Homeward bound out of Phoenix, I couldn’t believe how much water was on the landscape. More exactly, how much water was in the landscape, for as we all know, water in its physical, palpable form is a rare sight among the rocks and draws of the Sonoran hardscrabble. The water I saw was in the form of plants,
In the natural world, diversity creates resilience. For example, grasslands with a greater variety of native plants are more resistant to drought. They also bounce back faster from disturbance caused by insect infestations and fire. Diversity also makes organizations more resilient. And relevant, too. The more connections to people with different backgrounds that we share,
Photo: USFWS/Joshua Winchell In this age of boundless partisanship, something remarkable happened this summer. A smart, forward-thinking piece of legislation addressing climate change was introduced that is sponsored by two Arizona congressmen from opposite ends of the political spectrum: Republican Paul Gosar, who rode the Tea Party wave into Congress in 2010, and Democrat Raul
The Bureau of Land Management’s Royal Gorge Field Office covers some 666,000 acres of public lands sloping eastward from the Great Divide, through Colorado’s Front Range and into the rolling grasslands of the High Plains. Tucked into the rugged folds of its western shoulder lies one of the state’s richest landscapes, home to trophy trout, bountiful
Several streams draining from the mountains that enhance my urban viewscape snake their way through Anchorage, paralleling urban trails, bordering neighborhoods and sometimes disappearing underground for blocks at a time. While the aesthetics and natural state of the creeks range from non-existent to surprisingly impressive, for an angler it’s difficult not to look at the flowing water, assess the potential lies of hungry fish, and subsequently
Effective partnerships win The 2014 listing of the New Mexico Meadow Jumping Mouse as a federally endangered species caused the closure of an expansive meadow along the Rio Cebolla to all uses – camping, fishing and especially grazing. As a gathering pasture in the spring and fall, the meadow was critical to the operations of
Whether or not they publicly admit it, every angler has a home river or stream — the place they think of first when even the slightest of openings appear on the calendar. The Green River below Flaming Gorge Dam in northeastern Utah is 200 miles from my front door but it is my home river.
September is Public Lands Month, and few places are more important to trout and salmon than our public lands. Half of all the blue-ribbon trout streams in the West, for example, flow across public lands. Our public lands are often the last and best strongholds for many species of native trout and char. My exposure
If you are active in the outdoors, it’s hard to beat living in the American West. That’s because all states west of the Great Plains have big swaths of public lands available for fishing and hunting. Except when big swaths of extraordinary wildfire shut them down. Right smack in the middle of Public Lands Month.
And some rivers … well, after a fashion, their names are pushed from their currents, roared from their rapids or whispered from quiet slicks
Crash and Kiltsman stayed with us for the first day out of town. The year before they had done the Appalachian Trail and they kept telling us it was harder than this trail. Not so much in terms of length but in terms of elevation gain and loss. Kiltsman got his name for the Scottish kilt he wears, no matter the weather.
The calendar said it was June 18. Not even summer yet. But we hit the mid-90s two weeks earlier and the heat hadn’t really let up. Sure, you could get away from it up high in the timber, but even then, on bone dry-days in the woods, when the thermometer is firmly stuck in the 80s, it feels hot
Alaska’s rainbow trout populations are still largely intact and robust, largely because of remote locations with limited accessibility, abundant and pristine habitat, and conservative management.
Ken Deaver shows his new fishing buddy, Jim Aylsworth, where to cast on a small headwater stream in Montana. Jim Aylsworth photo. The older I get the more I appreciate a good friend. A recent study by Dr. Marisa Franco published in Psychology Today concluded men have fewer close friends in comparison to women. For several years, I have participated in an online
My first introduction to Red Rock Lakes came a decade and a half ago when a friend suggested that I might think about applying for an antelope hunting license in the area. I was new to Montana and knew nothing about wildlife refuges except for some vague understanding that they were a different type of public land that I guess maybe you could hunt on?
What’s not to love about brown trout? They’re crafty, tenacious, mean, strong, and damn near invincible. Jason Bourne, Derrick Henry, Kaiser Soze, and Dracula all rolled into one fish.
I visited Adak in search of caribou. My husband, three friends and I were on a mission to fill our freezers. I’ve spent a lifetime in Alaska, but this was my first visit to the Aleutians. I was thrilled to finally have a reason this beautiful, far-off corner of my home state.
TU’s Winter Flow Program was established on the Conejos River in 2014, and since has grown to include five reservoirs and a diversity of water partners.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contacts: Greg McReynolds, Intermountain West ACP Director, Trout Unlimited, greg.mcreynolds@tu.org Chris Wood, CEO and president, Trout Unlimited, chris.wood@tu.org Zoe Bommarito, Mountain West Communications Director, Trout Unlimited, zoe.bommarito@tu.org, 406-437-3832 Taking a bold step toward recovering the most important run of salmon and steelhead in the Lower 48, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Washington
The Snake River Basin should be the largest wild salmon and steelhead stronghold in the continental United States, with its cold, clean water fed by high-mountain snow and its thousands of miles of high-quality habitat—much of it in protected public lands.
