Currently browsing… Steelhead
-
Jeff Blood’s White Death
It's steelhead season, although here in the Northwest, most folks aren't nearly as excited about it as they used to be thanks to dismal fish returns in the Columbia River system—it's an unfortunate recurring theme for anglers in the region who are helplessly watching our prized ocean-going fish dwindle seemingly every season. But for those…
-
Act, then put the Tongass on your bucket list
If you want to catch a very large steelhead in a very small stream, there’s probably no better place on the planet to do so than Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. The Tongass is almost 17 million acres of mountains, fjords, massive glaciers and wild rivers and creeks. With 18,000 miles of public waters that…
-
Washington water woes in Seattle Times
Washington commonly institutes fishing restrictions to protect vulnerable fish populations, like they did for steelhead in Scotty Creek, but these restrictions, unfathomably, do not extend to a destructive form of recreational gold mining called suction dredge mining.
The team of Trout Unlimited river-defenders in Washington state is gearing up for a busy legislative session this winter. What they're after? Getting a bill passed through the state legislature that finally updates Washington laws to remove certain waters (critical habitat for endangered species act-listed fish) from the suite of options for suction dredge miners.…
-
Desert Dries
Steelhead are never easy to catch. If they were ... well, they wouldn't be steelhead. But they might be especially difficult to catch on a skated dry fly. One western river, the desert section of the lower Deschutes, is known for big, fresh-from-the-Columbia chromers that will, indeed, hit a dry fly on the skate. https://youtu.be/uht997Ccw_M…
-
5 Rivers Odyssey Reflection: Morgan Bradley
When I think back to my first days of fishing, it is hard to believe where the sport has brought me now. Fly fishing has given me the opportunity to travel the world, experience other cultures, make new friends, gain a greater appreciation for the natural world, and taught me values like patience and determination. Although I’ve been able…
-
The dead Grande Ronde
Editor's note: The TU Costa 5 Rivers Program sent a handful of college students to the Columbia River basin to study the challenges facing the drainage's fisheries. At 4:30 a.m. we stumbled from our tents and into brisk chilly air. We zipped up our jackets, sipped hot coffee and ate warm oatmeal. After packing camp,…
-
Columbia Basin Partnership offers new vision for salmon and steelhead
The Columbia Basin Partnership has been flying mostly under the radar, but it could be the forum with the greatest potential to make a great leap forward in recovering wild salmon and steelhead in the Columbia Basin. Why, you may ask? Because it is the one place where all of the major stakeholders in the…