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. On the road to Cougar Dam in Blue River, Ore., there is a dirt road in Willamette National Forest that leads you to a squiggly hand-drawn “Road…
The Eklutna River basin, tucked away in a valley not far from Anchorage, is rich with history. It’s the homeland of the Native Village of Eklutna, a source of drinking water for Southcentral Alaska, and a favorite recreation area for local residents. The river, once a thriving salmon fishery, has been greatly diminished by inadequate…
By Tracy Brown At Trout Unlimited, planting a tree is about so many things. Each spring and fall hundreds of TU volunteers plant trees along our favorite and most precious coldwater streams. It is about the trees. It is about the trout. And it is about engaging with the local community. This spring in New York alone over…
Trout Unlimited is working along the south-central coast of California to recover native steelhead runs, largely by restoring habitat and enhancing fish passage and dry season streamflows through cooperative partnership projects with landowners and agricultural operators. Steelhead are listed as Threatened in this region. On Pennington Creek near San Luis Obispo, TU completed a major…
The Mill Creek Dam Fish Passage Project dramatically improves access for native coho salmon and steelhead to more than eleven miles of high quality spawning and rearing habitat in a key tributary to California’s Russian River. TU and a variety of partners completed construction on this project in October 2016. Adult coho salmons returns in the Russian…
I’m in Little Rock, Ark., this week for the Outdoor Writers Association of America conference. Our hotel is situated right on the banks of what looks to be an angry Arkansas River. Years ago, I worked as an editor and reporter for a couple of small newspapers about 1,000 miles away, near the headwaters of…
My life can be separated into two distinct parts: Life before I picked up a fly rod, and life after it. I began my fly fishing journey in the rolling hills of western Wisconsin, the place where I call home. It was the beginning of January and my hands were freezing cold; every moment I…