Asotin Creek is a tributary that drains into the Snake River near the town of Asotin in eastern Washington. With a drainage area of 250 square miles, Asotin Creek is slightly larger than the Wind River, but also much smaller than the Yakima River watershed. Like the Yakima, the basin is located in a semi-arid environment. Most of the watershed …
Rivers of Resilience – Wind
The Wind River, a tributary to the Columbia River just above Bonneville Dam, is, at only 224 square miles, a substantially smaller drainage than the Yakima. It receives more precipitation and thus is dominated by forests and industrial timberlands. The Wind River has had some habitat restoration but nowhere near the extent of the Yakima, but that is also because …
Rivers of Resilience – Yakima
It can be hard to maintain faith in the steelhead world. As noted in the recent article by Bill Herzog, it seems like we are losing wild summer runs faster than we can recover them. I would hedge that many, if not most, anglers feel the same. Steelhead are not disappearing for lack of effort though. Frankly, it’s amazing …
What happened to my summer runs?
Editors note: This is the first in a multi-part series looking at both the decline and recovery of wild steelhead runs. By Bill Herzog Here I am, as far into the corner of eastern Washington as you can get, waist deep in the mighty Snake River, two hander whooshing around me every few minutes. I’m immersed, literally …
Rules for catch-and-release of steelhead
There is no worse feeling than bringing a steelhead to hand and seeing the gills pumping blood. Such experiences are one of the reasons that anglers have created flies that reduce deep hookings. Still, fishing is a blood sport, and despite our best efforts, we ultimately cannot eliminate the potential for some mortality. While we can’t control where the …
New Conservation Atlas and Trip Planner: Custom maps with the click of a mouse.
The mapping applications available on wildsteelheaders.org have just been updated and now include two new cutting-edge map viewers – a wild steelhead Conservation Atlas and a steelhead fishing trip planner. Both maps are presented in an interactive format, allowing users to select layers to show on the map, pan and zoom to an area of interest, click on layers …
Oooh-Ooh, That Smell…
By Bill Herzog Can’t you smell that smell? It starts with the first real spring day, usually in early March. It rises to a crescendo in mid April, when hard rains or even a trip to midtown cannot dampen the olfactory onslaught. I’m talking about the tree bloom scent from alder, cottonwood, just the wild flowers in general that produce …
Oregon HGMP scoping comments
March 17, 2016 Sent via email to: OregonCoastHatcheryEIS.wcr@noaa.gov National Marine Fisheries Service Sustainable Fisheries Division 2900 NW Stewart Parkway Roseburg, OR 97471 RE: Oregon Coast Hatchery EIS Scoping Comments To Whom It May Concern: Trout Unlimited (TU), the nation’s oldest and largest coldwater fisheries conservation organization dedicated to protecting and restoring our nation’s trout and …
Catch and Release is not a Crime
Occupy Skagit April 30, 2016 Howard Miller Steelhead Park Rockport, WA Drift boats full of steelhead anglers plying emerald green waters are a common fixture of Northwest Rivers in late winter and spring. However this is no longer the case in Puget Sound where spring steelhead seasons have been closed for nearly a decade.The Skagit River was arguably …
Proposed Mine Threatens Methow Headwaters
The Methow River is one of Washington’s most iconic rivers for steelhead fishing and other outdoor pursuits, and it continues to be a Pacific Northwest mecca for anglers, hunters, recreationists, and conservationists alike. But proposed large-scale copper mining on Flagg Mountain, within the headwaters of the Methow River, directly threatens this investment and poses a serious threat to these fish …