I missed the third digit of the snowpack measurement yet instinctively I knew it really didn’t matter. Three digits means a repeat of last year’s watery excesses, and while I resolved myself to keep working on the dry flies like I’d planned, they were unlikely to see much action. There’ll be plenty of opportunities for [...]

I’ll confess to a morbid fascination with the larger invasive species issue, I spend far too much time reading about all the horrors headed our way. With national parks mulling all manner of restrictions, before banning humans outright, it’s indicative of a war against an enemy that can’t be beaten. Just insert “seed” for diatom, [...]

The lack of commentary on our previous article suggests fishermen are a stoic and heartless lot, unwilling even in the face of  insolvency to spend less of the government’s cash to balance budgets, bomb Libya, or any other semi-humanitarian act … So we’ll pose the question again, this time with science insisting that were we [...]

I remember reading a Flyfisherman magazine back in the Eighties that attributed the exceptional size and growth rate of the trout in some Pennsylvania creek to an upstream cheese factory, whose rich effluents imbued the entire waterway with curds and whey. Sure, it was white and unsightly, probably adding a little foam to the fast water, [...]

I finished my read of the Yellowstone Lake plan the Park recently published for comment. In it they specify the need to remove invasive Lake Trout and restore the native Yellowstone Cutthroat. Sure enough, our pal Rotenone coupled with gill netting will be the preferred fish killing method, gill nets deployed by a vendor in [...]

I’ve always associated the distance driven and the elevation climbed as proof positive I’ve left civilization in my wake. Once the skyline changes from cement and glass rectangles to jaggy pines, I start getting those destructive thoughts; how I can drink the water, or bathe in it – as filters and iodine are no longer [...]

The latest issue of the US Fish & Wildlife magazine, “Eddies” is devoted completely to aquatic invasives. Not just the standard fare we’re used to seeing, but many of the plants that are causing issues for the deep South and Texas. Now that the fissures in rubber shoe soles are being blamed for seed travel, [...]

Dire news on climate change suggests that Western US and particularly the Yellowstone basin are already in the grip of a warming trend, and warming  quicker than the rest of the continental US. The demise of the whitebark pine trees is the most noticeable result of climate change. Warming temperatures have allowed the mountain pine [...]

It appears that budget shortfalls and emphasis on belt tightening may have exposed the soft white underbelly of the “put and take” fishery. With both federal and state budgets being carved of fat, and desperate to avoid too deep cuts to the remaining muscle, a combination of license hikes and the systematic redirection of conservation [...]

Big changes destined for the Lake Tahoe basin has California legislators scrambling for dollars to fund the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act of 2010, which will no doubt end up as “California Pork” inside some other piece of legislation… Responding to a recent study produced by UC Davis, which suggests 50% less snow for the Sierras, [...]