Too hot for trout: Why some anglers are rethinking their approach to fly fishing

[IronNoggin]

Too hot for trout: Why some anglers are rethinking their approach to fly fishing

In the early season, when the rivers are still running high and cool from snowmelt, KynsLee Scott loves trout fishing. As a fishing guide and conservationist, her life revolves around it, she says, standing in the shade of tall pines on the banks of the Blackfoot River.

Lately though, she says with a pause, “It’s been harder to love, simply because of the changed environment.”
Scott is an angler — one of many in the western U.S. — snagged in an ethical dilemma brought on by the “absolutely alarming” shifts she’s seen with a warming climate: When the trout you’re fishing need cold water, and cold water is increasingly scarce, how and when should you fish?

“For me, unless I have to do it for my job, I don’t feel good about coming out and targeting already stressed fish,” she says. “It sucks. But we have to adjust what we’re doing to have a resource at the end of the day.”

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/31/g-s1-...lackfoot-river

[Walking Buffalo]

“For me, unless I have to do it for my job, I don’t feel good about coming out and targeting already stressed fish,” she says.

I find it really hard to respect people like her.
Neighborhood drug dealers say the same thing.


A few more years and she may re-evaluate her pimping ways....

[835]

I find it really hard to respect people like her.
Neighborhood drug dealers say the same thing.


A few more years and she may re-evaluate her pimping ways....

That is exactly the problem with fishing these days... you are right, if she really sees a problem then why is she fishing for money? Dont book. If you cant make a go at it maybe its time to find a new job or an additional one.
Steelhead on the island... Trout on the Cowichan. i know guides on the Cowichan who just dont book in later spring, the go on holidays or Guide in a different place. Our fish are more "Commercial" now than they ever have been.
Salmon? look at the Albernie sockeye... All about money. Thompson Steelhead... money... hell a Chum fishery drove the last nail into that coffin.

it is our responsibility to make sure these fish live.

[IronNoggin]

...it is our responsibility to make sure these fish live.

Nailed It Buddy!!

[835]

you look for steel this year at all Matt?
how was the river last winter?

[IronNoggin]

you look for steel this year at all Matt?
how was the river last winter?

Sadly I did not.
Numbers are in the sewer.

A good Buddy hit it hard last winter.
Almost 45 days worth.
8 Total landed.

Hurts.
Built my lifestyle around them, and then they went away.
No forgiveness in my heart for those that made that so...

[835]

Sadly I did not.
Numbers are in the sewer.

A good Buddy hit it hard last winter.
Almost 45 days worth.
8 Total landed.

Hurts.
Built my lifestyle around them, and then they went away.
No forgiveness in my heart for those that made that so...

ya, i didnt either. its funny, im a member of a pile of facebook steelhead groups. on them there are guys who fish them and post a pic here and there, kinda keep the hope alive.. but they really have no idea what the fishery was like back in the days of Gold river, Salmon river, Thompson River .. and many nameless rivers. What that was 30 years ago, it was incredible... 20 years ago was good... 10 years ago its going going gone.

[kolofardos]

It's kind of heart-breaking. I remember being driven through Spences Bridge in the 80s to hunt in Clinton, and driving myself in the 90s and seeing fishermen lining the banks of the Thompson, and the hotels being packed.