Students and Frederick County TIC coordinator Chuck Dinkel study insects found in the stream.

Students participating in TU’s Trout in the Classroom program in Frederick County, Maryland, recently planted trees along Big Hunting Creek in Catoctin Mountain Park. Anglers know Big Hunting Creek for its impressive wild brown trout population, a favorite of locals and American presidents. (Camp David is surrounded by Catoctin Mountain Park.)

The planting was paid for by Governor O’Malley’s Stream Restoration Challenge.  TU was one of the first organizations to receive a grant through the new program, which strives to improve local water quality, restore the Chesapeake Bay and increase environmental literacy through service learning projects.

TU recruited volunteers from four schools participating in TIC that were also close to the planting site.  50 students and parents helped over two days.  In addition to planting trees, students spent some time identifying aquatic macroinvertebrates gathered in the creek using leaf packs.

It was amazing to see how TIC turned on light bulbs for these students.  From their work in the classroom, all of them knew the recipe for trout survival—cold, clean water.  Outside the classroom, it was easy for them to connect how streamside forests help create the conditions for trout to survive in their natural environment.

–Kevin Anderson, Chesapeake Bay Land Protection Coordinator

Fishing the Bitterroot River

by Heather Whiteley

On an early July morning last year I woke up in a tent pitched next to the West Fork of the Bitterroot River, near Darby, Montana. This beautiful stretch of broadly flowing water boasts some of the best cutthroat and rainbow trout fishing and averages around 5,500 angling days a year. Unable to resist the temptation, I grabbed my fly rod and made a few casts.

I wasn’t there to fish, however, so I soon turned my attention to breakfast.

After I had cooked up scrambled eggs and finished my coffee, my neighbors stepped out of their RV to assess the day. They eyed me narrowly as I pulled together my field gear and packed rebar survey stakes, measuring tape, and pvc pipe into the bed of my pickup. What, they may have wondered, was a woman—a very small woman—doing camping alone, especially when she was so obviously pregnant?

The answer is mud—mud in streams. More politely known as sediment. Protecting the Bitterroot watershed for trout means removing negative impacts and currently, that impact is sediment. It’s true that sediment, largely caused by erosion, occurs naturally in a watershed within an undisturbed landscape. However, too much sediment can cover gravel areas and fill in pools, degrading habitats for both fish and insects.

Forest roads: a major source of sediment in rivers

A primary source of excess sediment is the countless roads and trails that crisscross the landscape. The U.S. Forest Service is the largest landowner in the headwaters of the Bitterroot, and years of logging have left many miles of roads that are now abandoned and are actively eroding. Erosion harms twice—first by removing soil from a site and second, by depositing it on top of better soils or as mud in streams. So you can see that proper management of roads and trails is key to repairing damage to forested watersheds. That’s why I was camping beside the Bitterroot last July. I’m in the road monitoring and removal business. When the Forest Service no longer needs designated logging roads and is willing to go through the public process to remove them, Trout Unlimited will provide on-the-ground support, from monitoring sediment impacts to managing the contractors that operate the heavy equipment. With my survey stakes and tape measure, I set up permanent monitoring areas (called transects) to measure vegetation establishment over time on roads slated for removal.  In this way I can slowly measure nature reclaiming the land and determine how effective our actions have been in reducing erosion.

Although I’m still waiting for results to come in, one thing I do know from my experience, sometime it’s easier to take a road than a trout!

Heather Whiteley is a projects manager in TU’s Watersheds program. 

Lahontan trout: ancient survivors

by Mike Caltagirone

It’s likely that the reason Nevada doesn’t leap to mind when the subject of trout fishing is brought up is because it’s a desert, a big desert.  At least that’s the way it’s perceived. The southernmost third of the state is certainly desert. Las Vegas is sitting in the middle of it–but surrounded by some rather high peaks.  The middle of the state is a little different.  It’s mostly Basin and Range topography, which is not to say that there isn’t a whole lot of desert.  It’s just that the traditional desert areas are valleys between mountain ranges that can reach quite high.  Driving west to east (or east to west) through the middle of the state is breathtakingly beautiful and mind-blowingly vast.  Interstate 50 is called the Loneliest Road in America.  They aren’t kidding.  But it really is spectacular.

The northern third of the state is different still.  It’s still very dry and can be quite hot in the summer.  But it’s also full of farms and ranches.  Agriculture is a big part of all of Nevada but it is even more significant in northern and western Nevada.  Large irrigated stretches turn desert into farms and ranches that help feed America.

