Protecting the source
Famous trout streams depend on waters flowing from the public lands of Sáttítla. These lands and waters should be permanently protected as a national monument.
Search results for “great lakes”
Voices from the River: Cabin No. 3
“Thank you No. 3. See you next time,” I whispered to the warm cabin as I closed the door of one of my favorite public-use cabins in Southcentral Alaska and turned to soak in the view from the deck with my wife and two dogs. It’s my trusty routine to thank the public resource that…
Returning rapids
Dams will forever change a river.
Sometimes I sit and wonder what certain rivers must have been like prior to a dam’s construction. That typically brings about more questions than answers. What was the river like years before? Were there bigger rapids? What was the fishing like? What did the native cultures lose when we buried a canyon under water?
Evolutionary Adaptation
Genomics offers a whole new world for understanding the evolution and conservation needs of trout and salmon. The massive amount of information afforded by modern sequencing techniques provide a more comprehensive view of population relationships and histories, which can be used for effective conservation planning. We can also learn how fish are adapting to their…
Big water, big fish, big fun at Tailwater Lodge
Pop quiz: OK, grab a map and point to Altmar, N.Y. That’s what I thought. I couldn’t do it either. But people who know fishing in upstate New York can do it in (forgive me) a New York minute. The Salmon River in Altmar is one of the greatest salmon and steelhead fishing destinations in…
Boy Scout
Editor’s note: A variation of this piece first appeared in Hatch Magazine. Preparedness was never my thing. There’s a reason I made it to Webelo, but didn’t matriculate farther through the Boy Scout system. You can only show up at the den meeting without your little scarf slider so many times before it sinks in.…
Rescued by Fly Fishing
The tones went off at about 2:30 a.m., and I rolled out of my bunk at the fire station, rubbing sleep from my eyes. I stepped into my bunker gear and slid my arms into the sleeves of my coat like an automaton. The dispatcher’s voice was calm and measured despite her dire message: “Engine…
Skills: Walleye on the fly … any ideas?
The sun sets over Whitewater Lake in northwest Ontario. I’m at Striker’s Point Lodge, part of the the Wilderness North Lodge system in Ontario. We arrived after a 90-minute float-plane ride from Thunder Bay this afternoon, and, after getting our gear all unpacked and a quick dinner, we hit Whitewater Lake in search of some…
Voices from the River: Common water
The author’s son getting a rowing lesson on Alaska’s Skilak Lake. Photo by Nelli Williams. By Nelli Williams Rivers bring people together. Some of my fondest friend-filled memories are on the river. Where we’ve laughed til our cheeks hurt—even years later— over the chaos in the boat when that first fish hit; or enjoyed a…
TU hosts 2019 Northern Nevada Youth Flyfishing Camp
by Makenzie O’Connor A core component of Trout Unlimited’s mission is building a broad community of river-stewards to help implement and sustain our coldwater conservation work. A primary focus of this effort involves youth outreach and education. Trout Unlimited’s California Program and our California Council and chapters support this initiative by hosting youth engagement programs…
Trout Unlimited Thanks Departing Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beaudreau
Contacts: Arlington, VA – The U.S. Department of Interior announced today that Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau is stepping down at the end of the month after a combined 10 years at the agency, including the last two as deputy secretary, where he oversaw initiatives including protecting over 13 million acres of public land in Alaska,…
Anglers stop Alaska dam before it starts
Eric Booton with a nice early season rainbow trout from the Kenai River watershed. By Austin Williams I had barely stripped the line off my reel to make my first cast when I could feel my phone vibrating from the front pocket of my waders. Rats. Normally, I’d have let the call go, or not…
Campbelle Redding
Trout Unlimited Youth Essay Contest Winner FIRST PLACE Campbelle Redding, Reno, Nevada, 11th Grade I started fishing when I was 4-years-old. My dad took me on my first quest to Cascade Lake in Yellowstone National Park. Traipsing across the stiff banks in my little purple waders, waiting for the freezing winds and torrential downpour to…
BDAs and BWOs: Squaw Creek habitat improvement project
One of several BDAs (beaver dam analogues) recently installed in Squaw Creek to improve floodplain connectivity, among many other habitat benefits. By Tom Kloehn Trout Unlimited believes that conservation work begins with people. This belief was affirmed again when over 75 volunteers gathered recently to renew one of the Lake Tahoe region’s most popular places—Squaw…
Voices from the River: Extreme behavior
The iconic Sundial Bridge, spanning the Lower Sacramento River in downtown Redding, California before and during the Carr Fire. By Sam Davidson California is burning. There are 17 wildfires charring the Golden State, at present. The biggest and gnarliest (of 2018, anyway) is the Carr Fire, which has torched more than 100,000 acres, mostly of…
Ice fishing for the converted
When I was a kid, I had this recurring nightmare. I was probably around 7 or 8 at the time. In it, I would be walking down a dirt road with my dad and in the road were a series of big, muddy puddles, the kind you get after a long spring rain. As we…
Pigeons, persistence and hope
I recently read an essay where a priest on a mission to Guatemala discovered that artists from the village painted museum-quality artwork on the inside walls of a bell-tower—a place where only pigeons would see them. The story reminded me of Trout Unlimited’s work—behind the scenes, often unnoticed, complicated, hard, and, ultimately, beautiful. What a year. We reckoned with racial injustice as a nation, and looked inward to the fact that we need to become…
The Arctic grayling: all you need to know
Arctic grayling have evolved many strategies to meet the needs of life in harsh and uncertain environments. Some grayling migrate. They take advantage of different streams for spawning, growing up, summer feeding, and overwintering. Individual fish can range widely, moving tens of miles on a seasonal or annual basis between spawning, rearing, and sheltering habitats.
The True Cast – Fly fishing is about family, foremost… as well it should be.
I was a gear-chuckin’, spin-fishing, bass-mad angler in my youth. And don’t get me wrong, I’m still a fan of throwing the hardware, whenever, wherever the right opportunity presents itself.
Trout Unlimited initiative tackling rising threats to key trout & salmon watersheds
Nation’s largest coldwater conservation nonprofit identifies 200+ “Priority Waters” where work is needed to reverse declines of wild and native fish Contacts: ARLINGTON, Va.—Wild and native trout and salmon, as coldwater fish in a warming world, are facing enormous threats. More than 1.5 million miles of America’s trout and salmon waters are degraded, and populations…