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Dream job: a summer in search of wild trout
As summer arrives, Trout Unlimited’s ranks swell as interns join the organization to gain valuable experience in conservation field work and advocacy. The dozens of interns come from near and far. In the case of one intern in Pennsylvania, really far. Sofia Odoemena is from Nigeria. A student at Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pa., Odoemena…
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Tie One On: Equinox Caddis a triple threat for fall
The Equinox Caddis is my go-to fly to fish when October Caddis are hatching. I designed this fly to solve a couple of problems. To effectively imitate an October Caddis, your fly should ride low, but this is often at the expense of buoyancy. Furthermore, the cold weather that brings on the October Caddis hatch…
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Steel dreams: Driving home what’s at stake on the Snake
People often refer to rivers of the Northwest as some of the last truly “wild” places in the Lower 48. The Clearwater River in Idaho is one of those places. The Clearwater is well known throughout the Northwest for its iconic salmon and steelhead runs, particularly its B-run steelhead that spend approximately two years in…
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Moving fish before the machinery arrives
Stream restoration projects require a variety of tools and tactics. Sometimes you use a trowel, and sometimes a bulldozer. In trout and salmon streams where water quality or habitat are highly degraded, you are more likely to need the latter. But when you bring in the heavy machinery, what happens to the fish living in…
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Fifty years on, Supreme Court case threatens to upend the Clean Water Act
Conservation is a marathon, and if ever we needed proof, consider what is playing out in the U.S. Supreme Court. Fifty years to the month after the passage of the Clean Water Act, justices heard arguments this week in a case that could upend protections for more than half the nation’s wetlands—and if the plaintiffs…
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Bull trout in Montana: Back from the brink?
In a watershed scarred by mining, TU is giving threatened fish populations a chance at recovery If you’ve ever driven Interstate 90 between Bozeman and Missoula, Mont., you’ve followed the winding Clark Fork River past Warm Springs. The unincorporated community is known for its state psychiatric hospital – built in the late 19th century –…
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Alaska’s Indigenous communities at work in the Tongass
Southeast Alaska tribes have long cared for their lands. Now they’re at work restoring them. At nearly 17 million acres, Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest is part of the world’s largest remaining intact temperate rain forest and produces around 30 percent of annual salmon catch in the western United States. The Tongass is home to…