News

Image by Daniel Thornberg The resolution heads to President Trump's desk, clearing a path for Twin Metals' long-stalled copper-nickel mine in the Rainy River headwaters of the BWCAW. The U.S. Senate voted 50-49 on Thursday to pass H.J. Res. 140, a Congressional Review Act measure that nullifies the 20-year mineral withdrawal protecting 225,504 acres of...

This week's Tying Tuesday we're starting on the surface with the Taco Tuesday, a bi-visible variation born from a decade of father-daughter tradition and a conversation about what colors belong in a taco. From there we drop into the drift with a Gradient Perdigon, a clean thread-body nymph whose color-stacked abdomen does the heavy lifting subsurface. Back...

The draft environmental impact statement that was due in March still hasn't appeared. When it does, it will open the last public comment period before a final decision expected later this year on roughly 45 million acres of national forest—including the headwaters of some of the country's best trout and salmon rivers. Image by Jeff Whyte Conservation...

The Rice's whale (Balaenoptera ricei), the only baleen whale that lives year-round in the Gulf of Mexico, is managed under the same ESA and Marine Mammal Protection Act authority the FY2027 budget proposes moving from NOAA Fisheries to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The current Rice's whale population estimate is 50 individuals. Photo credit: NOAA...

The agency that manages more than 40 percent of the country's blue-ribbon trout streams is relocating to Salt Lake City, closing all nine of its regional offices, and consolidating its research program—one year after DOGE cut more than 3,400 of its employees. The U.S. Forest Service announced on March 31 that it will move its Washington, D.C....

This week's Tying Tuesday is a water-column master class: four patterns that collectively cover every feeding lane from the surface film to open water, giving you a complete toolkit as hatches begin to fire and predatory fish start pushing into the shallows. We start at the top with the Dyret, a buoyant Norwegian attractor tied with yearling deer hair that...

A settlement has produced an amended Environmental Resources Permit for a proposed rock mine in Florida's Everglades Agricultural Area, clarifying the project's approved scope and requiring new permits for any expansion—but the project survives, and Army Corps review is still pending. A February settlement among the Tropical Audubon Society, the Florida...

In the span of a few months, fly anglers secured the promise of access to miles of previously private water, saw a multi-year mining fight around a storied Georgia swamp conclude with public access on the table, and watched a new federal directive reframe how Interior Department lands are managed for hunting and fishing. The wins arrived through different...

Wyoming's effort to codify corner crossing into state statute is dead. Montana's parallel push won't reach the legislature until 2027 at the earliest. Together, the two states show how far the West remains from resolving a question that directly determines where anglers and hunters can legally go. Corner crossing refers to stepping from one parcel of public...

Nine months after a single brown trout photograph triggered one of northwest Montana's most urgent fisheries investigations, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks says eDNA testing found no trace of the nonnative fish—but the agency isn't standing down. As guides and anglers return to the Flathead River drainage this spring, FWP is still asking everyone on...