Sandy River Steelhead Need Your Help

Over the past decade, The City of Portland, PGE, Western Rivers Conservancy and The Freshwater Trust and dozens of other groups have spent over $75 million towards Sandy River habitat restoration for the purpose of recovering wild fish.  Throughout this restoration, the ODFW has made no attempt at reigning in their harmful Sandy hatchery programs, imperiling our wild fish.

In just a few minutes, you can help the cause by sounding off here

Read more about this in its entirety at Whitefish Can't Jump

Lawsuit filed over Russian River gravel mining

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors has elected to approve the withdrawal of up to 350,000 tons of gravel from the Russian River every year for a period of 15 years.

Russian Riverkeeper and the Redwood Empire chapter of Trout Unlimited have now filed a lawsuit alleging the level of mining proposed by will harm the river, its beleaguered salmon and steelhead populations and riverside landowners.

LINK (Via: The Press Democrat)

The project’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR) says that a truck route will be built along the riverbank, complete with several bridges, to transport the gravel from 15 mining sites along a 6.5 mile stretch of the river. Trucks would join public roads at Geyserville en route to the Syar processing plant on Healdsburg Avenue in Healdsburg. Up to 480 truck trips per day are envisaged.

LINK (Via:The Sonoma County Gazette)

Judge Orders Grazing Halted on Quarter Million Acres to Protect Steelhead

Some good news for steelhead out of Oregon.

Federal judge Ancer Haggerty has barred livestock grazing harmful to endangered steelhead. Haggerty ordered the U.S. Forest Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to reconsider the effects of the federal agencies' grazing plan on native steelhead streams before grazing can resume.

The Malheur National Forest is located in eastern Oregon's Blue Mountains. It includes portions of the Upper John Day, Middle Fork John Day, North Fork John Day and Malheur rivers. The 281-mile long John Day River is the second longest undammed river in the continental United States.

LINK (Via: YubaNet)

The World's Sweetest Flask

For the last couple of years we've been sipping some of the best brown water Kentucky has to offer from this hand crafted flask by Rachel Finn.

Not only is the flask a work of art, those are hand glued feathers adorning the exterior, but we kick ass every time it's with us on the river....as these images from last week on the OP will attest.

preOCCUPATIONS - a series about people who do what they love

Matt Stoecker is a conservation biologist working to restore steelhead trout in the Ventura/Santa Barbara region of California.

preOCCUPATIONS is a collaboration between Patagonia surf ambassador and film director Chris Malloy and filmmaker Jason Baffa. Look for more episodes coming soon.

A Steelhead Family

This is an excerpt from Andrew Hardingham's short film "A Steelhead Family" about Bob Clay, his Wife Kathy and their kids Jed, Kateri, and Kaili.