The American Museum of Fly Fishing

After Irene:  Assessing Our Streams Saturday, October 22 2:00 p.m. When seemingly small streams become raging rivers, fish and other inhabitants have to fight their own battle to survive the rushing water, increasing amount of silt, and after effects of a depleted food source as insect nymphs are washed downstream.   Join fish biologist, Ken Cox, from the Vermont Fish & Wildlife as he talks about the damage done to our local rivers from Tropical Storm Irene and all of the work that is being done to protect and rebuild the wildlife habitat.

Annual Membership Meeting

Saturday, October 22 9:15a.m. The annual members meeting will be held at the Orvis Fly Fishing school at 9:15 am on Saturday, October 22.  Join us that evening for a celebratory dinner at the Wilburton Inn.  Here you'll enjoy fine wines, a gourmet dinner, and good company among your fellow anglers and members!  For more details and to make a reservation, contact Kim Murphy.

A Graceful Rise Exhibition Catalog The museum is pleased to announce that funds have been secured to publish an exhibition catalog to complement our current exhibition, A Graceful Rise: Women in Fly Fishing Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. The catalog will include the profiles of each of the women as well as some of the images and personal artifacts on display in our gallery. We hope to have these available by early December for your holiday shopping.  Check our website for details.

Improvements Continue Around our Casting Pond

After a site review by the Natural Resources Conservation Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we were approved for funds to remove the invasive plants along the banks of the back stream (which eventually deposits into the Battenkill). Over the three-year grant period, this will enable wildlife to again use these natural resources for subsistence. This past fall, the low-growth bushes were removed, and the overgrown weeds in the yard were trimmed and maintained. Most of the fish that were restocked in fall 2010 survived the winter weather and the high waters brought about by Tropical Storm Irene. As always, the public is en- couraged to cast a line or two in the pond (and to practice catch-and-release so others can enjoy!).

ABOUT THE AMFF

The American Museum of Fly Fishing promotes an understanding of and appreciation for the history, traditions, and practitioners of the sport of fly fishing.  It collects, preserves, exhibits, studies, and interprets the artifacts, art, and literature of the sport and uses these resources to engage and benefit everyone.

Fly-Fishing: Suspending laws allowed damage to trout streams

 

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Morgan Lyle

A crew uses heavy machinery to scoop out the bed in Styles Brook in the town of Keene late last month. -(AP)

 

By now, most of us who spend a lot of time hanging around creeks have heard about the so-called emergency repairs done to protected trout streams in the Catskills and the Adirondacks in the wake of Tropical Storms Irene and Lee.

Numerous environmental groups, including the New York State Council of Trout Unlimited, have lodged protests with Gov. Andrew Cuomo for issuing a month-long blanket exemption from stream protection laws — an “emergency authoriz­ation” that was supposed to cover only imminent threats to life, property, etc.

Local governments and property owners appear to have taken the emergency authorization as a green light to go in and bulldoze, without penalty, streams they’ve wanted to bulldoze for years. The result has left streams all over eastern New York scraped flat and smooth, with sloping sides, like irrigation ditches, and local officials demanding the emergency auth­orization be extended so they can continue bulldozing.

This kind of work obviously

ruins trout habitat. But channelizing streams also makes them more dangerous, not less. Removing the boulders and contours — the “roughness” of the streambed — serves to accelerate water.

READ MORE: http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2011/oct/06/1006_FlyFishing/

The Underground’s Short Casts for 2011-10-07

 

by Tom Chandler on October 7, 2011 · 0 comments

• Ready for another "brutal" winter? Brutal Winter Predicted for U.S.: Scientific American http://ow.ly/6PIoe #
• It's not just Vermont; New York suspends stream protection laws, trout streams getting hammered: http://ow.ly/6PIuW #

Theodore Gordon Flyfishers Presents Conservation Award to DEC Biologist.

