Connecting people to policy

TU’s government and policy staff. By Chris Wood Several of the bright lights in the Trout Unlimited policy world came into the intergalactic headquarters last week. Their recent accomplishments are pretty amazing. Dave Kinney of New Jersey helped organize efforts to pass and then fund legislation for restoration in the Delaware Basin; Taylor Ridderbusch of…

Getting started: Know your trout

The brook trout is actually char, native to Appalachia, eastern Canada and the upper Midwest. Photo by Chris Hunt. Editor’s note: This the third in a series of posts geared toward new fly fishers. More installments will follow.  A couple of years ago, I was fishing a small, backcountry trout stream on the Island Park…

Ninemile Valley Abandoned Mine Restoration

Perhaps no place in Montana illustrates a more striking juxtaposition between an iconic fishery nestled within an over-exploited landscape than the Clark Fork watershed. The Clark Fork is one of the state’s most popular angling destinations; by the time it flows out of Montana, it has become the state’s largest river. Native westslope cutthroat and…

Yankee Fork Side Channel Habitat Improvement

Yankee Fork Side Channel Habitat Improvement

Goals TU’s goal in the Yankee Fork basin was to create side-channel rearing habitat for juvenile Chinook salmon and steelhead trout and spawning habitat for adult steelhead.  Improved habitat will also benefit cutthroat trout and bull trout. Tactics TU and partners re-graded mounds of dredge tailings to fill remnant dredge ponds and create a functional…

Act Now to Help Protect the Methow Headwaters

We need your support to help urge the BLM to protect the Methow Headwaters and the habitat it provides for rainbow trout, cutthroat trout, bull trout, mountain whitefish, Chinook salmon, and steelhead. A mineral withdrawal would make the 340,000 acres of U.S. Forest Service land in the Upper Methow Valley off-limits to large-scale mining for…

Summer steelhead in the Elwha rise from the ashes

Rise of the Phoenix: an Elwha River summer steelhead (Photo: John McMillan) By John McMillan Should we invest in dam removal? It’s a question that many communities, businesses and policy-makers are facing these days — partly because of agin g infrastructure and financial liabilities, and partly because of legal obligations to protect water quality and…

Methow Headwaters clears one more hurdle toward mining protections

Methow Headwaters. Photo by Hannah Dewey. By Crystal Elliot-Perez Among the the wildest and most pristine places in the lower 48, the 340,000-acre Methow Headwaters landscape in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest is now one step closer to being protected from large-scale mining. This is thanks to a recommendation by the U.S. Forest Service late last…