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Aboriginal Rio Grande cutthroat trout survive in the Upper Rio Grande Basin
by Mark Konishi Growing up in the San Luis Valley, I would hear rumors of cutthroat trout with vivid colors caught in secret waters. Cutthroat trout with orange slab-sides as brilliant as any goldfish. Many of these stories often came from my classmate Jim, relayed down through his extended family. It was difficult to pinpoint…
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When lottery season ends
Three words have stuck in the back of my mind since I’ve started playing the permit game for river rafting. Post-permit season and for that matter pre-permit season, too. Here’s what I mean. Each year some of the biggest and most coveted river trips throughout the western United States are permitted via a traditional lottery…
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How to store your boat outside in the winter
Even with the frame, you should always pitch a high point in the center of the boat to promote drainage off the tarp from rain and melting springtime snow. Poking a hole in the center of the low point of the tarp will allow the snow melt to escape. (Do not follow this last suggestion if your boat is not self bailing)
It’s about this time of year when I start thinking about where and how I’m going to store my boat(s) for the winter. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still got some stuff planned, but winter can come literally any day now in my neck of the woods and seeing as climate controlled storage space is…
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Muscle memory on the Green River
It had been 10 years since I’d held a paddle. My previous canoeing experience had consisted of gliding across the glassy lakes of the Sierra Nevada. And while Lake Tahoe and Lake Lahontan could become treacherous in a storm, they did not represent the intrinsic peril of the swift, boney river onto which I was about to embark. There have been many times in my…
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Books: The Orvis Guide to the Essential American Flies
Originally printed in 2011, and including a foreword by the late Lefty Kreh, this book drills down on 20 patterns
I was delighted to receive an advance paperback copy of The Orvis Guide to the Essential American Flies by Tom Rosenbauer, because it just snowed for the first time this fall and as such, I’m about to enter what I call “tying season.” And when I tie, I like to focus on the basics, spinning…
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Fish and fire in the West
In June 2013, researcher and fisheries biologist Ashley Rust and her family were at their family cabin near Creede, Colo., when an afternoon rainstorm—a frequent occurrence in the San Juans at that time of year—worked through the area. The system brought little in the way of rain but contained lightning all the same, andover the…
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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…