Dan Bacher does a beautiful job of summarizing a recent (and complex) legal ruling by Federal Judge Wagner denying a plan to export more water from the California Delta — even as salmon, steelhead, and other fish populations are in a state of collapse:
Federal judge Oliver Wanger today tossed out a controversial water plan that […]

The West Coast’s ongoing salmon crisis isn’t exactly a secret to regular Underground readers, and it’s safe to say we’ve seen more salmon-related stories in major media channels in the last three years than in the prior 30.
This time, the New York Times Op-Ed lays it out: the next president will have to focus on […]

Ed Engle remains one of my favorite fly fishing writers, in part because he’s pretty damn good at cutting right to the chase.
In a recent Boulder Daily Camera outdoors column, he dives into the concept of home waters, a matter near and dear to my heart:
If you did occasionally travel to a different river or […]

You wake up one day and realize your head feels thick and slow, and it hasn’t escaped you that winter’s the season of suicides and weight gain, and it’s been months since you’ve driven with the window down or blasted Born to Run so loud even the policeman pulling you over suffers a nosebleed.
In fact, […]

Anonymous sources have revealed startling news to the Trout Underground New Bureau: Nestle Waters of North America and Westlands Irrigation District have agreed to merge, forming a single multinational bent on world domination of water supplies.
An anonymous Nestle source said the idea for the merger came about after a round of golf between the Westlands […]

It’s been too long since we visited with our good, good friends at multinational predator Nestle Corporation.

Then again, I doubt they’ve missed us much, being as they’ve been busy making all the "World’s Worst Corporation" lists (’#10 with a bullet), suing small towns in Maine into oblivion, trying to illegally obtain new water […]

The Drake’s 10th anniversary issue just hit the stands, and while I’m normally pretty droll on the subject of anniversaries, I’d say this one matters. Why?
An editor of a mainstream fly fishing magazine - responding to online criticism that his magazine ran the same stories over and over - said a large pool of new […]

Does sensational media coverage taint people’s perception of the outdoors to the point that they’re simply afraid of it?

I stumbled across an excellent podcast series that asks this very question (via Tom Mangan’s hiking blog). The two-part podcast is worth a listen (Sargeant’s stuff largely kicks ass), as are these excerpts of reader comments on […]

The Internet is a great medium for disseminating information to large groups of people, but, sadly, not everyone uses that power for Good instead of Evil.
For example, we present a list of “spring-is-here” bloggers singled out for special attention because in the paranoid, multiple-personality, spring-fevered world of the Trout Underground, they’re taunting me.
Yes, me. Directly.

They’re […]

Those sleepless caffeine abusers at Moldy Chum found an Alaskan writer who pretty much opens fire on fishing with pegged beads (pegged 2″ above a bare hook).
Apparently, I slept through the development of this particular technique, and didn’t particularly see the big deal until I got to this part:
Just lob that dangling bare hook and […]

(UPDATE: Ok, a clarification. I woke up this morning and someone had built the above “shrine” blog aimed at me, and sent a short email. I took it to be a joke, and think everyone else should too.)
Sure, the anonymous attack dog site seems cute now, but next thing you know, I’ve got a stalker […]

CalTrout’s launched a campaign designed to protect one of the Smith River’s most productive tributaries (and if it’s one thing we’ve learned from the Klamath mess, it’s that protecting the tribs is as important as protecting the main river).
And with a name like Hurdygurdy Creek, the place practically screams big steelies (say Hurdygurdy five times […]