Conservation

ON BREACHING THE SNAKE RIVER DAMS

First published in Volume 15, Issue 1 of The Flyfish Journal The Nez Perce call the river yáwwinma, meaning place of cold water. Non-Indigenous people refer to it as Rapid River.  It’s the only stream Congress ever designated a Wild and Scenic river exclusively because of its water quality. Even in August anglers wet-wading its […]

CALIFORNIA DREAMING

First published in Volume 14, Issue 1 of The Flyfish Journal Wandering through the parched hills and canyons of Southern California, it’s hard to imagine that southern steelhead once thrived in this ecosystem. With a range of roughly 450 coastline miles from the Tijuana to the Santa Maria rivers, the historical population of southern steelhead, […]

Modern Day Monkey Wrenching

Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang narrates the story of four dissident saboteurs who grow increasingly enraged by the industrial assaults on the desert Southwest throughout the 1960s and ’70s. To them, destruction took the form of development—road networks, strip mines, pipelines, power plants. While running the once free-flowing Colorado River, the Gang half-baked one […]

After the Fire

A wildfire sweeps through a canyon, burning all the vegetation in its path. No plant life means no insects, and no insects means no food source for the fish in the creek below. Then comes rain and snow that, unhindered by the erosion protection the plant life once provided, choke the stream with runoff full […]

Empty Ladders

The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, locally called the Ballard Locks in reference to the adjacent harbor and neighborhood, are one of Seattle’s most popular tourist destinations. They were built over 100 years ago and are now listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. Every summer visitors from across the globe arrive to watch Chinook, […]

Risk Analysis

The final environmental analysis for the proposed Pebble mine in the productive Bristol Bay region of Alaska released July 23, 2020 shows more than 191 miles of streams and 4,614 acres of wetlands would be impacted if phase one of the proposed Pebble mine advances, with 185 miles and 3,841 acres facing permanent impacts. One-hundred ninety-one miles is […]

Strait on the Line

“Who the hell eats herring?” That’s the question posed in Rene Gauthier’s Jordan River, BC living room. The room is full of conservationists, social media influencers and staff from Gauthier’s conservation-minded clothing company, ecologyst. Less than 300 yards from the living room, the Jordan River—destroyed by an ill-conceived mining project and now devoid of salmon—meets […]

The River Brings Everything

Between 1918 and 1965 five dams were built on the Klamath River, cutting off access to the upstream spawning habitat for Steelhead, lamprey and five species of Pacific Salmon. In 2021 crews will begin removing four of the five dams, reestablishing access to the upper Klamath for anadromous fish and restoring natural flows to one […]

Stop Pebble 2019

Take Action Now! Despite over a decade of opposition, the agency reviewing the permit application for the massive proposed Pebble mine in Bristol Bay, AK, recently moved the mega-project one step closer to reality. The rivers and streams of Bristol Bay are known by anglers around the globe as some of the greatest, and among the last exceptionally […]

GHOST TOWN

above Ghost-town brown. Despite it’s complicated history, the Bóbr’s murky waters still hide a good population of trout. Photo: Arek Kubale The view from the edge of Poland’s Bóbr River is overwhelming. I’m standing on the remnants of a bridge demolished by the retreating German army at the end of World War II. The water, flowing from […]

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