The Quest For The Golden Trout

The angler's dream of fishing pristine waters in unspoiled country for sleek, healthy trout has turned fishing into a form of theater. It is a manufactured experienceÑmuch to the detriment of our rivers and streams. AmericansÕ love of trout has reached a level of fervor that borders on the religious. Federal and state agencies, as well as nongovernmental lobbying groups, invest billions of dollars on river restoration projects and fish-stocking programs. Yet, their decisions are based on faulty logic and risk destroying species they are tasked with protecting. River ecosystems are modified with engineered structures to improve fishing, native species that compete with trout are eradicated, and nonnative invasive game fish are indiscriminately introduced, genetically modified, and selectively bred to produce more appealing targets for anglersÑincluding the freakishly contrived "golden trout." The Quest for the Golden Trout is about looking at our nationÕs rivers with a more critical eyeÑand asking more questions about both historic and current practices in fisheries management.

The angler's dream of fishing pristine waters in unspoiled country for sleek, healthy trout has turned fishing into a form of theater. It is a manufactured experienceÑmuch to the detriment of our rivers and streams. AmericansÕ love of trout has reached a level of fervor that borders on the religious. Federal and state agencies, as well as nongovernmental lobbying groups, invest billions of dollars on river restoration projects and fish-stocking programs. Yet, their decisions are based on faulty logic and risk destroying species they are tasked with protecting. River ecosystems are modified with engineered structures to improve fishing, native species that compete with trout are eradicated, and nonnative invasive game fish are indiscriminately introduced, genetically modified, and selectively bred to produce more appealing targets for anglersÑincluding the freakishly contrived "golden trout." The Quest for the Golden Trout is about looking at our nationÕs rivers with a more critical eyeÑand asking more questions about both historic and current practices in fisheries management.

Do you like fishing secluded, flowing streams that involve hiking and climbing waterfalls to catch native fish? Fly fishing for redeye bass is similar to fly fishing mountain streams for native brook trout. They are actually referred to as "The Brook Trout of Alabama." Fly Fishing for Redeye Bass is a complete book on redeye bass and how to catch these beautiful fish throughout the picturesque of the southeastern United States. Learn about the rivers they call home, the dangers that threaten those waters, and why some species of redeye bass need our immediate help. Understand how to read water and locate optimum redeye bass habitat, what food they eat, and how to best imitate that food with flies. After reading, you will have a firm understanding of why they are the perfect fish for the adventurous fly fisherman.

Mist on the River chronicles a search for wild steelhead salmon in the remaining wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. As he says in the prologue to his book, Michael Checchio likes his fly-fishing on big western rivers where there are lots of mountains to look at, and where the steelhead don't come out of a hatchery but are born as nature intended, in the cold gravel of a clean stream. He finds all this and more up in British Columbia on his search for some of the last great runs of wild steelhead left on earth. Steelhead, the great sea-run rainbow trout of the Pacific Northwest, have long been sought by fly-fishermen. To Checchio, they have become a powerful symbol for the last of the wild in the Pacific Northwest and are to the Northwest what lions are to the Serengeti. And like their cousins, the salmon, they are among the species of fish most threatened by the modern world. A passionate fly-fisherman, Checchio discovered steelhead when he moved to the West Coast a little more than a decade ago. Fishing for ever diminishing returns of these magnificent fish in the rivers of northern California and Oregon, he dreamed of faraway waters in Alaska and Kamchatka, where he might find the last strongholds of wild steelhead remaining on the planet. Finally, he was able to take a dream vacation north to experience for the first time the steelhead Valhalla awaiting the fly-fisherman in British Columbia. Michael Checchio has been praised by the fishing community as a passionate writer on the plight of the great outdoors and the steelhead trout. But this book is not written just for the fly-fishing fraternity, but rather to the general reader who has a love of nature and the outdoors, and a deep interest in the fate of wildlife and the future of the environment. Checchio's personal steelhead journey leads him on a quest toward rivers and landscapes ever more pristine and wild, providing illuminating sights and thoughts along the way.

From the Arctic to Bristol Bay, this book covers all the fabulous fishing opportunities throughout Alaska. With this resource, anglers can fly into Anchorage, rent a camper, and be catching trophy salmon and trout within hours of arrival. Includes 109 detailed river and lake maps--a big book for a big state.

The Trout Diaries contains a wealth of captivating and often amusing anecdotes as well as valuable information making it a true angler's companion, both literary and practical.

As heard on NPR's This American Life “Absorbing . . . Though it's non-fiction, The Feather Thief contains many of the elements of a classic thriller.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air “One of the most peculiar and memorable true-crime books ever.” —Christian Science Monitor A rollicking true-crime adventure and a captivating journey into an underground world of fanatical fly-tiers and plume peddlers, for readers of The Stranger in the Woods, The Lost City of Z, and The Orchid Thief. On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London's Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin's obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins—some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin's, Alfred Russel Wallace, who'd risked everything to gather them—and escaped into the darkness. Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man's relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man's destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature.

This guide answers every angler’s questions about stocking schedules, fish abundance, precise location coordinates, elevation, surface area, and maximum depth for more than 1,000 lakes and streams in the magnificent Beartooth and Absaroka Mountains on the Montana-Wyoming border. Many of these waters teem with colorful fish; others are barren. Some are easily accessible; others are tough to find. This book gives clear descriptions of trails, distances, landmarks, terrain, and even availability of firewood. Each page is enriched with first-hand descriptions, advice, humor, and knowledge of the area’s history, including the Crazy Mountains.