September is a month tailor-made for sportsmen and women and there is no better place to spend it than on our public lands. The dog days of summer have given way to cooler temperatures and a multitude of opportunities beckon hunters and anglers: brown trout chasing streamers, elk bugles ringing through the mountains, ruffed grouse
By Joe Newman There is a little run about 200 meters or so upstream of the confluence of Sheep Creek and the Smith River at Camp Baker, where the water rushes over a rock garden creating a melodic “glug glug glug.” This past summer I would stand on river left, jus t below those rocks,
Tom Tidwell is retiring as Chief of the US Forest Service. It is difficult to overstate the importance of the 191 million acres that the Forest Service manages to trout and salmon. Half of the blue-ribbon trout streams in the country flow across national forests. A vast majority of western native trout and salmon depend
“I remain hopeful that I will be able to pass on to my grandchildren all the pleasures of life in an unspoiled West. Perhaps hope should be replaced by a stronger word. It is a matter of obligation.” — Cecil Andrus By Chris Hunt I first met Cecil Andrus in the early 2000s at an
It is no secret that good conservation outcomes, as a rule, don’t happen overnight. Today’s action by California’s Central Valley Flood Protection Board to adopt a new plan for reducing flood risks and restoring ecosystem health is a huge step forward for salmon and steelhead conservation tha t has been years in the making. The
Today the Department of the Interior issued a press release noting that Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has submitted his much-anticipated report and recommendations on the fate of twenty-two national monuments – those public lands conserved for fish, wildlife, scenery, scientific and recreation values – to President Trump. The release spurred numerous press reports
By David Kinney A few months ago, New York City agreed to voluntarily release more water from its reservoirs on the Upper Delaware in order to protect the river’s wild trout fishery during the summer heat. The decision came after the city and the four states in the Delaware River Basin failed to renew their