 

Jack Isaacs, recent retiree from the Division's Bureau of Habitat, will be honored with the Theodore Gordon Flyfishers prestigious Conservation Award. Before his retirement in 2010, Jack worked in DEC's New Paltz office where he managed the regional habitat protection program. During his more than 30-year career with DEC, he worked tirelessly to protect world-renowned trout streams like the Beaver Kill and Willowemoc Creek. The Conservation Award will be presented to Jack at the Theodore Gordon Flyfishers' Annual Conservation Dinner held on October 15 at the Rockland House near Roscoe, NY. See www.theodoregordonflyfishers.org for details.

Trout-killing program slowed by poor conditions

 

By ROB THORNBERRY Idaho Falls Post Register | Posted: Thursday, October 6, 2011 12:00 am

Tough fishing conditions have put a damper on the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s efforts to kill rainbow trout in the South Fork of the Snake River.

Biologists have fitted 1,175 fish with tags that are redeemable for rewards of between $50 and $1,000. There are 14 fish with $1,000 tags.

The goal is to trim the river’s population of rainbows, a nonnative trout that competes with native Yellowstone cutthroat.

The worry is that nonnative rainbows will displace the native fish population. If that happens, Yellowstone cutthroat could be listed as a threatened or endangered species and river management — everything from fishing rules to irrigation releases — could be altered to favor the fish and not anglers or irrigators.

Last year between June and August, anglers turned in 1,642 rainbows. This year during the same time period, anglers turned in 339.

Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/lifestyles/recreation/article_1f7c6a97-108b-56ae-a02c-09f5297b7d54.html#ixzz1a0hOImi8

Beacon Water Quality Notification: Update #1, as of Friday evening 9/30/11

 

Riverkeeper returned to the Beacon Harbor discharge on Friday and found the flow from the pipe was stronger than when we sampled last on Friday September 23rd. The characteristic sewage smell and grey color were still evident. 

We sampled the water quality at 9 PM sharp, just before low tide when the sewage discharge was separate and distinct from river water. We were unable to resample earlier in the day because the tide was unusually high and up to the discharge pipe.

The Enterococcus levels were again higher than our measurement limit using a 1 in 10 dilution, >24,196 Entero per 100 ml.  That is greater than 397 times the EPA guideline for acceptable water quality for primary contact - 61 Enterococcus per 100/ml. The water from this discharge pipe is very contaminated with sewage.

As of 9/30, this discharge has been active since Friday the 17th (at least) when it was first reported to Riverkeeper  -  that's 14 days. There was no signage or police tape at the site to warn the public against contacting the contaminated water.

Sample tray from 9 PM, 9/30 sample, 1/10 dilution. All wells fluorescing indicating result >24,196 Entero per 100 ml - more than 397 times the EPA guideline for acceptable water quality (61 Entero per 100/ml).

Stop the proposed hatchery program on the Klickitat River

Take Action!

 

The Klickitat River in southern Washington is among the crowned jewels of the Pacific Northwest. Long revered for its large native steelhead and spring Chinook, the river has some of the most intact habitat for fish and wildlife in the Middle Columbia Region.

Unfortunately, decades of hatchery released non-native Coho, Skamania steelhead and fall Chinook threaten the survival of Klickitat native salmon and steelhead. Since 1999, native Klickitat winter and summer steelhead have been listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Similarly, the native run of wild spring Chinook which once numbered in the thousands has a thirty year average of 300 fish.

Potential expansion of hatchery operations in the Klickitat basin, detailed in the July of 2011 Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) released by Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and the Yakama Klickitat Fisheries Project (YKFP) will further imperil the river’s wild native salmon and steelhead.

The actions within the DEIS do not rely upon the best available science to recover wild native fish, jeopardizing wild runs by continuing most releases of non-native hatchery fish at or above their current numbers.

BPA and YKFP are required to solicit and respond to public comments during the DEIS process. This means that before anything is changed on the Klickitat BPA and YKFP must respond to the concerns raised during the public comment process.

READ MORE:

http://alerts.nativefishsociety.org/campaign/5-klickitat