trout
For two decades, Whittlesey Creek National Wildlife Refuge has been the site of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service efforts to restore self-sustaining populations of coaster book trout. Trout Unlimited has been a partner in the work. The efforts haven't been successful, but have increased knowledge about this unique form of brook trout and what could be needed to restore the fish to Lake Superior tributaries.
Of the many forms of brook trout, one of the more unique is the coaster. Coasters are potamodromous, spending much of their adult lives in nearshore waters of the upper Great Lakes and then migrating into streams to spawn. They can grow to larger sizes than brookies that live their entire lives in streams, and…
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North Umpqua fire changes complexion of an iconic river
We stopped first at Swiftwater Park. My brother, Greg, and I always start there when we fish the North Umpqua searching for summer steelhead. It’s not much of a park, really. Just some parking next to the river, along with his and her’s vault toilets. The river is the attraction. This is the final upstream spot before reaching the North’s famous fly-only water. We…
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Finding trout ‘hiding’ in plain sight
Remember the approach we took as kids when fishing? “The big ones are all out in the middle.” So we’d cast as far as we could because, well, we wanted to reach the fish that no one else could. We know now that such an approach is (usually) misguided on a literal level, but it’s…
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