All of these amazing places were really unknown and unconsidered until around 1859, when the Comstock Lode was discovered in Virginia City, Nevada, just outside Carson City.  That discovery sparked the silver rush into western Nevada, with over 17,000 people making their way to western Nevada that year with dreams of striking it rich.  And with the thousands of prospective miners out to dig up their fortunes came the need to feed these same folks.  The Sierra Nevada range runs like a wall down the western side of the Carson and Washoe Valleys on the border between Nevada and California.  It takes a little bit of effort to cross them today; back then it was a serious, time-consuming endeavor.  So food had to be found on the eastern side of the Sierra to support the mining efforts or the silver rush would starve itself out.

Fortunately about 15 years earlier, explorer John C. Fremont came through the area and happened upon a very large lake about 60 miles north of Virginia City. Pyramid Lake is roughly the same size as Lake Tahoe and was named for the large pyramid-shaped tufa formation on the eastern shore.  It is a remnant of the vast Lake Lahontan that stretched over most of northwestern Nevada during the Pleistocene.  And while all this is interesting and beautiful to see, it was the inhabitants of the lake that really put the kick in the tail of the mining boom.

Pyramid Lake is the ancestral home of the world’s largest cutthroat trout.  The Lahontan cutthroat trout (LCT) inhabited ancient Lake Lahontan and as it receded they also retracted into small isolated watersheds throughout the basin….and Pyramid Lake.   And they proceeded to thrive in Pyramid Lake.  Fremont documented catching some enormous fish and feeding his men well.  So when the rush of miners came to the area, they ate trout.  They ate a LOT of trout.  The commercial fishing on Pyramid Lake was efficient and effective.  Some estimates state that up to 1 million pounds of LCT were taken from Pyramid Lake and nearby Walker Lake every year during the boom.

Eventually the boom died out.  But western Nevada had been discovered, and the taste for Lahontan cutthroat trout had been developed.  The majority of the remaining fish were netted and shipped to San Francisco in the following years.  The rest of these majestic, mammoth fish died out when poor irrigation planning cut off the Truckee River, their historic spawning grounds, and left them high and dry.  Since then, the amazing fish of Pyramid Lake have been sustained through an effective breeding and stocking program maintained mostly by the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe with some help from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.  But naturally reproducing populations haven’t been seen in the area since the early 20^th century.

The impact of mining on LCT didn’t really stop with the collapse of the silver boom, however.  Thousands of abandoned mines dot the Nevada landscape with piles of waste rock leaching heavy metals and poisons into adjacent creeks, streams and rivers.  The surface openings of mine shafts, called adits, can leak acidic waters into nearby streams as well, creating conditions that are not conducive to thriving fish populations.  These impacts are on a much smaller scale than the elimination of the Pyramid Lake population, but the LCT are also on a much smaller scale habitat-wise.  Mining leftovers are impacting small creeks and streams but small creeks and streams are the only place left for LCT to prosper.  There is no longer a single grand move that can be made to restore and protect these amazing fish.  What’s left for us is a series of incremental steps that build upon each other with the ultimate goal of producing habitat that will service self-sustaining populations of Lahontan trout.

Trout Unlimited’s Lahontan Keystone Initiative and Nevada Western Abandoned Mines project are taking these steps to restore, preserve and protect this iconic fish.

Mike Caltagirone is TU’s Nevada Abandoned Mines Project Manager. 

A Weber River Bonnie

by Paul Burnett

One of the greatest rewards in conservation work includes engaging the anglers in research and on-the-ground restoration.  By being involved in these projects, we as anglers come away with a renewed sense of ownership and a deeper connection to the home watersheds where we live, work, and play.  Recently TU staff partnered with the Weber Basin Anglers and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources to sample Bonneville cutthroat trout in the Weber River by deploying an age-old sampling tactic–hook and line sampling.  Our goals were to catch as many cutthroat trout as possible, record their geographic location and insert Passive Integrated Transponder Tags, also known as PIT tags, which are similar to the unique tags used by vets in identifying pets.  Equally important was to get people out, enjoying the resource and a beautiful late winter day.

The cutthroat trout in the Weber River tell an amazing story of perseverance.  Cutthroat trout that live in the mainstem rivers are known as fluvial cutthroat and are similar to salmon in that need to move potentially large distances between mainstem habitats and tributaries to complete their life cycle.  And this connectivity provides escape routes from events like hot summers, fires and floods. The fluvial cutthroat trout are important for maintaining biodiversity and they also get very large, sometimes exceeding 20 inches in length.  Like most river basins, habitat has become more and more chopped up or fragmented over time, as irrigation diversions, dams and roads have been constructed within the watershed and these large cutthroat trout have all but disappeared.

