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Protecting the source waters of California’s largest spring creek
The Medicine Lake Highlands complex of public lands, some 30 miles northeast of Mt. Shasta in California’s Cascade region, is a truly remarkable place. In particular, the waters absorbed and released by this rugged landscape are, where they emerge from the ground, incredibly pure and visually appealing. White pelican flying over the Fall River Springs…
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Another milestone in Eel River restoration
Strengthening protections for Eel River tributaries to help recover native salmon and steelhead California’s Eel River got its modern name from the swarms of Pacific lamprey that once plowed up and down its length, but it’s more famous for its wild steelhead and salmon –– and, unfortunately, for the dramatic decline in those fisheries over…
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When checking your phone while fishing is acceptable
The weather was perfect, fish were rising, we had the whole day to fish, and yet my mind was elsewhere. I watched from the bank as my good friend Andy lengthened his cast to cover the top of the run he was fishing. The white post from his Parachute Adams suddenly appeared in the roughest…
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In search of national monument designation
Dan Johnson is an amiable bear of a man with an ursine nose for finding things. We were on a mission to find one of the sources of California’s largest spring creek, the Fall River. Yes, that Fall River. The one whose unique chemistry produces huge volumes of macroinvertebrates, dense hatches of midges, mayflies and…
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Bringing the salmon home
On the border of Oregon and California, the largest dam removal ever attempted, anywhere on the planet, is underway on the Klamath River.
When the dams come out, the Klamath will come back. May 2024: The Klamath River dam removal is well underway. The smallest of the four dams to be removed, Copco 2, is already gone. The reservoirs behind the three remaining dams – Copco 1, Iron Gate, and JC Boyle – were drained this winter and…
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Biden expands San Gabriel Mountains National Monument
One of the most spectacular scenic backdrops to any major American city is that of the San Gabriel Mountains, which fringe the Los Angeles metropolitan area. After winter storms clear the air of the LA basin, a fine mantle of white hangs from the ramparts of Mt. Baldy, sitting at 10,000 feet in elevation and…
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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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