By Cal Curtice “This is probably the last generation of trout fishers.” — Forest and Stream Magazine 1879 In 1620, virgin forest covered the United States from the tip of northern Maine, south to central Florida, and west beyond the Mississippi River. Native brook trout swam throughout their cool, clean waters, including those in the Finger…
Small donations from private foundations provide seed money needed to get a big restoration project going
When you think of Farm Bill conservation, what comes to mind? Maybe fields full of pheasants or ringed by deer stands? Prairie potholes for waterfowl? What about fish – perhaps a little farm pond full of bluegills and bass? Our friends at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership put together an excellent overview of how…
Socks – unless you live in a climate a lot friendlier than Wyoming, you wear ‘em. But that doesn’t mean they have to be boring. How’d you like to lose those white crews and wear some socks that stand out? Better yet, how’d you like to have awesome socks and do some great things for…
The head of a tiger trout. Paul Burnett/Trout Unlimited. By Brett Prettyman This is the tale of two fish. The take was similar. The tug was not. One easily provided more thrill than the other, but it was not the fish you would expect. I recently had the chance to visit the family ranch of…
Oct. 28, 2014 Contact: Katy Dunlap, Trout Unlimited Eastern Water Project Director, 607-742-3331 Mark Taylor, Trout Unlimited Eastern Communications Director, 540-353-3556 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE WASHINGTON, D.C.Trout Unlimited is featuring the George Washington and Jefferson national forests in Virginia and West Virginia in a new report highlighting outstanding public fishing and hunting areas in the Central…
The stuff of dreams, Trinity River. By Sam Davidson The first hints of autumn always seem to bring things into sharper relief. When you have spent almost no time lately with a rod in hand, not taking advantage of the last wet-wadable days of the year, that clarity can be unwelcome. Thank goodness for social…
Over 135 people attended the 2025 Driftless Symposium hosted by the Trout Unlimited Driftless Area Restoration Effort and the Wisconsin Wetlands Association on Tuesday February 25 in La Crosse, Wisc. Several common threads emerged among this year’s presentations, highlighting both threats to watershed health and the countermeasures being developed to face those threats. Threats to…
USFWS fish passage funding provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will support TU projects in Priority Waters across eight states
We often make fly fishing more complicated than we need to. A good example of that is mending our fly line to get a better, more natural drift as our flies work their way downstream. Often, as TU’s Kirk Deeter points out in the video below, our mends are too jerky or move the flies…
The wind is the perceived enemy of many a fly fisher, but, as Kirk Deeter points out in this week’s video, it needn’t be. The key, as Deeter puts it, is to “make friends with the wind.” Or, as he demonstrates, use the wind to your advantage, even when it’s in your face. The key?…
New drilling policies are a win for fish and wildlife. Now a key federal agency needs to modernize its oil and gas leasing rules.
Check out Flylords next week, where it will be all trout all week
When I was a kid, the first fly-fishing technique my grandfather ever shared with me was “dapping.” Rather than burden a 10-year-old with all the details of a complex fly cast, he would simply pull about three feet of fly line through the tip-top and put a hopper or some high-floating dry fly on my…
The trick to knowing what you’re going to catch before you catch it, is knowing what lives in the river. Of course. Some people, however, have dialed it in a bit more. For example, they know the rainbows like the riffles in certain places on the Colorado River, whereas the browns hug the banks and…
Editor’s note: For more great tips on fishing from TU members across the country, get your copy of TU’s book, “Trout Tips,” available online for overnight shipping. This time of year, when I plan out some distant winter fishing trips to places warmer and farther south, I become a lurker. Not the creepy, “Psst! Hey…
Data collected, scientists now set out to gauge how flows affect the river’s wild browns.
‘Tis the season for tailwater angling, even in the coldest of mountain climes, and Garrison Doctor of Rep Your Water has some simple advice for anyone taking to the river this shoulder season: be stealthy. Trout Tips | Be Stealthy from Trout Unlimited on Vimeo. In the video above Garrison offers up some great advice…
We’ve all grown out of fishing with worms, right? Well, maybe we shouldn’t have, especially when this time of year rolls around and runoff strikes, sending a winter’s worth of snow down our rivers in a murky torrent. When high water hits and scours riverbanks, worms that dwell in the earth often find themselves waterborne,…
