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New water rights guide helps California landowners, streams
There are many things rural California landowners can do to leave more water in streams for fish and wildlife. Most involve changes to water use practices that will also increase the security of the landowner’s water supply. So why don’t more landowners do this? One answer is California’s complex system of water rights. It can be difficult to…
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Pescador on the Fly’s El Boso sling pack
Our friends at Pescador on the Fly make fly fishing gear that’s light and packable and functional. It’s just the thing for the traveling angler. And now, they’ve launched a fully loaded sling pack. They call it “El Bolso” – the bag. It’s got tons of extra D rings, multiple places designed to clip your…
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Fish swam in schools 50 million years ago
According to a new study produced by researchers from Arizona State University and the Oishi Fossils Gallery of Mizuta Memorial Museum in Japan, fish swam in schools 50 million years ago, indicating that the "shoaling" practice of many fish is an ancient behavior. Using a fossilized slab of rock that formed during the Eocene Epoch…
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Sara and Henry
A good father-daughter story always gets me. As any dad who has a daughter will tell you, there's no relationship quite like it. My own daughter is her own version of the best of me—and I don't pretend that I'm responsible for the amazing young adult she's become. But I do like to think that…
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The Girdle Bug
It's stonefly season in the West—the big, adult bugs will be popping on a river near you before you know it. And, while the dry-fly imitations are easily the most popular—and the most fun to fish—it's the nymph patterns that likely catch more trout. And there are some great stonefly nymph patterns out there. But…
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Use floatant and desiccant together
The news out of Ashton over the weekend was pretty encouraging. The big stonefly nymphs were moving around, heading to streamside rocks in anticipation of a little sunshine. Any minute now, the fabled salmonfly hatch on the lower river would start to pop. The big bugs that crawl out of the river in late spring…
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How to fish a boulder garden
Here's one for you western anglers who are wondering, with all the late winter snow and the spring rain, if we're ever going to see fishable water levels anytime soon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWSL0H-old0 The answer is, the water's already fishable. We just need to find the places where trout are holding amid the near-constant temperature changes and…