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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…
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There’s hope for endangered salmon and steelhead
TU’s sticktuitiveness at work on a Priority Water in California A few years ago, the president of the Trout Unlimited Golden Gate Chapter took me to a creek called Devil’s Gulch—a tributary of Lagunitas Creek, an important salmon and steelhead river in California that is one of TU’s Priority Waters. Mike Cronin proudly showed off…
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Fishing is far more than just… fishing.
Fletcher’s Cove is among the finest urban fisheries in the country. Anglers ply its waters for white perch in February. Really big striped bass then follow the forage fish up from Chesapeake Bay. In March, the hickory and American shad appear...
“Griz” leaned on the counter of the boathouse and asked: “What was Ray and Joe Fletcher’s Dad’s name. Was it… Julius?” Dan, who has worked at Fletcher’s Cove since 1969 and worked for Joe and Ray Fletcher—the fourth generation of the Fletcher family to run the concession along the Potomac River in Washington, D.C, looked…
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The best guides
Pete Wood, who after interning with TU became a lawyer in Idaho, taught me to tie my first bread fly (from an old kitchen sponge, and it was deadly on Potomac River carp). I caught my largest native rainbow in Alaska last year with Brian Bowe at the Alaska Sportsman’s Lodge. Pat Berry, who now leads…
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A ‘grand bargain’ on mining
Meeting America’s clean energy needs & reforming outdated mining laws American Fork Creek, located about halfway between Salt Lake City and Provo, Utah, harbors populations of a rare native trout called the Bonneville cutthroat. Twenty years ago, I stood on its banks looking out over the dirt bike paths and all-terrain vehicle trails crisscrossing mining…
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Not giving up on natives
Southeast volunteers of all ages offer brook trout a hand
Southeast volunteers of all ages offer brook trout a hand With all due respect to all the legendary trout states in America, perhaps my favorite Trout Unlimited trip was to my home state of New Jersey. A few TU legendary volunteers, such as Agust Gudmundsson, Rick Axt, Rich Thomas, and the late Rick Ege, offered…
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The Power of Native.
Like your first kiss, no one ever forgets their first native trout. The memory is as searing as the sun's reflection off snow through a windshield. My friend and fishing mentor, Bill Sargent had pointed me to a small and little-known stream in the Green Mountains to fish for native brook trout. Bill explained to…
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