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Why support hatchery steelhead in the upper Willamette?
By Dean Finnerty Editor's note: Steelhead management requires balancing of competing consumer demands, statutory requirements, science and politics. Hatchery steelhead weaken wild stocks, but help keep our fishing heritage alive. Where habitat conditions are favorable, we should manage for wild steelhead; where they aren’t, as in the upper Willamette between Dexter Dam and the Calapooia…
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Columbia and Snake steelhead return predictions slightly better
Winter steelhead season is winding down, if not over in some rivers in the Pacific Northwest. Time for anglers to regroup and prepare for summer runs. First, a bit of cautious optimism. More steelhead are predicted to return to the Columbia River basin this year than in the past two years. Last year the upriver…
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Helping the Wood River to breathe
The room is full for the banquet. I first came across the Narragansett chapter of Trout Unlimited seven or eight years ago, when a few frustrated members contacted me and complained that the chapter was assisting the state in stocking over native fish in violation of TU policy. After a time, the chapter stopped, but…
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Nudging streams back to health
"You just want to nudge it. Too often restoration work is over-engineered. The key is to simply nudge the system in the right direction, and then allow for natural processes to occur.” Gary leaned back and looked upstream. A smile crept up. “I had two anglers who told me they caught 80-90 brook trout here…
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Artifishal
The effort to save wild salmon from California to Alaska has been costly, and with a few notable exceptions, largely ineffective. Humankind, over the centuries, has continually put up obstacle after obstacle for wild salmon to conquer, and the numbers are dwindling. Video of Artifishal | The Fight to Save Wild Salmon The new film,…
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One fish
A single fish made me really happy recently, and I wasn’t even fishing. To be sure, this was no ordinary fish. It was a brute of a steelhead, as long as my arm and 12 pounds in heft, easy. So perhaps anyone seeing it languidly finning just upstream of the bridge footing nine miles from…
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Protecting Bristol Bay… This One is Personal
By Chris Wood Last month’s release of the draft “environmental impact statement” to permit industrial-scale mining in Bristol Bay, Alaska, made me recall the first time I set eyes on that remarkable landscape nearly 12 years ago. Trout Unlimited was looking to expand our presence in Alaska, so I consulted Tim Bristol, a long-time Alaska…
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