Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is seeking public comment on two new steelhead gene bank proposals targeting lower Columbia River tributaries. Options under consideration include either the Grays and Chinook rivers or Mill, Abernathy, and Germany creeks.
What does a thriving “salmon forest” look like? Trees and fish, rivers and streams, and not much else. Southeast Alaska’s 17-million acre Tongass National Forest embodies that image pretty much perfectly. During the last several years Trout Unlimited has worked with scientists in the region to keep it that way, identifying more than 70 areas…
Big money from James Cox Kennedy and Charles Schwab shows up in Montana Supreme Court race Last month’s finding by the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices sheds new light on some shady, significantly large contributions by anti stream-access donors in a 2012 Supreme Court race.
Speculation about the decline of pure cutthroat trout due to hybridization has been around since the ’50s. Meantime, we’ve rotenoned lakes, bashed brains, and written at length about the ills of pure trout populations mingling with introduced species and diluting the gene pools. Turns out our worst fears are unfounded, at least according to a…
The latest film from Conservation Hawks, “CHROME” celebrates flyfishing for wild B.C. steelhead while educating anglers on the threats of climate change and ocean acidification. The movie, which features Tom Rosenbauer, Dylan Tomine, Hannah Belford, Kate Taylor, Tim Romano and Todd Tanner, focuses on our responsibility to protect cold, clean waters for future generations.
British Columbia’s Mount Polley disaster on August 4, 2014 sent 4.5 million cubic meters of toxic slurry into Quesnel Lake—Canada’s deepest fjord lake, home to about a quarter of B.C.’s annual sockeye salmon returns.
The Fly Fishing Film Tour’s 10th anniversary run detonates this winter with a stacked lineup of films that span bucket-list to backyard adventures in the Seychelles, British Columbia, Bolivia, Montana, and elsewhere. “The independent filmmakers behind each F3T submission continue to raise the bar,” says tour spokesperson Ryan Thompson. “The characters and storylines in this…
How the largest river restoration project in our nation’s history came undone [When Congress failed to approve the Klamath Agreements this month, it effectively killed the broadly supported and locally developed package of three separate but coordinated settlement agreements. The agreements, hammered out by tribes, ranchers, government agencies, the owner of the dams (PacifiCorp) and environmental…
The Drake’s 2015 Holiday Gift Guide From splurge-worthy sleds to specialty apps you’ll want to pass on to all your fishing-addicted loved ones, welcome to The Drake’s Annual Festivus Collectivus—Winter 2015 edition.
Through the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge to its Pacific Ocean outlet at Cook Inlet, Alaska’s Kenai River is a good place to look for Walter—any respectable rainbow of the 25-inch plus variety. Here, Badfish.tv teams with Rep Your Water and Postfly for five days of fall field-testing at Drifter’s Lodge. “We hunted big dollies native ‘bows…
For the last three years, the Wild Steelhead Coalition (WSC) has been pushing for a suite of prudent changes to Washington’s sportfishing regs that would curb bait, ban barbs, and outlaw wild fish retention in order to allow beleaguered steelhead populations on the Olympic Peninsula to rebound. Today, these proposals became a reality.
Douglas Tompkins, the adventurer turned North Face founder turned billionaire conservationist, died yesterday following a kayaking accident. According to reports, Tompkins, 72, was paddling on Lago General Carrera on the border between Chile and Argentina in high winds, with waves up to 10 feet tall, when his boat capsized. Three of his companions, including long-time…
Charlie varden, dolly charden, brookies, bulls, and beg your pardon—Arctic Unicorns is a new film from Western Waters Media that gives our favorite char (fish species of the Salvelinus genus) their due recognition. “Follow our adventure as we chase brook trout, Arctic char, and some of the most rare and beautiful dolly varden in existence (unicorns).
Puget Sound hatchery EIS open for opinions In 2007, wild Puget Sound steelhead were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Seven years later, in 2014, the Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC) filed a lawsuit against the state of Washington claiming Puget Sound hatchery steelhead releases violated the act.
For today thru Monday, skip the doorbuster bumrush and keep the cocktails flowing—while grabbing some great Drake discounts from the comfort of your keyboard.
Earlier this week, Turkey tried to kickstart WWIII by shooting down a Russian fighter plane. In other news coming out of Eurasia, Russian President Vladimir Putin shot down a hydroelectric dam proposal on the Kamchatka peninsula’s trout-rich Zhupanova River—effectively shelving a long-dreaded project.
Delta Trout Force comes in hot with this Monday morning mixed-bag covering Christmas Island, Baja, Colorado, and Wyoming, with species ranging from roosters to coral trout. “Diversity has always been the spice of life. Knowing this, it’s only accurate to say things are getting all sorts of zesty on the DTF front.”
Former Flyfishing Team USA captain Anthony Naranja stands accused of scamming angling competitors out of tens of thousands of dollars. Naranja’s Professional Fly Angling Tour (PFA) is a competition flyfishing league with, according to its site, “benefits of financial reward.” Problem is the checks are bouncing.
After a long winter, they all look promising “We have a farm pond you can fish,” my brother-in-law’s cousin said. It was frigid cold, dead of winter, and we were sitting in the Taj Mahal of pit blinds waiting for first light and some geese to fly over. In the Northern Neck of Virginia hunting…
Most ski tourists don’t think of flyfishing as a legitimate resort-town option in the wintertime. And why would they, as long as the snow and skiing is good? But say you’re on day six of a weeklong ski trip and fresh snow has failed to fall. Or your legs are tired from fighting moguls for…
You can hammer on kids all day, in the classroom, about how over-fishing, pollution and unsustainable development are destroying ocean environments—especially flats. But in order for those lessons to sink in, it helps to get students’ feet in the sand with a bonefish in hand. At least that was the goal of a recent bonefish…
Citing danger to fish populations, Oregon will ban suction dredging in early January. The gold extraction technique uses a giant vacuum to hoover river bottom substrate such as gold… and, consequently, bugs and salmon and steelhead eggs.
Alaska’s Susitna River is one of the world’s biggest and healthiest wild salmon watersheds. A controversial government plan aims to tap its hydroelectric potential via a $6 billion, 735-foot concrete dam. As part of studies done in advance of the project, scientists radio-tagged a king salmon that made an unexpected, unbelievable journey. Stay tuned for…
Utah’s shaky stance on fishing access got slapped with some common sense yesterday afternoon, when Judge Derek Pullan of Utah’s 4th District Court ruled in favor of the public’s right to lawfully access and recreate on ALL of Utah’s public rivers and streams.
WASHINGTON, OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK—Most anglers will change anything and everything to feel the tug of a wild steelhead. After swinging through a few juicy runs without a grab, we’ll vary our presentations. A few more unproductive runs will result in changed tips, new flies, or yes… even a bobber and bead. By the end of…
In November 2011, Joey Maxim beat death. Just barely. The car crash collapsed his lungs and pinched his spine, leaving him unresponsive to paramedics at the scene. His doctors said if Joey made it, he wouldn’t walk or talk the same ever again. In Mend, a Kickstarter film project from TwoFisted Heart Productions and Sharptail…
Kerouac nailed the illuminating capacity of crisscrossing America in On the Road, where the writer’s pseudonymous Sal Paradise trawls the landscape for adventure against a backdrop of jazz, poetry, and good drugs.