Currently browsing… Oregon

  • Living with Fire

    TU staffers turn 2020’s Oregon wildfires into opportunity to improve resiliency

    People all around Oregon woke on Sept. 8, 2020, to high winds, extensive power outages and lots of speculation by foresters that it could be the worst day of fires in Oregon’s history. That’s exactly what it turned out to be for Chrysten Lambert, TU’s Oregon director for Western Conservation, and many others when three wildfires whipped through the area in a split second…

  • Snake River dams From the President

    Guaranteed: they will come back

    Pacific salmon and steelhead connect the Pacific Ocean to the Sawtooth mountains and persist at 1-2 percent of their historic numbers. Their decline precisely parallels the construction of the four lower Snake River dams

    big fish

    Editor’s note: This is the sixth and final installment in a series of articles showing that removing four dams on the lower Snake River is the last, best hope for wild Snake River salmon and steelhead. Wild Snake River salmon and steelhead are on the brink of extinction, but we can bring these incredible fish…

  • Trout Talk

    ‘Posted’ signs a sad end to a chapter

    How much trouble is it to ask permission to access a choice swimming hole? An Oregon landowner reluctantly posts his property after neighbors repeatedly ignore his requests for a heads up before swimming.

    Dad has always been proud of the spot. "It's the best hole on the creek," he has said many times about the spot down the hill from his house. That's something of a guess. Dad hasn't explored the entire creek, a tributary to Oregon's South Umpqua River that runs for probably 15 miles from its…

  • Boats

    The West is full of great rivers to float

    Didn't draw a lottery permit? No problem It’s the most wonderful time of the year. No, I’m not referencing the holiday season in December. I’m talking about river permit season. Most have chosen their dates meticulously with groups of people on rivers like the Smith, the Green, the Yampa, the San Juan and the list…

  • Featured Conservation steelhead Voices from the river

    Welcome to winter steelhead fishing

    Dean hollered from upstream as a steelhead took his fly, then hollered again a moment later as the fish released it. At another spot Dean had a nice fish on for perhaps a minute, his rod bowed and bobbing. But that steelhead, too, practiced detachment. Welcome to winter steelhead fishing.

    Molly the water dog and Jenny Weis on Oregon's Umpqua River, before everything blew out. By the third day, it seemed a foregone conclusion that at least one of our three-person party would feel the chilly fingers of a stream no longer kept at bay by their waders. The ubiquitous blackberry vines armoring the banks…

  • Conservation Advocacy Featured Fishing

    A case study for the ‘portfolio approach’

    A fisheries management plan for southwest Oregon coastal streams spurs debate over harvest of wild steelhead A fishery management plan being developed for southwest Oregon coastal rivers has generated debate over whether to temporarily reduce or prohibit harvest of wild steelhead. Trout Unlimited’s Oregon Field Director Kyle Smith recently penned an opinion-editorial in the Curry County Pilot making the case for caution in killing…