In the Weber River, TU is partnering with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah State University, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, NFWF and a whole host of private landowners and water users to restore critical connections between the Weber River mainstem habitat and its tributaries.  We are using data collected from these fish to help us understand where fish are moving and what the priority areas and actions should be.

Fishing for research: someone has to do it. . .

Thankfully a few of these cutthroat trout have persevered and still persist in the Weber River.  The opportunity to merge research and angling generated a lot of interest from the press and allowed us to tell the story of our cooperative work and these amazing fish to a broader audience.  Unfortunately, the water ended up being turbid from snowmelt, and fishing was slow.  Nevertheless, 22 anglers participated in this project, which turned out to be a great opportunity for volunteers and fisheries professionals to interact and enjoy something we are all mutually passionate about.  Fishing.

Paul Burnett is TU’s Weber River Home Rivers Coordinator. 

Hillary and one of her rainbows

by Nick Walrath

I sit in my office on a cold April afternoon in southwest Wyoming, watching my dog sleep by the door. He is soaking up the last of the sun and making sure he is the first to inspect any intruders. As a German shepherd, he would tell you that’s “his job.”  My mind wanders to a warm fall float on the Green River. Last year, my wife Hillary and I floated the river through the town of Green River, Wyoming, many times, often hooking some great fish. On this particular float, Hillary said she wanted to improve her rowing skills and row all day. I know every guy probably thinks they are lucky, but after my wife said that, I felt that I was the luckiest. With Hillary at the sticks and me fishing all day, it had the makings of a great day on the water.

It was a gorgeous early fall afternoon with no wind. Kokanee from Flaming Gorge were on their annual spawning run up the Green River and the big rainbows and browns were on full feed. With the kokanee excavating their redds, the water was loaded with protein rich kokanee eggs and other tidbits.  As the day went on, I boated a few small fish here and there, saw hundreds, if not thousands, of kokanee. Best of all, I got to fish and Hillary was having a great time at the oars. I was thinking… this could really work out, her rowing and me fishing.

In the last 400 yards of the float, the dream of my wonderful wife rowing me down the river changed. Hillary said, “O.K. I’m ready to catch a big fish.” Being content, and thankful that I have a wife who likes to row, I quickly traded her spots and she began to fish.

I rowed the boat to the head of an island near a really nice run.  On her second cast of the day, 400 yards from the boat ramp that was the end of the float, the fishing gods were smiling on her as she hooked a big fat rainbow. As the fish fought, I rowed the boat near the shore and pulled out the net. Hillary’s excitement was building as she was realizing this was the biggest fish she has ever hooked with a fly rod.  After a few minutes of tug of war we managed to get the bruiser in the net. It was great to see my wife, whose first time fly fishing was on one of our first dates, so excited about catching a big fish.

With the last fish still burned in our minds, we floated around the bend to the boat ramp. Within minutes after the last fish, she had another big fat rainbow pulling line off her reel. It was deja vu as the big fish fought and she realized this fish could be bigger than the fish she had just caught. We landed the fish and smiled at each other, what a day!

That afternoon I watched a magnificent dream take shape: my wife rowing me down the river while I fished. Then it faded away in less than a quarter mile of river and half a dozen casts.  Although my wife will still row after that day, it’s a little harder to get her out of the front of the boat. We can all remember that one (or two in this case) fish that started our obsession.  The “one more cast syndrome.”

I just wish it would have been a few years later for my wife. . . .What could have been?

Nick Walrath is the Green River Project Manager for Trout Unlimited’s Wyoming Water Project. He lives with his wife and German shepherd in Green River, Wyoming. 

Fraser River: protect it, Denver Water

American Rivers today announced its annual list of Most Endangered Rivers, and No. 1 on the list was the Colorado River.  From source to sea, the once-mighty Colorado has been hammered and depleted by diversions, outdated water management, and drought.

That’s the bad news. As American Rivers points out, the good news is that better water management and collaboration can go a long way toward keeping the Colorado healthy and protecting the magnificent fisheries found along much of the river.

A prime example is what’s happening on the Fraser River, a key tributary of the Upper Colorado near the headwaters.  Denver Water has been taking some 60 percent of the flows of Fraser for urban water supply (about half of that goes to outdoor landscaping), and they now have a proposal to expand their Moffat pipeline to take 15 percent more of flows.

