It's like Field of Dreams," he added. As in, build it, and they will come. Or in this case, un-build it.

Photo: John McMillan

More on that 35 inch male steelhead spotted by biologist John McMillan and collegue Ray Moses on the Elwha.

The gray ghosts of the Elwha are back: wild steelhead, already spotted beyond the free flowing stretch of river that used to be Elwha Dam, for the first time in a century.

"We saw this really large fish, we hadn't tagged anything like it, it was also in better condition than all the other fish," McMillan said. "We could only conclude it had made it up there on its own.

LINK (via: The Seattle Times)

Another Defeat for Suction Dredge Mining

Suction dredge mining foes are celebrating the news that an addition to the California budget bill will  extend indefinitely a moratorium on the controversial practice.

The recent budget action is the latest in a string of defeats for so-called recreational mining. Backed by key state legislators, opponents of dredging have prevented suction dredges from operating in California waters since December 2006.

LINK (via: Klamblog)

Sonoma and Medocino County Whine

Scores of Sonoma and Mendocino county grape growers and other farmers packed a Mendocino County Superior Court room Thursday for a lawsuit challenging state frost protection rules for stretches of the Russian River watershed.

Regulators say the rules are necessary to protect salmon and steelhead, the latter a threatened species. Farmers and their attorneys say the regulations are unneeded, trample farmers' water rights and exceed the state Water Resources Control Board's authority.

LINK (via: the press democrat)

New life emerges as Elwha dams come down

A WILD steelhead sighting on the Elwha above the old Elwha dam site. 

Scientists last week discovered the first wild, adult male steelhead — at least 35 inches long — arriving to spawn in the Little River, a tributary upstream from the old Elwha Dam site, where the river now flows free.

LINK (via: The Seattle Times)

If it was not for the efforts of the Wild Steelhead Coalition, the Conservation Angler and the Federation of Fly Fishers Steelhead Committee that wild fish would be getting busy with Chambers Creek hatchery stock.

A Fish Story

How an angler and two government bureaucrats may have saved the Atlantic Ocean.

LINK (via: The Washington Monthly)

Editor of Angling Trade catches bizarre "Frankenfish".....

........commenters not impressed.