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Five tips to land trout in a timely manner
Fact: the faster you land a fish, the better the odds of survival. Here are five tips to help you turn a 15-round heavyweight boxing natch into a shorter, tougher MMA fight... and win more often than not. — Use 5X or stronger tippet. I know, there are times when you really feel fine 7X tippet…
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From the TU forum to a real-life fishing trip
Ken Deaver shows his new fishing buddy, Jim Aylsworth, where to cast on a small headwater stream in Montana. Jim Aylsworth photo. The older I get the more I appreciate a good friend. A recent study by Dr. Marisa Franco published in Psychology Today concluded men have fewer close friends in comparison to women. For several years, I have participated in an online…
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When the monsoons finally come
My son was invited on a boating trip to celebrate a pal’s birthday. The original plan featured a lake about an hour away, but since that one had dried up, they drove three hours farther to a reservoir near the Texas border. It’s flat out there on the plains, but back here in Santa Fe,…
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Four days in heaven
Explore your surroundings ... and don't forget to pack your fly rod In my little microcosm of the Mountain West, we've been blessed with an impressive monsoon season this year. With all the doom and gloom of the drought, wildfires and effects of climate change, it is nice to be reminded that sometimes weather does…
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The Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge is a high-desert oasis vital to wildlife and wild trout
by Liz Rose The Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge is more than just a buffer zone around a river in an expanse of Wyoming sagebrush steppe. Like many national wildlife refuges managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, it is unique, wild and intended to stay that way. I’ve always had a soft spot for animals and a guilty conscience for reasons yet…
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Big protection for small streams
Happily, this week, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Márquez found Trout Unlimited’s arguments compelling and declared that the 2020 rule was illegal and “would cause serious environmental harm.”
The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps made a curious admission in 2020. They announced they were removing the protections of the Clean Water Act for ephemeral streams, which only flow in response to rainfall. They then said they were unable to determine the potential effects of this dramatic change. The chief of…
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A case of mistaken identity
Would you recognize a native interior redband trout if you caught one? Editor’s note: Daniel Ritz is fishing across the Western United States this summer in an attempt to accomplish the Master Caster class of the Western Native Trout Challenge. He will attempt to land each of the 20 native trout species in their historical ranges of the 12 states in…