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Functional streamflows key to recovering salmon and steelhead
California's Bay-Delta, where the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers converge to form the largest estuary on the West Coast, is the hub of both the state's water supply and the second largest runs of salmon and steelhead south of Alaska. The Bay-Delta is also the hub of the struggle over how to provide enough water…
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The autumn swindle
It got so cold so early this year that our aspens and cottonwoods didn’t really turn. Their leaves simply froze in place when the mercury dipped below zero in early October, and they’ve spent the last few months drying into sickly, gray, paper-thin ghosts and falling without ceremony to the ground. Season theft. We were…
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FITS light hiker-crew socks
Let’s face it…socks are not the kind of gear which occupy much of our thought, in the way that a sexy, machined-aluminum fly reel might. But this somewhat overlooked bit of gear is one of the most crucial elements of our comfort out on the river. Over the past few weeks I have spent a…
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Fishewear wine hydroflask tumbler
While I would prefer to be remembered as well-suited to review something like a nice new tip-flex 6-weight, because of my propensity to fish big water for large, wild trout... it would be entirely disingenuous to pretend I was not perfectly-suited for the Fishewear wine hydroflask tumbler. For one, Fishewear is a woman-owned company and…
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Reilly Rod Crafters: great people, great rods
I remember the day I knew I wanted to learn to fly fish. I don’t think I was 10 years old yet. My dad and I had just returned from a horseback day trip to the backcountry and were in the process of unsaddling our horses. That’s when I saw Carl Evers casting a dry…
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Loon tying tools help keep winter at bay
The drift hanging over the eves on the house this morning is quite impressive. And it's cold. Damn cold. The thought of sneaking off for an afternoon on the Henry's Fork is now more of a pathetic inside joke—fighting frozen guides, frozen fingers and frozen toes while the the wind whips snow around my wadered…
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The Wisconsin way
Something breeds great conservationists in Wisconsin. John Muir, famous for the Sierra’s, was born in Scotland and moved to Wisconsin as a young boy. He took his first course in botany at the University of Wisconsin. Aldo Leopold, author of the seminal, "A Sand County Almanac," lived in Wisconsin and raised five prominent conservationists in…