Great things happening in the world of trout, with Chris Wood
Podcast Transcript:
Tom: Hi, and welcome to the Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast. This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer. And my guest this week is Chris Wood. Chris is the president and CEO of Trout Unlimited and has been for many years. And Chris has done some...Chris has really done some amazing work with Trout Unlimited. He's really made that organization vibrant and diverse. And they are doing so many exciting things these days. One of the most exciting things is that they received a huge amount of funding from the US Forest Service that's going to last for many years. And so, Chris talks about, in the podcast, he talks about what they're going to do with this money and the potential that it unlocks for really improving trout habitat, clean water, and trout fishing, wild trout fishing in this country. And we talk about lots of other things. We talk about wild versus stock trout. And we talk about acid mine drainage and all the mitigation work they're doing and culverts and all the cool stuff that Trout Unlimited is doing. If you want to know how people are working to improve your trout fishing, listen in, because I think you'll enjoy it. And Chris is a great interview.
And before we start to fly box, just wanted to remind you that the Battenkill Fly Fishing Festival is being held in late April and starts on the 27th of April. And there's lots of cool things going on, food and live music and vendors and art. I was honored to be asked to give the keynote address, which is about finding trout, it's going to be 11 o'clock on April 29th in Arlington, Vermont, so lots of stuff going on that weekend. If you're looking for someplace to go and see a lot of cool fly-fishing things, get some casting lessons, visit the American Museum of Fly Fishing, that's the weekend to try. It might be a little early for decent fishing up here in Vermont. But there's lots of other good things to be doing.
All right. Let's also do the fly box. And the fly box is where you ask me questions, or you or you give some tips to share with other listeners and I try to answer your questions or read your tips on the air, if I think they're going to be valuable to the rest of the listeners. You can send your questions to me at
So, let's start with an email from Joe from Connecticut.
"I'm a big fan of the podcast. I do most of my listening while I cut the grass and do yard work. I've been fly fishing for nearly 20 years and tying flies on and off for almost as long. Really enjoy tying flies for the local rivers that I fish. I've been asked by a few fishing buddies to tie some flies for them as well. When this happens, we usually try to trade off on things. I'll tie them flies and they will pay for gas, lunch or the like when we head up to the Delaware River. My question to you is what does it take to begin to sell some of the flies that I tie? I am thinking that I would only tie a select few patterns that would be needed locally. Is this something that many people set out to do? What would be some of the things that I may need to be aware of if I were to try to turn this into a bit of money? Would selling on a website be the best way to do this? Or would tying for a local fly shop be a better way to start? I look forward to a response."
And we got a number of questions this week about people wanting to sell their flies. And my advice would be absolutely to tie for a local fly shop. You know, local fly shops often look for local tyers to do special patterns that they can't get from some of the bigger fly suppliers, from some of the important fly suppliers. And if you try to sell online, you're going to be competing against all sorts of people, some of whom are a little bit shady, and their flies are of poor quality and a lot of people shy away from buying cheap flies online or they do it once and then they realize that the flies fall apart. So, my advice to you would be to go to a local fly shop and tie for them. It's a nicer way to do it. You'll have a nice interaction with the fly shop. They'll probably be glad to get some special local patterns. Don't expect to make a lot of money. You know, tying flies commercially is a lot of work and hopefully, it won't turn you off to tying flies, tying the same pattern over and over again. But it can work and lots and lots of fly shops do purchase flies from local tyers, so that would be my advice to start there.
Let's do a phone call. And I haven't gotten a lot of phone calls this week. So, I'd like to get some more questions, please. Questions on, you know, just brief one-to-two-minute questions, describe the situation and I'll try to help. But I'd appreciate getting some more phone calls so I can use more of them on the air. The first one this week is from Vinny.
Vinny: Hey, Tom, I have a comment and two questions. My first comment is one that somehow, you've managed to offend someone who primarily fishes with metal flies, going from propellers and metal mini spinners. So, you think it'd be hard to offend me, but you actually left out inflatable paddle boards as one of your top inflatable fishing devices. And I only do fly fishing from my paddle board. And it's inflatable. There's a lot of benefits to it from visibility and whatnot. But yeah, just wanted to share that since I think it was unintentionally left out maybe. My two questions are for fly fishing for gar. You mentioned using rope flies. Are there any alternatives to not using a rope fly? I know there's a really sharp hook. But are you concerned when using a rope fly for when the gar breaks off, that gar won't be able to open its mouth afterwards? That's one of the reasons why I don't like rope flies, and maybe any tips you can share for untangling that rope.
