Steelhead or Rainbow?

Guess.

Moses's Irish Prayer Works...

Apparently.
Cause we just received this breaking news.... Rogue Angel Hannah Belford, of flyfishergirl and head guide of Damdochax Lodge lands her first steelhead of the season, after rapids and running, Hannah brought this beautiful hen to hand. Good Work Angel. You Rock! and I miss you and now I can't contain my excitement for the upcoming BC trip. See you soon,
-k8

An Irish Prayer to Moses

May Moses part the waters and let me catch a steelhead.

And May the sunshine be always upon your face and the wind be at your back.

The Crumpster has a thing for Kates.

So when guest Kate arrived, The Crumpster made it his mission to teach her to spey cast...within hours she was catching beautiful rainbows. A couple of days later, she landed this impressive trophy rainbow, 30" x 17".
Check out all these sweet photos:

The Metolius

Can't ya see?

Can you see the rainbow?

Pebble Project Update-Please take a few minutes.

Dear Fishermen,

Welcome home! Thanks for signing up for the fisherman’s list-serve this summer. Here is a brief update on the resistance effort to the proposed Pebble project and hardrock mining in the BB watershed. Two main happenings over the summer included:

1) Two law suites were filed by Bristol Bay residents and stakeholders against the State of Alaska Department of Natural Resources.

NonDalton, et. al vs. State et. al.: The main premise of the complaint is seeking to overturn the State of Alaska’s current Bristol Bay Area Plan for State Lands (BBAP). The BBAP is the State of Alaska’s principal land use plan applicable to all state-owned lands and waters, i.e., about 12 million acres in the Bristol Bay drainages of Southwest Alaska, where the proposed Pebble mine would be located on state-owned land. It was adopted by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in 2005 and ordinarily would have about a 20-year life. Unless overturned, the permits for a Pebble mine will be adjudicated under the 2005 BBAP. The earlier 1984 BBAP had classified almost the entire 12 million acres of state-owned uplands and shorelands in the Bristol Bay drainages, including the land at the Pebble claims, as wildlife habitat land. That meant that the land had to be managed for fish and wildlife habitat, even in the face of potential mineral development. The 2005 BBAP reclassifies the entire 12 million acres and reduces the amount of land classified as habitat to 768,000 acres, a 90-percent reduction, including the land at Pebble. The 2005 Plan reclassified the land as mineral land. That makes it much easier to develop a Pebble mine.

Since 2001 at least five former managers or registered lobbyists associated with the hardrock mining industry in Alaska, including the current Commissioner of Natural Resources, Tom Irwin, have assumed responsible management positions in DNR that have been central to the preparation, adoption and implementation of the 2005 BBAP. The Complaint alleges that, in preparing and adopting the 2005 BBAP, they committed numerous unlawful acts and omissions which are the basis of Plaintiffs’ eight causes of action.

Nunamta et. al. vs. State et. al.: A Bristol Bay Alaska Native organization and several individuals, including former Alaska First Lady Bella Hammond and Alaska Constitutional Convention delegate Victor Fischer, filed a civil suit in Anchorage Superior Court today asserting that the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) repeatedly violated the Alaska Constitution in granting permits for Pebble mine exploration. The lawsuit asserts that the agency failed to consider the public’s interest in sustaining the region’s rich salmon, wildlife, and subsistence resources, which are negatively affected by exploration activities. Plaintiffs are asking the court to halt exploration until the case is resolved.

2) Bristol Bay Salmon tastings and promotions targeting salmon consumers and the entire salmon market place were held to promote both Bristol Bay Salmon themselves and the fight for protecting our watershed. These events were sponsored by the WhyWild program at Trout Unlimited with support from the BBRSDA (that’s right, your tax dollars hard at work for you!) Here are a few links to press coverage of the event: http://www.adn.com/life/taste/story/841380.html, http://www.thetundradrums.com/news/show/6610

Action Alert on BLM lands in Bristol Bay!

Here is where we need your help!

