The American economy has performed well over the past four decades: real per capita income has doubled since 1970 and pollution is down even with 50 percent more people. The choice between a healthy environment and a healthy economy is a false one. They stand, or fall, together. We’ve been blessed in the United States with abundant water resources. But we also face daunting challenges that are putting new demands on those resources — continuing growth; the need for water for food, energy production and manufacturing; the push for biofuel crops; the threat of new contaminants; climate change and just maintaining and restoring our natural systems.
If we narrow our vision of the Clean Water Act, if we buy into the misguided notion that reducing protection of our waters will somehow ignite the economy, we will shortchange our health, environment and economy.
I don’t quite understand why the EPA is coming under so much attack this election cycle. I get that some people find any and all regulation reprehensible, but if the government shouldn’t be the ones to regulate the environment, then who should? Perhaps an independent commission of executives from BP, Exxon, et. al.? Ya, that’s probably the right solution.
It’s always been a pet-peeve not having access to any realtime (or otherwise) water temperature data on the Oregon coast. Sure, one can deduce from air temperature, but that only goes so far.
Well, watching the Wilson hitting floodstage today (it’s risen 7’ in the past 24 hours), I noticed that the gauge has been upgraded and now includes temperature, which is a balmy 47F right now.
Pretty handy, and a good barometer for the rest of the coast.
Condit Dam, and century old fish passage barrier on Washington’s White Salmon River, is being removed today. The blast event will be broadcast live on the interwebs, so if you like large explosions and dam removal, you should probably check ‘er out.
The dynamiting commences between 11am and noon, PST.
Sage bowled me over with their excellent customer service this week. I broke a 6126 ZAxis in BC last month, and sent it in a few weeks ago for repair. Last Thursday it dawned on me that I’d be heading back up to BC in a week and still didn’t have my rod. I called them up, Rebecca from their customer service department was able to find my rod in their receiving department (I had only sent it two weeks prior and they typically take 6-8 weeks), expedited the repair, and it was waiting on my stoop this afternoon - four business days later.
Impressive, doubly so in an era of ever-poorer customer service.
Please take 2 minutes to send a letter off to BPA, calling on them to reject the new Klickitat hatchery being proposed in the “Klickitat Hatchery Complex DEIS.”
The plan, as written, would seriously harm already fragile runs of wild summer and winter steelhead and spring Chinook.
Public comment period ends on October 12th, so it’s imperative that you get your comments in now. Don’t procrastinate, take two minutes and help protect the native fish in this beautiful river.
There are a select few places in this world where all the right ingredients come together to grow truly giant lifeforms - The Redwoods of Northern California, Sequoias of the Southern Sierra, and Humans of Houston, TX, to name a few. The Kispiox River in Northern BC is another such place, and grows a super-race of steelhead unlike any other in the world.
At first glance, the Kispiox doesn’t look particularly out of the ordinary, a medium sized stream with beautiful swinging runs, somewhat similar to that of the lower Trask. But as you dig a little deeper, you quickly come to realize that the Kispiox is no ordinary river, and its fish are, simply put, extraordinary.
We began our first day on the Kispiox like every other day in BC, in the wee hours of 11:30am. Within ten minutes, we were floating by Harry Lemire and watching him release a fish that he’d just taken on a single hand rod and a dry line. The Kispiox is that kind of magical place.
We’d planned on fishing Tungsten tips, as that had been the ticket the previous days on the Bulkley, but Mr. Lemire’s feat told us otherwise. Fast forward seven hours of dry lines, Type-3s, and no fish… Ken and I are swinging through upper Potato Patch on opposite sides of the river, Ken with the bright idea to go back to T-11 and myself still stuck on my “Fish will move for the Type-3!!!” mentality.
Within minutes, Ken is into a fish. I put on a Type-6, and keep swinging. Ken loses the fish, and a few minutes later is into another. Same flies, same run, different tips, and I’m getting hosed. I stubbornly continue to swing my Type-6 until Ken hooks his THIRD fish in less than 20 minutes. I rig up 10’ of T-14, go back up to the top of the run where I’d already fished, and about 10 casts later you can guess what happens.
So it went on the Kispiox for three days. Big flies, heavy tips, and the most jawdroppingly large and beautiful sea-run rainbows I’ve ever seen.
Four days later, leaving Smithers on our way back to the US of A, Ken looks at us and says “We’re in the middle of making a huge mistake.”
“What, eating at Dairy Queen?”
“No, leaving this place!!!”
We both get a glimmer of madness in our eyes, bust out the iPhone calendar, and decide to head back up in 4 weeks. See you soon, BC.
Tying steelhead flies is problematic. At every turn, you discover some new material that’ll revolutionize your tying and fish catching abilities, and you just have to have it in every possible color. One day you’re dropping $50 on seal dubbing, only to discover you love Alec Jackson’s spade body and now need $100 worth of ostrich. Guinea, schlappen, no, wait, saddle hackle, no, wait, grizzly capes in 15 colors and 4 hues of pink. It never ends.
But with just a little bit of work and $25, you can buy enough dye to last you a lifetime, and save gobs of money on materials.
Dying is not only easy, it’s fun, and quick. Follow these steps, and you’ll be dying feathers and fur in vibrant colors in less than 10 minutes from start to finish. No joke.
First off, you need some dye. There are a zillion ways to dye stuff, but if you want the rich, vibrant colors you find in a fly shop, you need to use an acid based dye. Don’t be scared, the “acid” simply means vinegar, the same white distilled stuff you have in your cabinet.
Next, you’ll need some synthrapol, which is simply an industrial detergent for removing excess dye. Have you ever used shitty fly tying materials, that when exposed to water, lost their dye or worse yet, transferred to dye to the rest of the materials on your fly? That’ll be your end result if you skip the synthrapol. Again, Amazon, for $8.
