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Pandemic gold rush
A backcountry trek in the Sierra to catch Goldens.
Don From Bakersfield has a thing for coyotes. You can tell by the way he speaks about them, his eyes firing and his voice low. “So I see him crouched on the ground, just down in the meadow right over there, licking his lips. And then I saw the marmots.” We’re at 11,000 feet in…
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Living up to its name: Resurrection Creek
How many partners does it take to restore a salmon stream? A conservation organization, a mining company, and the U.S. Forest Service sit down to plan a project . . . That may sound like the start of a joke, but it is the reality behind the effort to restore a salmon stream in…
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The best fishing trip I ever had . . .
(Where I caught almost no fish at all) Like many anglers, I have often heard of a seemingly mythical place—or maybe more accurately, a state of being—where you don’t really care if you catch any fish or not. We’ve all heard the rumor: first you want to catch a fish… then you want to catch…
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Why the federal budget matters for trout and salmon
If you're looking for ways to lose your friends’ attention, try mentioning the federal budget. But the legislation that funds our nation's sprawling government apparatus is vitally important for the lands and waterways that support the country’s water quality, fisheries, public lands, and much more. On Tuesday, the President signed this year's massive $1.5 trillion…
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Volunteers go big on the Hooch
Many Trout Unlimited chapters have used Embrace-A-Stream grants as seed money for projects. A group of TU volunteers in the Southeast took that approach to a different level with an effort to benefit the famed Chattahoochee tailwater near Atlanta, turning a $7,500 Embrace-A-Stream grant into a quarter-million-dollar project and energized the local conservation community. The…
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Comeback Crik
There are any number of wonderful surnames for the moving waters we fish. River and creek come to mind first. Most of us have fished both. While certainly commonplace and perhaps even a bit pedestrian, the mere utterance of either word stirs something down in a trout fisher’s guts: the sound of water rushing, the…
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A lost steelhead history
Thanks to a new study, we now have a better sense of how many steelhead once returned to fabled OP rivers.
Study of past data shows declines are steep; more closures in Washington and elsewhere may become the norm. Last week, steelheaders in Washington State were dealt another tough blow with the early closure of the coastal winter steelhead season. Anglers in this region were already fishing under a second season of emergency regulations, implemented in…