Background:
The new leadership at the Bureau of Land Management is currently deciding whether or not it will revise and improve the Bush administration's Bay Resource Management Plan which dictates how 1.5 million acres of the Bristol Bay watershed will be managed. The current plan opens 99% of these lands to oil and gas and hard rock mining development - opening the door for an industrial mining district on the federal public lands just south of the proposed Pebble Mine.

What you can do: Write or call both senators - Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich. Ask your senators to tell the BLM to protect the lands and rivers in Bristol Bay and revise the Bush administration's Resource Management Plan.

Note: Most of the time the receptionist will just take a message for the Senator. Make sure to speak clearly and tell them that you are a Bristol Bay Fisherman.

Contact information:

Senator Mark Begich:
(202) 224-3004

Senator Lisa Murkowski:
(202) 224-6665

If you are going to write a letter pls. send to Shoren Brown who will hand deliver to the Senators’ offices.

Shoren Brown
Director of Federal Salmon Policy
Trout Unlimited
1300 No 17th St., Suite 500
Arlington, VA 22209
Land: 703-284-9429
Cell: 703-581-9061
sbrown@tu.org

Upcoming Events:

• Saturday Aug. 22nd South Anchorage Farmers Market Bristol Bay Salmon Tasting/Promotion
• Sunday Aug. 30th Wild Salmon Day at the Alaska State Fair (Volunteers are still needed let us know if you can help!)
• Oct. 19-21st Bristol Bay Wild Salmon Tasting/Promotion and Lobbying visit in Washington D.C.
• Nov. 19-21 Fish Expo and No Pebble events in Seattle
• Dec. 1-8 Bristol Bay Board of Fish mtg. and Bristol Bay Salmon week in Anchorage (Much more on this to come, we will need everyone’s support!)

In Alaska Politics – Stay tuned for future updates on:

Rep. Bryce Edgmons HB 242 which imposes new information gathering and environmental protection requirements before permitting of any large-scale mining operations in the Bristol Bay watershed. HB 242 was introduced last April and is awaiting its first hearing in the House Fish Committee.

Board of Fish Proposal 13 asks the Board of Fish to make a recommendation, via resolution, to the Alaska State Legislature that additional regulatory protections be enacted as needed to ensure the continued health and viability of fish habitat in the headwaters specifically the Nushagak and Kvichak River Drainages and that any additional regulatory protections for fish habitat in these drainages would allow subsistence, recreational and commercial fishing, hunting, and trapping under state and federal regulations.

Thanks so much for reading this update. We’d love to hear feedback or suggestions for what you’d like to hear more about in the future. If you would like to be removed from this list simply reply to this email and let us know. If you have fellow fishermen friends who would like to be added to the list fwd this on and have them reply to us.

fishermen@savebristolbay.net

All the Best,

Lindsey, Kat, & Dylan

It can be done.

At least by Rogue Angel Ade anyway.
Ade landed a 6'3" long by 29" girth sturgeon using a 12 wt GLX CC and gave this guy a big kiss.
Dream on folks.

The Steelhead Watcher

Look closely: 250 steelhead in the Big Bend Pool of the North Umpqua

Stonefly Maiden Sue shared this picture and website with me this morning about the Fish Watcher at the Big Bend Pool of the North Umpqua. I have posted this article from the North Umpqua Foundation for all of you to check out. Something about this story makes me think that Lee's life story should be captured in a good bluegrass song, as you read, you will see what I mean. Lee, if you are reading, thank you for all that you do!

"Lee Spencer is a volunteer at the Big Bend Pool. He spends hours, days, weeks and months guarding the pool from poachers, watching fish behavior and contemplating nature and how humans affect the environment. These journal pages reflect Lee's thoughts on the fish, the river and how our efforts at protection could be improved.

To read some of his diary entries, click here

Steamboat Creek is the main steelhead spawning tributary of the North Umpqua. Fish that spawn in Steamboat account for 30 to 35 percent of the approximately 2,500 wild fish that have returned to the North Umpqua system in recent years. Before the fall rains arrive that enable the fish to return to the upper reaches of the creek to spawn, the fish hold in large pools ­ especially the Bend Creek pool, 11 miles up Steamboat Creek Road.

