For generations, Alaska has been known as “the last frontier.” For anglers, it might be better known as the Salmon Frontier. Alaska is, simply put, the best of what’s left. It’s home to the largest salmon runs left in America and, in some cases, the world. Here, anglers share the rivers and streams with mighty…
Editor’s note: TU sent a handful of college students to the Pacific Northwest for this year’s TU Costa 5 Rivers Odyssey to study and fish in the Columbia River basin. Oregon State University’s campus is home to the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station where the Odyssey group was fortunate enough to sit in…
I’ve always been OK owning the title of that “fishing guy” pretty much everywhere I go because, after all, that’s who I am. Ever since my uncle introduced me to fishing, I haven’t had a second go by when I don’t think, speak or dream of fishing. For me, fishing is the glue that has…
The 2018 5 Rivers Odyssey crew. Photo courtesy of Flylords It is that time of the year: long days, great hatches, and the 5 Rivers Odyssey. Now in its third year, this year’s 5 Rivers Odyssey participants will be exploring the Pacific Northwest for the next five weeks. In partnership with the U.S. Forest Service,…
Editor’s note: This is the second of two posts on skating flies for summer steelhead from the director of TU’s Wild Steelhead Initiative. Go here to read the first. Recently, I shared some thoughts on the gear, techniques, and stream knowledge you might need to fish for summer steelhead with a skated fly—one of my…
By Natalie Stauffer-Olsen, PhD. It is always exciting when new technology becomes available that can help us understand, manage and protect wild steelhead, the mavericks of the Pacific salmonids. Steelhead and rainbow trout populations can be difficult to predict, model and understand because of their very plastic (scientific term for highly variable) life histories, from juveniles to…
If “the tug is the drug” for anglers swinging a fly for wild steelhead, then bringing a surface-snarfing summer steelhead to a skated fly is crack cocaine. There is no bigger adrenaline dump than seeing the glass-smooth surface of a tailout explode as a 10-pound native summer steelhead pounces on your hapless little skater. “Skaters”…