Trout Unlimited has been working for years to persuade Denver Water to add more river protections into the project–but so far, DW hasn’t agreed to provide for healthy flows and fish.  Here’s where you come in: Tell Denver Water that you care. That could make a real difference in persuading Denver Water that they need to go above and beyond to protect the river, an irreplaceable resource that sustains not only fish and wildlife but vibrant mountain communities and a booming recreation economy.

Sign this petition calling on Denver Water to step up and finish the job of protecting the Fraser River–we’re up to 2,500 signatures and counting.  It’s one way you can make a difference and help take the Colorado and its tributaries off the endangered list.

View of San Luis Valley: a vast landscape

by Jason Willis

I moved out to Colorado from the Pittsburgh area about a year and a half ago to work for Trout Unlimited as a contractor on the Kerber Creek Restoration Project.  Fresh out of graduate school, I was eager to work and experience what Colorado had to offer. Kerber Creek is located in Saguache County, Colorado, and flows through the towns of Bonanza and Villa Grove before its confluence with San Luis Creek.  The watershed is part of the northern San Luis Valley, which is one of the highest alpine valleys in the United States.  For those of you who have visited “The Valley,” I do not need to explain the vast emptiness that exists there.  It is a beautiful thing, but also a shocking experience coming from city life in Pittsburgh the previous 5 years.

The Kerber Creek Watershed is within the Bonanza Mining District, where hard rock mining occurred from the late 1880s to 1970s. Hundreds of thousands of tons of mine waste containing copper, cadmium, and zinc produced. By the end of the mining boom, nearly 200 acres of mine tailings lay along 19 miles of stream.

Local Arkansas River trout

Needless to say, there was an extraordinary amount of work to be done upon my arrival.  After my initial watershed tour during my first day, I felt a little bit overwhelmed at the amount of work to be done.  However, I quickly found out that the project has an incredible interagency partnership called the Bonanza Stakeholder’s Group (BSG), which has an infinite amount of knowledge.  Trout Unlimited is part of this group consisting of 20 local landowners, Colorado’s Nonpoint Source Program, Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, US National Resource Conservation Service, AmeriCorps/VISTA, Collegiate Peaks Chapter of Trout Unlimited, the Colorado Water Conservation Board, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, and Saguache County Sustainable Environment and Economic Developments.  By working with this group, I quickly picked up on terminology and pertinent restoration practices used in the area.  Within nine months of being on the job, I had assessed the soil chemistry of mine wastes at several sites, assisted in the layout of in-stream structures, oversaw construction activities at three private landowner sites, helped complete request for proposals (RFP) and grant reports, and completed a three-phase design approach for the largest landowner in the watershed.  But of all the functions of my job, the most fulfilling part is seeing a project through from start to finish.  It only took five short months to assist in submitting an RFP, selecting and mobilizing a contractor, and completing the project work.  Being out in the field and providing construction oversight during the process really makes you appreciate the hard work put into the project by all parties involved.  This project would not be possible if not for the cooperation of the BSG.

Eroded streambank: Before

Since Trout Unlimited’s involvement in 2008, 6.5 miles of stream have been improved, 53-plus acres of mine waste have been treated, 289 in-stream structures have been installed, and 4,000 feet of stream bank have been restored.  After being awarded a second 319 Nonpoint Source grant, project work will continue for at least another three years in the watershed, with a minimum of 2,500 feet of stream and 20 acres of mine waste restoration scheduled for the 2013 field season.

Eroded bank: After

The Kerber Creek Restoration Project provides an excellent opportunity for on-the-ground restoration that meets Trout Unlimited’s mission to conserve, protect, and restore North America’s trout fisheries and their watersheds.

I look forward to continuing my efforts in assisting the Kerber Creek Restoration Project, as well as expanding TU’s mission to other watersheds in Colorado adversely affected by legacy hardrock mining.  Here’s to improving the water quality of our local fisheries–tight lines to all!

Jason Willis is TU’s Mine Restoration Field Coordinator based in Salida, Colorado. 

Some hard-working youth from the Local Conservation Corps crew takes a break from clearing arundo and other brush from around the ponds.

