As I sit here in Idaho Falls watching two feet of snow melt into a slushy pond at the foot of my driveway, my buddy Kirk Deeter is likely stringing up a 5-weight with members of one of my favorite TU chapters in the country and preparing to chase some fat, tailwater trout. In Texas.
Fly tying: The Puff Daddy Blue-winged Olive
The warmer weather this February here in the West has a lot of us thinking about rising trout. What started as a brutal winter with record snowfall is kind of going out with a wimper—I can see the grass on the front lawn here in Idaho Falls for the first time since mid-December, and we’re
Supporting Environmental Education in Idaho Schools
Kids mixed powdery reagents into test tubes of river water then held their samples toward the light as they spun color wheels. As they matched the water’s color to a color on the wheel, they identified a measurement of pH or another water quality indicator. The scene had elements of a chemistry class, but was
Deer Creek Post-Fire Restoration Gets Blaine County Support
The Blaine County Commission has provided $465,000 from its Land, Water, and Wildlife Fund to assist with restoration of the Deer Creek drainage. About 70 percent of the drainage was ravaged by a lightning-sparked fire in August 2013. Severe rains immediately after the fire triggered debris flows and mudslides, clogging Deer Creek with sediment, shifting
Video spotlight: Chasing Brook Trout
Here’s one for the romantics in fly fishing—a teaser video to larger project to come about chasing native brook trout. I grew up in Colorado, fishing for introduced brookies in small headwater streams in the Rocky Mountain high country. As a kid, I had no idea that the fish I caught didn’t belong in the
Short casts: Fish ladders don’t work, public lands support in CO, whirling disease in the Bow
John Day Dam on the Columbia River. A new Yale University study provides some daunting news for water and dam managers across the country: fish ladders aren’t the “fix-it” solution to fish migration over irrigation or hydroelectric dams. The study, which took place on three East Coast rivers—the Connecticut, the Susquehanna and the Merrimack—showed that
Short casts: Pebble declared worthless, Smith River needs help, brookies in western NY
A New York investment firm has declared Northern Dynasty, the company that wants to dig Pebble Mine in Alaska, worthless. Pat Ford photo. It’s a good day to be a salmon or a trout in the Bristol Bay region of Alaska. Today, Kerrisdale Capital, a New York City investment firm, declared Northern Dynasty worthless. Northern