Struggles of the lower Deschutes

Elke Littleleaf and Morgan Bradley discuss issues affecting the lower Deschutes

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’s Deschutes river has long been known as one of the West’s most legendary watersheds. Known for its prolific hatches and dry fly fishing, specifically…

International Year of the Salmon

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…

Voices from the River: Deadbeat dams

Photo by Eric Booton By Eric Booton In the summer of 2015, I spent a week with my family on the Olympic Peninsula. We hiked in Olympic National Park, fished for humpies in the salt, and took a field trip to check out the recently liberated Elwha River whose dam had been re moved and…

Pinks and steelhead

Pink salmon in its spawning phase. Fall is in the air and it’s time to get on the river. But first, let’s give our steelhead IQs another booster shot.. This week we have a guest writer and scientist, Colin Bailey, a PhD student studying fisheries science at Simon Fraser University under Jonathan Moore (Moore is…

Not too hot, not too cold

By Nick Chambers The greater Juneau area is home to several rivers that host wild steelhead runs. From a science perspective, Auke Creek is perhaps the most important of these, as scientists at the Auke Bay Marine Station have been operating a weir here for many years, whi ch has allowed them to census returning…

Showing service appreciation through fishing

The group at Wilderness Place Lodge. By: Jenny Weis “So, have you thought of your lede yet?” Francesca, a retired PR specialist for the U.S. Air Force, turned to ask me as we waded through a shallow stream on our hike back to the lodge after a long afternoon of fishing. Francesca and I were…