Native south-central California coastal steelhead. Photo: Capelli/NOAA Fisheries. Steelhead, the sea-run version of rainbow trout, have one of the most diverse life histories of any fish species. On the West Coast, this life history diversity has enabled steelhead to colonize and persist in coastal drainages in a region—the south-central coast of California—with highly variable precipitation,…
Biggest fish of the day, general trout season opener, Los Padres Reservoir, April 2019. April is the cruellest [sic] month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Thus begins The Waste Land, T.S. Elliot’s most famous work and the defining poem of the Modernist era…
Fishing the Carmel River lagoon during steelhead season. In his 1945 novel Cannery Row, John Steinbeck called the Carmel River, on California’s central coast, “a lovely little river… [with] pools where trout live … a place for fishermen to wander in.” In those days the Carmel was a well-known fishery and hosted a robust run…
by Toner Mitchell Editor’s Note: This post was first published on July 23, 2018, on the TU blog. Gordon Becker was in love with nature for as long as anyone can remember. He climbed it, hiked it, fished it, and boated it. After earning a master’s degree in fisheries biology, he built a career out…
“I have concluded that I am going to stay alive long enough to see salmon return to healthy populations in Idaho.” Those words by U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) at a conference at the Andrus Center last week may do more to project the recovery of the imperiled Snake River salmon and steelhead than multiple…
Most of us working on behalf of wild steelhead love our jobs. Still, after a long week we are ready to hit the water — and share some more steelhead knowledge. This week we touch on a study conducted by Andrew Brown at the University of Washington, along with several co-authors. The paper can be…
This year is the International Year of the Salmon, and it couldn’t have come too soon. Wild salmon the world over are in peril—once plentiful stocks are dwindling in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Dams block migration. Proposed industrial development, like the Pebble Mine in Alaska, threaten intact populations. Pollution, salmon-farm escapees and disease…