A stainless steel pot and some tongs and you’re done.
Step 1: Select the materials you plan to dye, and soak them in hot water with some synthrapol to remove any excess dirt. Rinse, and then soak in water, and press firmly to remove any oxygen. This is important! If you’re dying fur or a cape of feathers, you’ll want to put the material in the water skin side up and press at the bottom of the container. You’ll see oxygen bubbling out, and once the bubbles stop coming, you’re done. Skip this step, and there will be air bubbles in the material when you go to dye it, resulting in an uneven dye.
Step 2: Bring a few cups of water to a boil, or enough to fully submerge your materials. Now, add a bit of dye, and a few tablespoons of vinegar (the vinegar sets the dye). You don’t need much dye, literally 1/16 of a teaspoon or so. Some colors are stronger than others, and you’ll figure this out as you go. If you’re colors aren’t as vibrant as you’d like, you can always add more.
Step 3: Once the water is boiling, add your materials. Be sure to keep the materials submerged, and stir around a lot so that they dye distributes evenly. If dying fur or feathers that are on a hide, don’t boil for too long! More than five minutes and you’ll risk disintegrating the skin. Not cool.
Step 4: Remove the materials from the dye bath, and rinse under hot water. Now, in a large bowl add some synthrapol and hot water, and wash the materials until all the excess dye comes out. Rinse under fresh water, drain, and set on a towel to dry.
Step 5: If you’re impatient and want to use your feathers right away, grab your girlfriend’s blow dryer to quickly dry things out. She’s already pissed at you for getting dye and animal skin all over the kitchen, so things can’t get much worse for you at this point.
To date, I’ve had great luck dying Arctic Fox tail, Jungle Cock flank (pictured above), Guinea Hen flank (pictured above) and Golden Pheasant crest/tippets. Marabou and Rabbit would be obvious materials as well. Rather than spend $3 on a little pack of rabbit, buy the hide for $10 and dye and slice your own bunny leech strips.
The Bonneville Power Administration is planning for a massive increase in hatchery production on Washington’s Klickitat River. This would include the construction of a new hatchery at Wachkiacus (river mile 16) and an acclimation facility at RM 70.
This is deplorable.
The Klickitat is one of few undammed rivers in the Columbia Basin, and still supports decent runs of wild fish. Doubling the hatchery production on this river is the exact wrong approach, and will impose serious harm to the ESA listed steelhead and chinook.
The BPA is hosting a meeting in Lyle (65 miles from Portland) on Wednesday, August 10th from 5:30pm to 8:30pm. Myself and some others from the NFS will be attending and voicing our concerns. If you can, please show up, and voice your support for the wild fish in this amazing river. I plan to be leaving Portland at 4:45 pm if you’d like to hitch a ride, just leave a comment and I’ll get in touch.
If you can’t attend, at least write the BPA in opposition to this horrible plan. COMMENT! You can learn more at the Osprey.
Doing nothing will ensure that this new hatchery is built, and that the Klick as we know it will be placed in great danger.
Will Atlas, Kurt Beardslee and Rich Simms have penned an OpEd in the Seattle Times on the forthcoming shitmess stemming from the Elwha Dam removal.
Each year, Washington state releases hundreds of millions of juvenile salmon and steelhead from hatcheries to supplement sport and commercial fisheries. These releases are known to be harmful to wild stocks: interbreeding with wild fish, altering their genetic makeup and reducing the survival of their offspring; competing for space and resources; introducing disease; attracting predators; encouraging overfishing, to cite just a few deleterious impacts. Countless researchers have confirmed that hatchery programs are incompatible with healthy, abundant wild salmon and steelhead.
The stated goal of the Elwha River dam removal is to restore healthy populations of wild salmon and steelhead to the watershed. Yet despite an overwhelming body of evidence confirming the harmful impacts of hatcheries, state, federal and tribal governments have agreed upon a plan that relies heavily on hatchery supplementation. Faced with the single greatest opportunity to restore wild salmon, they’ve opted for business as usual, perpetuating a failing paradigm of replacing native fish with a man-made alternative.
We’ve seen this same thing play out here in Oregon on the Sandy River, however the situation is even more galling on the Elwha. Unlike the Sandy, fish have been unable to pass the Elwha dam in a century, and have been isolated to the bottom 10 or so miles. Moreover, the habitat above the Elwha dam is encompassed by the Olympic National Park, and is some of the finest - if not the finest - salmon and steelhead spawning habitat in the Lower 48. It has been untouched by logging, agriculture, and development for 100 years, and it will soon be teeming with hatchery fish.
We have an opportunity to rebuild an amazing river, but for the WDFW it’s just business as usual - cater to commercial, sport, and tribal fishing interests with the well-being of our fish riding in the backseat.
Barring two trout trips, I took most of April and May off from fishing, waiting for the steelhead to start pushing up the Columbia basin. I went out two weekends ago and with very few fish coming over the dams, didn’t have high hopes. But within just a few hours my hopes were lifted. I was only into the fish for about two seconds before he tore off downstream in the swollen river, opening up my #8 Tiemco 7999. Lesson #1 - a few hundred fish a day coming over the dams is enough. Lesson #2 - don’t use 7999s.
This past weekend I was back at it, armed with an armada of #9 Alec Jackson steelhead irons. From the exact same lie as the previous fish came a hatchery fish of about seven pounds. I’d say the summer’s off to a good start. And while the numbers of fish aren’t yet jaw dropping, the lack of angling pressure certainly is - in 3 days of fishing I’ve seen one other bank fisherman and just a handful of boats. A nice respite from what we’ll be working with in another month.
