Book Review: Wildlife Wars

I just finished Wildlife Wars by Terry Grosz and I’m giving it a C+. If I’d just read a 1/4 of it and put it down, I’d give it a B+.
A summary from the author’s Web site: Wildlife Wars is Terry Grosz’s first book, featuring his rookie years as a state fish and game warden [...]

Read Full Post »

Climate change to impact hunting and fishing in Oregon

No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, legislators are scared of hunters and anglers. Ask Oregon State Representative Ben Canon of District 46.
“I am a politician and I am scared of sportsmen,” Canon said to an audience of Oregon hunters and anglers at Bridgeport Brewery last weekend. “I am glad these groups are [...]

Read Full Post »

Fly rod economics: Sage versus fiscal sanity

In a bizarre Friday the 13th turn of events over a week ago, I dumped my cheap but handy 7-weight Temple Fork into the town run of the Willamette River. I’ve been telling people that I lost it to a fish (I had a nymph hanging in the water, the rod laid precariously across the [...]

Read Full Post »

Cottage Grove Oregon, cool? Photo evidence!

Last night we headed down to Cottage Grove’s Bohemia Mining Days, a celebration of gold mining, plywood store-fronts and junk made in Asia. We didn’t stay long because the lights of a nearby carnival pulled us away. Bizzarre photo op.

We ended up the night at the Axe and Fiddle, one of the best bars I’ve [...]

Read Full Post »

Best fishing book ever written: Don’t eat farmed salmon

Over the past couple weeks I flew through David James Dunan’s classic fishing novel, The River Why. Being fairly immersed in both fishing and books, why am I coming to this work now, 25 years after the fact? Probably because I have an unwarranted bias against River-Runs-Through-It-Big-Two-Hearted-River, old timey trout chasing tales. I haven’t read them, [...]

Read Full Post »

Oregon Country Fair 2007 photos

Saw my first Oregon Country Fair ever this year. Organized chaos. The band pictured in the first image gets a hearty recommendation. Here are the Oregon Country Fair photos:

Read Full Post »

Mount June Hike photos

KP and I went hiking on Mt. June last week. First time up there — a pretty intense drive. Not for anyone with a weak stomach. Bill Sullivan’s Cascades book points this hike out as being close to Eugene, but its deceptive. As the crow flies, it wouldn’t be bad, but driving uphill takes at [...]

Read Full Post »

Babbit versus Kempthorne — contrasts in conservation

I recently finished reading former Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbit’s 2005 book, Cities in the wilderness: A new vision of land use in America. The book is pleasantly short and outlines some of the challenges Babbit faced as the U.S. Conservationist in Chief under Clinton. There is a review on Triple Pundit.

After reading the [...]

Read Full Post »

Big Willamette planter in Alton Baker

First pig of the year out of my Alton Baker hole. About 12 inches, jumped out of the water a foot. Me and Wild Bill were chasing trout tonight. Fell in. Caught a nice one. No steelhead on the fly on the town run yet. 

Read Full Post »

Late night trout bite on the Willamette River

Last night, Karl and I hit the Willamette around Oakridge, looking for an evening hatch. We’d been at the confluence of Salt Creek and the Middle Fork of the Willamette River, checking on the USFS bull trout monitoring system. TU 678 replaces the batteries on the system every weekend. So far, no bull trout have [...]

Read Full Post »