A bear-spotting playlist for southeast AK’s remote salmon streams SPOTIFY EMBED I occasionally work as a guide in America’s Tongass National Forest, leading bear-watching trips among towering old growth trees and creeks flush with salmon. Though more than one million people visit this sparsely populated maze of islands in southeast Alaska every year, few venture…
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The extraordinary ordeal of Troy Bachmann Up until a few months ago, Derek Bachmann had a closet full of fly rods, one of the perks of a lifetime spent in service of his family’s business, The Fly Fishing Shop, located in Welches, Oregon, not far from the Sandy River. Now he’s down to four. “I’ve…
DetailsBack at the fly shop, swilling on a hoppy brew, the inflated catch rate is steadily swelling. The guide’s mathematically magical formula looks something like this: Whatever number client X got to hand, add 10. Ass hooked. Leader stroked. SJ worm sniffed. Saw a GOOD one rise. Yep, those count. But in the grand scheme…
Details“Eternally Wild” showcases northern California’s Smith River; its steelhead, its history and its current plight. Here there are no dams, no clear-cut blocks, no mitigating hatcheries. Instead: ancient forest, iconic redwoods and a powerful symbol of freedom — THE SMITH. But 4,000 acres of the river’s pristine North Fork are now threatened by a toxic mine operation. The…
DetailsIdyllic impressions of the Grand Canyon—tall walls with an emerald ribbon cutting through its underbelly—got slapped with a dose of ugly last week, when the U.S. Department of Interior released a vilifying report on sexual harassment among river guides employed by the National Park Service (NPS).
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…
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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.
DetailsSpeculation 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…
DetailsThe 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…
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These days there’s a fly line for almost everything. The short list includes long bombers, quick loaders, trout tamers, bassblasters, tarpon winchers, and an ever expanding string of options designed to perform really well in a world of specifics. But if you’re looking for one line that does double duty in both hot and cold…
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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…
DetailsTHE DONNER PARTY MEMORIAL in Truckee, Calif., stands 22 feet tall, indicating the depth of the snow during the fateful winter of 1846-47. The snowstorms began in early November, trapping the Donners and other families near a frozen lake, deep in the high Sierra Nevada, until rescuers were able to reach them in March. Of…
DetailsTHE ROCKS ON THIS JETTY were all once uniform and composed. They say that, long ago, you could drive a car on them, all the way out to the tower, where the greasy cormorants preen their feathers. This is no longer possible. The Long Island Express hit it with 100 mile-an-hour winds and 15-foot swells…
DetailsLAST JANUARY, researchers from the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada, published the results of its study on the effects of long-term inactivity. In a word, the scientists who conducted the study found that sitting around all day can kill you.
I HATE FLYFISHING FILMS. I watch them religiously, but I hate them. Every time a new one comes out, I pay to go see it, I’ll even pay to rent Fly Fishing Film Tour films from years past, on Amazon at home. I pay to torture myself repeatedly, and each time I’m left thinking the…
DetailsI’M NOT MUCH A HORSEPOWER GUY—I don’t lust after motorcycles or muscle cars—but I am a sucker for a skiff on plane. Back from the ramp, turn toward the fish, and lean into the throttle. Wind in the face never gets old. Just yesterday, I ran several miles up a narrow tidal channel here in…
DetailsTHOUGH HE’S LOGGED some incognito years on the shaded two-lane roads of the Pacific Northwest, and rolled many an empty highway undercover in Montana and Wyoming, I can tell that, in the city, Clyde commands the attention he deserves. The turnpikes of Colorado’s Front Range are crowded with blue-collar sorts who appreciate Detroit craftsmanship and…
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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.
DetailsThrough 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…
DetailsFor 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…
DetailsCharlie 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.
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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.