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This could be the most pressing threat to public lands yet
For many people in the western United States, public lands are a fact of life. They are places where families hike, float and camp; where hunters stalk big game and anglers pursue wild trout; where veterans can find solace in the outdoors. They also provide clean drinking water for communities, forests that store carbon, grazing…
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Blue Lines
When I was first introduced to fly fishing by my friend, Bill Sargent, in Vermont, I fell in love with a whisper of a stream that flowed off the Green Mountain National Forest. The brookies were rarely longer than six inches, but the scenery and solitude made up for the lack of fish girth. It…
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It’s official: Apache trout are back
FWS removes the native fish from Endangered Species list in a first for a trout or salmon species The survival of Apache trout is a testament to the wisdom of protecting, reconnecting and restoring river systems to recover native trout. First listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, they later…
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Not a fisherman but a fisher of men
Father Pedro Arrupe was the leader of the Jesuit Order who instructed that the purpose of a Jesuit education was to form people who would live for, and with, others. Fifty years ago, it was revolutionary thinking. “To be just,” he said, “it is not enough to refrain from injustice. One must go further and…
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A major victory on abandoned mine cleanup
Thanks to the bipartisan leadership of U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Jim Risch (R-ID), we are closer than we have ever been to fast-tracking work on the scourge that is America’s abandoned mines. For the first time, after two decades of work, Good Samaritan mine cleanup legislation has cleared a full chamber of Congress…
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Reconnecting in the Catskills
Because of their propensity to flood, riverside communities in the Catskills have maintained a complicated co-existence with their rivers and streams.
We’re recovering rivers with committed partners old and new Years ago, when one of my kids was born, I sent out an all-staff note celebrating that and the births of several other children to those in the TU extended family. That note was then forwarded to some TU volunteers, including Catskills residents who had just…
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Four lessons from Espiritu Santo Bay
A blue-collar angler tangles with permit
A blue-collar angler tangles with permit A friend describes me as a “blue-collar fisherman.” I love to fly fish, but also love to spin cast, and occasionally baitfish for table fare, usually down the Jersey shore. On the Potomac, I have saturated Clouser minnows in old hummus to go after big blue cats, a terribly…
Author
Chris Wood
Chris has worked at TU for 22 years, and is not the best angler, but he is among the most earnest.