Currently browsing… Tongass National Forest
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Starting over before an Alaska fishing trip
Rather than an orderly collection of streamers, Gurglers and Egg-sucking Leaches, it looked, as I explained to my friends on a group chat as we planned out the week ahead, like the dog had coughed up a flamingo
A rebuilt fly box for a trip to Alaska. When the old fly box just won't cut it anymore When I booked a place to stay in Southeast Alaska for this coming week, I still had eastern Idaho carp on the brain. Like a lot of anglers, I have a running "fishing calendar" — a…
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One salmonid for the rest of my life? I choose Dolly
You can try to time the silver run or the king run, and maybe you'll get lucky and hit it just right. Odds are, you'll time your date with Dolly perfectly — she's rarely a no-show
I made an off-hand comment on a friend's Facebook post this morning — he uploaded a great photo of a Dolly Varden in Southeast Alaska and I quickly opined that, should some higher power ever dictate to me that I could only catch one salmonid for the rest of my life, it very well might…
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The Tongass National Forest should stay roadless
Fishing and tourism provide 26 percent of the jobs in Southeast Alaska. Logging? One percent. Chris Hunt photo. Few decisions have been as short-sighted as last year’s repeal of the Roadless Rule on Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, which helps explain why 96 percent of all public comment opposed the repeal. When large-scale logging first…
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Helping trout and helping America
As he was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States this week, Joe Biden made a powerful call for unity as the necessary foundation for tackling our nation’s challenges. Many celebrate and welcome the change. Others are angry and frustrated. Here is what I wrote four years ago when President Trump was…
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Four areas where a new administration can help trout and salmon
On his first day, President Joe Biden unveiled an executive order aimed at confronting climate change and conserving natural resources. A number of the actions identified in the order are Trout Unlimited priorities as we engage in the federal decision-making process on behalf of trout and salmon. The executive order, Protecting Public Health and the…
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Tongass Roadless Rule repeal makes no sense
By Austin Williams This week, the U.S. Forest Service announced it is exempting the Tongass National Forest from the Roadless Rule, and in the process removing protections for more than 9 million acres of the nation’s top salmon-producing forest. This is the latest effort by politicians catering to a failing old-growth logging industry that refuses…
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Desperately seeking steelhead in Alaska for science
After a long float plane flight back to Juneau, a hurried meal and a handful of Ibuprofen, I turned in for the night with one last thought – Tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll find the fish and all of this will be worth it.
By Mark Hieronymus After the first couple of hard-earned, bushwhacked miles, about the time we had fished every inch of beautiful holding water in this wild, remote river, and just after we finished post-holing our way through a couple hundred yards of thigh-deep snow, I started to second-guess myself. Months of reviewing fisheries and habitat…