In the past, these fish have been extremely vulnerable to poachers. An act of vandalism on such a pool (like some hooligan throwing a stick of dynamite, which has happened in the past) could devastate the North Umpqua wild steelhead population. Fortunately, the fish have a protector in Lee Spencer. Lee has been retained as part of TNUF´s FishWatch Program.

Lee lives in a trailer by the river. When he´s not discouraging potential poachers, he´s educating visitors on the lifecycle of steelhead, and the significance of anadramous fish to the larger ecosystem.

During the summer months, Lee says he´s averaged 15 to 20 guests a day. Many are anglers up from the North Umpqua, though some are just curious passer byers. "Most visitors have a remarkable reaction to the fish," Spencer has observed. "The most common comment I hear is ‘Thank you for watching our fish.'”

Lee's connection to the North Umpqua goes back to 1972. “I took some time off from college and hitchhiked along the river. I though it was the most beautiful river I´d ever seen. I discovered fly fishing for steelhead shortly thereafter.” After eventually taking a graduate degree in Anthropology from the University of Oregon, and working a number of different jobs, Lee began his fish watching vocation as a volunteer five years ago. Three years ago, it became a full-time endeavor, mid-May through December. "I´ve always had an interest in natural history,” Lee shared. “If you have a pre-disposition toward this sort of thing, the opportunity to be here is ideal. The things going on in the pool are far more complex than I ever expected.”

To help raise funds to pay Lee´s modest stipend, the North Umpqua Foundation has created a handsome poster of one of the holding pools on Steamboat Creek. For information on how you can help preserve this wonderful river please email us or write to:The North Umpqua FoundationP.O. Box 238Idleyld Park, OR 97447-0238"

Waking Up.

This morning has found me sitting in the lodge catching up on long past emails as I look at the window into a thick fog. I can not even see the river. After three long months of guiding every day, I cherish a foggy morning. A break in the schedule.

In an hour the fog will likely lift as the sun rises high and burns it off and it will be go time. I will alert my clients to wader up and then I'll jump in mine. After packing the plane with our lunch, drinks, fly rods, and bags the pilot will fire up the cold de Havilland Beaver and we will push off from the dock to taxi in the main river while our beautiful plane warms.

Upon takeoff I will likely have fallen into a deep sleep dreaming of large rainbows. In what seems like seconds I will awake to watch the Beaver slip low in the sky and touch down on a small wild Alaskan creek.

Rubbing the sleep from my eyes I will pull start the 30 Yamaha motor with all the vigor of a brute and mutter something about how I don't like anything about that motor. And then I will think of how I got serious guns right now sans push ups or any other work out joke that bores me. After a few minutes of warming this cold little engine on the river, I will throw her into full throttle and watch as my heavy Grummond jumps on plane.



I will likely reach down and pull the plug hoping that I look back to see the middle river again. The beavers to my right will plunge under water or scurry up the dam as we fly by as fast as I can make that Grummond go forward. The flocks of merganzers flap through the water in panic. And as I turn the next bend, forty fat and stupid seagulls scatter into the air and I pray none of that crap hits me or my boat.

Soon the river narrows and changes so I stand to keep watch for new snags and obstacles as we race on. A bear hustles to make a quick getaway as we round a tight corner and a bald eagle sits sentinel on a towering tree top. He's always there, watching, eyeing me.

As I make a tight curve along the grassy bank, I could reach out and touch a large dark brown bear lazily waiting for his sockeye breakfast. Two osprey pick up speed as we hit a straight way and fly ahead, forging our path. As I make some funky boat manuever to miss the tree blocking the entire river I notice a large rainbow scattering into the depths of the run. Minutes later and twenty twists and turns I release the throttle and we drift into the gravel bar.

First cast into the beautiful water and a rainbow thrashes the flesh fly... I will think "There is no better way to wake up."

Learn to Spey Cast in Alaska

and fish with me!

-k8