Tag: Fishing
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The world needs little fish.
Take the menhaden, for example. Little, oily fish that fuel commercial and recreational fisheries up and down North America’s east coast. Redfish, bluefish, striped bass and more rely on menhaden as they move along inshore habitat. Menhaden are also coveted by a commercial fishing industry that renders them into fish oil for livestock feed and…
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Are we doing enough to protect Montana grayling?
Grayling are objectively one of the coolest fish out there, with that sail-like dorsal fin sporting blues and purples. They’re also uncommon in the Lower 48, historically only found in northern Michigan and the Missouri River headwaters in Montana. They’ve been extirpated in Michigan, though reintroduction efforts are underway. They still hang on in parts…
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Last Best Streams: # 127.
No rush. There’s an understated satisfaction in taking the morning to get gear squared away and double-checked. With a new car, with functioning air conditioning, there’s no need to get an early start, or drive through the night. That said I still drove with the window down, on the two-lane highways, putzing along behind hay…
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Do anglers amount to a conservation challenge?
It’s a provocative thought, penned by Trout Unlimited’s Kirk Deeter in a recent article over at tu.org. Angling pressure was voted the #2 conservation concern of respondents to a poll run by Angling Trade magazine. Deeter’s solution tears at the numbers game- shift techniques, hone different skill sets. From the perspective of conservation, and for…
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Looking backward. Looking forward.
Another trip around the sun, another solstice tradition- a big meal, a nice bottle of wine, some time around the fire, welcoming the sun’s return on the shortest day of the year. A little bit pagan, sure- but based off something I can see. Something I can make sense of. Something I can get my…
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On grace.
Me and a buddy started tying flies about the same time, around twelve or thirteen, checking out every book we could from the local library’s limited selection. He was the one who looked up the flyshop in the local telephone book, he was the one who signed up for fly tying classes. I just tagged…
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Indian summer.
The river felt ten feet lower, pilings and riprap exposed. I found a spot and lobbed the bait downstream of the rock dike, where the channel spread out into a languid eddy. Small fish bend the tip of the rod almost immediately, too small to hook themselves. It’s a nice way of reading a book.…
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US Fish & Wildlife Service seeks input to make public lands more accessible.
Access to public lands is a cornerstone of America’s outdoor heritage- but in many places those properties are surrounded by private ownership, complicating access. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, as part of the John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management and Recreation Act, is assembling a list of parcels, greater than 640 acres, needing adequate…
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…no time like the present.
I was asked to spend the weekend at a conference an hour and a half away by an involved member of a local conservation organization. A conference I’d only been to once, fifteen years ago, for a conservation organization I was only tangentially involved with. It was the sort of organization I’d tended to support…
The outside bend. 