Past the Far East Restaurant, and Big Daddy’s Buff n’ Wax, we turn left at the Mexico Congregational Church and find the boat launch empty. This is normal in the mill town of fewer than 3,000 residents, but surprises me on a spring morning: the Androscoggin is at its most fishable (around 4,500 cfs); it’s…
The proposed Pebble Mine, subject of 20 years of controversy, 2.2 million public comments, a dozen Congressional hearings, multiple documentary films, media campaigns, ballot initiatives, lawsuits, and the most ubiquitous sticker in all of fishingdom, is back on the table. Seemingly the result of one 30-minute meeting between two men: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and…
The first places I explored as a kid, outside of my backyard, were the small creeks and wetlands near my home. They were full of tadpoles, salamanders, and, if we were lucky, turtles. I spent countless hours trying to fit various animals into Mason jars, but mostly I just covered myself in mud.
Bristol Bay, Alaska this summer has seen a hulking sockeye return, with total run estimates set to eclipse the 51 million salmon mark. In the meantime, the EPA Version 2.0 continues its plans to dismantle the July 2014 Clean Water Act Proposed Determination that would have tightened restrictions on toxic discharges associated with the proposed…
In 2015, the Park Service opened all of what were once known as “red line” brookie streams in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In doing so, it endorsed both anglers and trout. It is now the official policy of the United States to let these Appalachian natives be their own brookie selves. Contributor Zach Matthews…
Severed by North Dakota, the Saskatchewan plains, Alberta tar-sands, and British Columbia’s snow-covered Coast Mountains, Gaylord, Minnesota, is far removed from a proposed large-scale Alaskan mining operation and the toll it would take on anadromous fish runs. But it’s in Gaylord that Sportsman’s Alliance of Alaska Director Scott Hed had lived a quintessential Midwestern life—playing…