The restoration of California’s San Joaquin River is about more than bringing back salmon and improving water management for agriculture. A living river provides many opportunities for families to fish, recreate and connect with the outdoors. Revitalizing the river also means revitalizing local communities and economies with jobs related to restoration projects and outdoor recreation. The Sycamore Island Trout and Bass Derby is the first in what TU hopes will be a long line of great opportunities to get outside, drop a line in the water, and celebrate a vibrant San Joaquin River

The San Joaquin River is coming back to life! In celebration of a river in recovery, and in anticipation of the opening of the 2013 general Trout Season in California, the San Joaquin River Parkway Conservation Trust, the San Joaquin River Conservancy, and the CA Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) have teamed up with Trout Unlimited and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to sponsor the first annual Sycamore Island Fishing Derby, Saturday April 13th, 2013.

This pond is bass only. The Trout Fishing sign points to Pond #2, which will be stocked with 3,500 pounds of trout for the derby, including "trophy-sized" trout.

The multi-pronged, collaborative effort to restore the San Joaquin River is delivering a wide range of benefits to the public. These include the development and expansion of the San Joaquin River Parkway, the San Joaquin River Restoration Program, the San Joaquin River Blueway, and the development and improvement of new locations for fishing and other recreation on and around the river. These benefits promise a healthier and more vibrant river – and local community.

Sycamore Island, located along the north side of the San Joaquin River just two miles west of Highway 41 north of Fresno, is operated by the San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust and is open to the public for fishing and recreation on Fridays, weekends, and state holidays from February through mid-November.

The Fishing Derby will be a public event, allowing participants of all ages to compete for various prizes for catches of either trout or bass from three designated Sycamore Island ponds. The Derby will include a separate category and prizes for young anglers. The California Department of Fish & Wildlife, which regularly stocks trout in one pond at Sycamore Island during the winter months, will stock 3500 pounds of catchable-size trout, as well as a number of “trophy-size” trout, for the Fishing Derby. Some stocked trout will be outfitted with a “Golden Ticket” tag redeemable for special prizes.

Prizes will be awarded for both trout and bass categories, and will include several annual fishing licenses for 2014 as well as a grand prize of a California Lifetime Fishing License to one lucky Derby entrant.

The Fresno Local Conservation Corps did an excellent job of clearing weeds and brush from around the ponds, helping to make fishing more accessible to all.

There is no charge to enter the Fishing Derby. Participants will simply pay the regular Sycamore Island Day use fee of $9 per vehicle and $5 per trailered boat.

Registration for the Derby will begin at 6:30 a.m. the morning of the April 13th. The Derby will be held from 8 am until noon with an awards ceremony to follow. Anglers are responsible for providing their own fishing gear, and a bucket to transport their catch live to the judges. All participants are encouraged to bring a picnic lunch to eat during the awards ceremony. This event is alcohol free.

For more information contact: Dave Koehler, (559) 978-1294, dkoehler@riverparkway.org

By Rob Masonis

I never imagined that 4-inch grey cores composed of cement and aggregate could be so highly prized.

But these particular cores – which were part of a dam on the Elwha River blocking some of the best salmon and steelhead habitat in the United States for 100 years—were snapped-up quickly by attendees of Trout Unlimited’s annual gathering of its western grassroots leaders in Spokane this past Saturday.

The dam is now gone and salmon and steelhead are now reclaiming the habitat from which they had been excluded for a century.

The story of the massive Elwha River restoration effort has received significant media coverage since the dam removal commenced in September 2011. But I want to briefly share another story about the man who drove the core samples from Seattle to Spokane in the back of his Chevy pick-up—Bill Robinson.  Bill has been a TU member since the 1970s, and for 25 years invested time and energy to restore the Elwha River to its free-flowing state.

While Bill’s tireless advocacy took many forms over the years, probably his greatest work was convening a local citizen advisory council in the 1990s with another TU member, Joe Mentor. Bill and Joe formed the council and invited local participation because they believed that local buy-in was critical if the Elwha and its magnificent salmon and steelhead were to be restored.

And they were right. After the local citizens’ council was presented with the facts and diverse perspectives, they came out in support of restoring the Elwha to its free-flowing state and allowing salmon and steelhead to recolonize the basin. The politicians then quickly fell in line and the path to dam removal was cleared. Today, engaging local citizens in conservation decisions that directly affect their lives is how we do business at TU.

So here’s to you, Mr. Robinson, for demonstrating both the importance of grassroots advocacy and the power of local engagement in conservation decisions. The salmon and steelhead that, today, are spawning in habitat in the Elwha basin for the first time in 100 years are a tribute to your vision and persistence. And the coming generations of anglers who will get the chance to pursue them will forever be in your debt.

Rob Masonis is the vice president for Western Conservation at Trout Unlimited.