Trout Unlimited’s efforts with the University of Maine and the Maine Department of Inland and Wildlife to develop eDNA sampling methods for Maine’s rare Arctic char continue. As described in a recent TU story, we’re focused in Maine on the handful of remaining populations of landlocked Arctic char, a glacial relict that’s been slowly losing populations over the last 120 years. Char exist
/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/blog/CR-steelhead_Mar-2019.jpg A single fish can mean so much. By Sam Davidson A single fish made me really happy recently, and I wasn’t even fishing. To be sure, this was no ordinary fish. It was a brute of a steelhead, as long as my arm and 12 pounds in heft, easy. So perhaps anyone seeing it
Southern steelhead country. My son and I wandered into the land of the southern steelhead yesterday. Cactus sprouted like gargoyles from the sandstone outcroppings that lined the creek up which we hiked. This winter has been profligate all across California and yet another massive cumulonimbus cloud reared up over the peaks above us. Then it
Renowned for their size, the Lewis and Clark River is still home to a remnant population of winter steelhead. But two perched and undersized culverts on private timber land blocked upstream and downstream passage for adult and juvenile native winter steelhead and coastal cutthroat trout to and from intact spawning habitat. One culvert was on
By Jenny Weis A good peanut butter and jelly sandwich should ooze a little when you squish it. It needs quality ingredients and, this part is often overlooked, equal parts PB to J that both go all the way to the edge of the bread, goshdarnit. I am not personally opposed to the addition of other
By Mark Taylor As the sun dipped toward the western horizon on a relatively mild early January evening, I sat in what had become a pretty familiar position over the previous few weeks. In a tree. These were the waning days of deer season and I was doing my best to tag a whitetail. Here
Goals In 2013 TU partnered with a landowner to remove a 500-foot section of concrete rip-rap on a popular recreational stretch of the Gunnison River. The armored bank was causing channel incision, and depositing sediment in undesirable locations downstream. Lack of vegetative cover and in-channel refuge increased trout susceptibility to low flows and increased water
Nick Halle, TU’s volunteer operations coordinator, kept at it even after falling in over his head and was rewarded with this nice buck steelhead from Ohio’s Conneaut Creek during a recent TU staff steelhead outing. By Mark Taylor “I’ve lost all faith.” The admission came from Keith Curley as we stood in the snow on
By Toner Mitchell Your best arguments are the simplest ones. Water, including anything you dump into it, flows downhill. Katrina, Sandy, Harvey and Maria comprise a trend. California and the burning mountain west comprise a trend. God didn’t create all these species so we could destroy his good work. You are sincere, yet careful about
By Scott Willoughby An enlightened sage once suggested that those who choose not to find joy in snow will have much less joy in life. But still the same amount of snow. Said savant was undoubtedly a skier. And a trout fisher. I honestly don’t recall which I learned to do first, ski or fish.
By Toner Mitchell I spent Halloween this year in the company of ghosts. They weren’t the bed-sheet kind, but the long-gone n ative residents of Frijoles Canyon, in the Bandelier National Monument on New Mexico’s Pajarito Plateau. Established around 1150 AD by ancestral Puebloans fleeing drought and social strife in the Four Corners region, Bandelier
We’ll always have to fight for our public lands, but we should be grateful we have them in the first place. Photo by Chris Hunt. By Scott Willoughby It has been said that the hardest math to master is the ability to count our blessings. Funny enough, I’ve never been particularly good at math. That’s
By Toner Mitchell The boy is back in school, the trees around his soccer field the same blazing gold as the cottonwoods alon g the Rio Grande and the flanks of the brown trout bucks I’m hoping to catch there. The aspens, now bare, were equally stunning a month ago when I hiked up in
By Ben Tayloe A spoiled, seven year-old yellow lab named Chester and a six-week stay in Germany for my wife’s job made the drive across the country a necessity. The only family member who volunteered to watch our dog happened to live on the central coast of California, a great place to visit but nearly
Jessica Strickland and her daughter Vida, project managing in the Sequoia National Forest backcountry. By Jessica Strickland Working with Trout Unlimited really is just NOT boring. What we do as field staff is so diverse that I have become a woman of many hats. A recent weekend was a great example of how what we
The author’s son getting a rowing lesson on Alaska’s Skilak Lake. Photo by Nelli Williams. By Nelli Williams Rivers bring people together. Some of my fondest friend-filled memories are on the river. Where we’ve laughed til our cheeks hurt—even years later— over the chaos in the boat when that first fish hit; or enjoyed a
Photo by Eric Booton By Eric Booton In the summer of 2015, I spent a week with my family on the Olympic Peninsula. We hiked in Olympic National Park, fished for humpies in the salt, and took a field trip to check out the recently liberated Elwha River whose dam had been re moved and
By Chris Hunt I’ve never been much of a public speaker. It’s just not my thing. But when my sister-in-law asked me to speak at my brother’s funeral … well, you don’t say ‘no’ to that. In truth, I sobbed my way through the eulogy—Brice was my little brother, and while I could handle the
Photo courtesy Colorado Parks and Wildlife. By Garrett Hanks Extinction, as the saying goes, is forever. Reincarnation? Let’s just say the jury is still out. But the case for rebirth grew significantly stronger over the summer when Colorado Parks and Wildlife confirmed the rediscovery of a native trout species long considered extinct. Thanks to a
By Toner Mitchell Livestock grazing has always played a leading role in shaping the image, if not the substance, of America. Evidence is everywhere from the burger in your hand, the jeans covering your butt, possibly your favorite pro football team (“America’s Team”), to the truck you drive “til the cows come home,” even if
