The "new" Obama plan for endangered Columbia and Snake River salmon is essentially the same as the Bush plan previously rejected by Judge Redden.

Just upstream from the fish hatchery, the Crystal River releases its banks into small meandering tributaries, which, while only a few feet wide, are two-fold deep and carry an occasional lunker brown.

Hawaii to the East Coast has been called home for the past 18 years--last seen deep in the Rocky Mountains.

Last week (mid-September 2009) the river was stilling running good and blue.

Photo: Ginny Holt

Photo: Liz Steketee

This little beat is no exception, having yielded a bunch of surly browns over the years to fender-tight casts of cree-hackled Woolly Buggers.

Photo: Ginny Holt