Voices from the River: Riding the storm out
By Mark Taylor Everyone goes through slumps.
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Voices from the River: Rio Grande otters
Photo courtesy of Nick Streit By Toner Mitchell While binge fishing the Rio Grande gorge last week, I saw my first two otters in New Mexico. Regarding the second, I’d yet to take my first cast when a long, chocolate movement caught the corner of my eye and drew my attention to the animal waddling…
Voices from the River: Call me an angler
By Jenny Weis “My boyfriend didn’t teach me that!” was the way I indecorously retorted when a guide complimented my cast, saying, “Dang, your boyfriend must have been giving you some tips.” He meant no harm. But I’d known how to cast long before I met my boyfriend. My friend Nanci taught me years prior,…
Voices from the River: Fly fishing as therapy
Dan Nelson took some time away from his worries about having Stage 4 brain cancer and ended up catching this beautiful brown trout during a Reel Recovery fly fishing retreat. Photo courtesy of Reel Recovery. By Brett Prettyman Like many anglers, Dan Nelson took his time on the water for granted. He appreciated being on…
Voices from the River: The spiritual value of steelhead
Jerry Myers gives his grandchild Elkan a perfect perch to enjoy fishing with his grandpa. Courtesy Jerry Myers. By Jerry Myers I am an Idaho salmon and steelhead angler edging into my 6th decade. What I am witnessing this year feels uncomfortably similar to the despair of the mid 1970s and early 1990s. Wild steelhead…
Video spotlight: Amazon River Fly Fishing
My friend Mark Melnyk travels the world hosting episodes of The New Fly Fisher, an old-school fly-fishing program that’s adapting to its web-only format quite nicely. Every time I watch an episode, I’m transported back to those lazy Saturday mornings in the 1990s and early 2000s, when hosts like Jose Wejebe and Flip Pallot would…
Voices from the River: Community Fishing Day
Russian River Falls. Photo from Flickr Creative Commons By Jenny Weis I was momentarily upset when a member/supporter event for work, “Community Fishing Day,” got scheduled the same Saturday as Ladies Backpacking Weekend. Summer goes by so fast, and with visitors, salmon fishing, travel and jam-packed calendars, it’s not uncommon to seldom see your Alaska…
Voices from the River: Luck versus Skill
Luck, or skill? In the case of exceptional anglers like the Steelhead Whisperer, it’s mostly the latter. By Jim Burns Consider how much of your fly fishing is skill, how much is luck. This summer I excitedly boarded a plane with my fly tube and sat down, expecting nothing more than a peaceful flight, but…
Voices from the River: Tell me a story
Hillary and youngest daughter, Susie, fishing on the Green River. Photo courtesy of Hillary Walrath. By Hillary Walrath “Mommy, tell me a real story from when you were a kid.” Recently, my oldest daughter became obsessed with me telling stories before bed. I started with fairy tales of make-believe but one night I was tired…
Voices from the River: The falcon, part 1
Voices from the River: Where gratitude flows
Chulitna River. Photo by Laura Bartholomae By Jenny Weis For those of us in this community who fly fish with any regularity, it’s safe to say we’re pretty lucky. To go fishing is to set aside a few hours just for fun. It’s for breathing fresh air. For taking advantage of clean rivers, access to…
Voices from the River: Dry line dedication
Promising water for dry line steelheading. Note: Nearly three-quarters of all wild steelhead populations in their native range along the West Coast and in Idaho are threatened (TU’s CEO, Chris Wood, just penned this post on the recent closure of the winter steelhead season in Idaho due to low returns). TU and Wild Steelheaders United…
Voices from the River: A slam good time
Heidi Lewis, far left, took her friends Heather Hodson, Jen Ripple and Geri Meyer (left to right) on a Utah Cutthroat Slam adventure this summer. Brian Harris photo. By Heidi Lewis When Heather Hodson calls I know things are about to get good. I don’t see her often, but when I do it typically means…
Dams and DIDSON: restoring California’s Eel River
The salmon and steelhead fisheries of California’s Eel River were once bountiful — and could be again. California’s Eel River—the state’s third largest watershed—is legendary among anglers for its wild steelhead and salmon fisheries. Bu t like so many coastal watersheds north of San Francisco, the Eel has been hard hit over the past century…
Voices from the River: A freezer full of rats
By Shauna Stephenson Before Lolo there was Olly the redtail hawk. And before Olly, FedEx brought me a box of rats, frozen, labeled and neatly arranged in Ziplock baggies, ready to be stacked alongside the Otter Pops and frozen peas. “If you’re going to be a falconer, you’re going to have to be ok with…
Voices from the River: When the earth moves
Damage from the Nov. 30, 7.0 magnitude earthquake on the highway exit ramp nearest to the Trout Unlimited office in Anchorage. By Jenny Weis I found myself still tip-toeing around my house Saturday morning as I cleaned broken glass and straightened bookshelves, over 24 hours after the 7.0 earthquake that rattled Anchorage last Friday. I…
Trying to keep a river from dying in Colorado
A brown trout caught during an electroshocking fish survey on the Big Cimarron River in Colorado. Trout Unlimited photo. By Cary Denison The Big Cimarron River shouldn’t go dry. This may seem like an obvious declaration about any trout stream. But the truth is, here in Colorado’s Gunnison Basin, and many other places in the…
Voices from the River: The art of the hamster toss
By Shauna Stephenson If I’m in the presence of other humans – which, working from home, I rarely am – and we’ve been drinking (which, with two young children, is always a tempting way to solve one’s problems but as most moms can attest, that glass of wine isn’t nearly as nice when someone is…
Voices from the River: Now I begin
The California coastal stream where the author tried to begin again. By Sam Davidson The photos didn’t do justice to the fish. I had been waiting patiently for word from the Steelhead Whisperer, who had spent most of the day on his favorite winter water on the central California coast. But for hours all I…
Upper James River Home Rivers Initiative
Goals The Upper James River watershed drains more than 3,000 square miles of western Virginia encompassing 10 counties and hundreds of tributary streams — the lifeblood of the James River. The majority of these mountain streams and high valley creeks historically sustained abundant populations of native brook trout and provided a steady source of clean…