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Getting started: From gear to fly
Editor's note: This is the second in an ongoing series meant to give those who are interested in learning to fly fish the perspective and advice needed to get started. More installments will follow. If you have specific questions about fly fishing, feel free to add a comment below, and we'll do our best to…
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Video spotlight: How to Build a Fly Rod
I built my first fly rod 20 years ago—a 9-foot, 4-weight on a St. Croix SCII blank. It was a supple implement that I still have in a case in the rafters of my store room. It fished well. In fact, I caught one of the biggest trout of my life using it—26-inch rainbow on Colorado's…
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How the shutdown is harming anglers
By Chris Wood "Good riddance. Think of all of the money we are saving.” I looked at Max in exasperation. He is one of the most hard-core sportsmen I know. I have hunted for whitetail with him in driving rainstorms in West Virginia, and stalked catfish on the Potomac using hummus-impregnated Clouser-minnows. He is a…
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Mimicking beavers improves trout habitat
By Crystal Elliot What do watershed resilience, high-quality fish habitat and sustainable water supplies look like in the Intermountain West? Probably much like it did before western expansion and trapping decimated North American beaver populations in the 19th century. Once numbering in the hundreds of millions, beavers played a principal role in how water moved and…
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TU in Action: Defending public lands
The Salmon River and the fabled Sawtooth Mountains of central Idaho. Photo by Chris Hunt. Trout Unlimited members in the West have a message for state legislatures that want to keep trying to "transfer" American public lands to the states: Keep your damn hands off our birthright. As noted in this great High Country News piece…
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Wyoming’s Seedskadee Chapter plans juvenile fish habitat reconnection
Dave Sweet holds a rainbow trout caught in the fall on the Green River in Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge. Brett Prettyman/Trout Unlimited By Sadie St. Clair The Green River between Fontelle Dam and Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Southwest Wyoming is a robust fishery that draws anglers from all over the country. Fishing has been good…
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New York volunteers spearhead barrier removal projects
By Tracy Brown Trout Unlimited’s Columbia-Greene Chapter helped to remove two stream barriers in eastern New York, allowing native brook trout and other creek-dwelling creatures to access miles of cold water habitat. One of the projects involved removing an antiquated culvert on the Town of Chatham’s railroad bed, allowing Green Brook (above) to reestablish its…