And then lastly, for fly fishing for carp, I noticed carp sucking on eggs off of grass that was hanging in the water. Have you had success for using egg patterns for carp? Maybe spawn sacs or anything like that? I was thinking of making a couple and having them tied off on a piece of green, anything really, to simulate the grass that it was being fed off of. But yeah, any insight would be appreciated. Thanks.
Tom: So, Vinny, I guess I did leave off inflatable paddle boards. And I'm surprised at myself because I do use one mainly for saltwater fishing. But they're a lot of fun. And they're really handy, you can actually take them on a plane and check them as luggage. A lot of them are lightweight and pack into a backpack. And they're pretty cool to fish from.
So, yes, that's also another alternative.
Regarding gar, alternative to yarn flies, yeah, you know, I use yarn flies, but I'm thinking of getting away from yarn flies, because, you know, I understand that the fly could break off and the fish wouldn't be able to open its mouth. It is difficult to remove all those hairs, you really have to be careful and with a gar flopping around with their sharp teeth, you're gonna bleed, you're definitely gonna bleed by picking that yarn out of their mouths. I don't worry about leaving a fly in the gar because I use a very heavy tippet, you know, you don't need a light tippet on gar flies and you don't need wire either, but I use a very, very heavy tippet. So, I've never broken a yarn fly off in a fish. And I would advise you if you're going to use them to use a really heavy, like, you know, 25, 30-pound test. But anyway, I'm going to look at alternatives and I understand that, you know, generally short shank very sharp hooks will work for gar. You're not going to hook as many but it's all about the eat with gar fishing anyways, so you know, they're okay fighters, but they're not that great, but the strike is pretty cool. So, I'm gonna try some and, you know, I'll get back to the podcast listeners with my results but again, I think a short shank very sharp hook is probably the way to go if you want an alternative to yarn.
And regarding your other question, yeah, I have used egg flies for carp, and they do work sometimes. You know, there's nothing that works all the time for carp, and it really depends on the local food supply but if they're eating berries and things like that, that fall off trees or they may be eating other fish's eggs, egg flies can work but almost any kind of fly can work on carp now and then and often nothing works on carp.
All right, let's go back to another email. This one's from Nick.
"It's spring in the higher elevations of the city, Central Sierra Nevada here in California. That means streams are too high to fish, and this year, it will be for months. That means I'm spending a lot of time on eBay looking at fly rods and other tackle. This brings me to my question. There are many used graphite Orvis rods listed on eBay. Most of these are from the pre-Helios, Recon, Clearwater generations and may appear to be 20-plus years old. Is there some catalog of information on the many rod model families that can be found somewhere? It would be fun to know what a Limestone Special was in comparison to a Power Matrix or Zero Gravity, just taking a couple current offerings as examples. Google searches on the subject turn up occasional links to various forums, but nothing authoritative. Another question, I mostly fish small streams here in the mountains of California usually at the 7000-to-8500-foot level. These fish are wild brookies, browns and rainbows and in a few places, goldens. As you said many times on the podcast, these small stream trout are not selective. I can and do catch fish all day on Mercer's Missing Link, Elk Hair Caddis or Parachute Adams. However, I consistently do not catch fish on light-colored Cahill-style dry flies which are so pretty they just beg to be fished. I have often floated these flies over brookies or browns in these small streams without even moving them and then caught them on an Elk Hair two or three casts later. What gives? Is it just the darker abdomen on the Elk Hair Caddis or Parachute Adams?"
So, Nick, regarding your first question, there is no database of older Orvis rods. However, if you call the Orvis outfitter line at 800-548-9548, they do have access to PDFs of all the old Orvis catalogs and they can look up a rod for you and at least tell you what the description was in the older catalog. Unfortunately, those PDFs are not available to the public at this point. But that's going to be your best bet. There is no database that I know of. And you know people like me that have been around Orvis for, let's see, what is it? It'll be 47 years this June. I don't remember a lot of those old rods. It's been a long time. So, it's best to call the outfitter line to check on rods like that.
Regarding your light-colored flies. Yeah, there are times in certain streams when light-colored flies just don't work very well. And, you know, it's probably just the fact that there aren't a lot of light-colored flies hatching there and the fish just treat a light-colored fly as a piece of debris, something that's not edible. Now if you do fish these streams when there's a PMD hatch, which I'm sure they have at some point during the summer, the light-colored flies might work but I wouldn't worry about it. If they don't work, they don't work and there probably are times when they work but you just haven't been there at that time.
Here's an email from Ryan. "I have a bit of an ethical question. In the fall and early winter when my local brown trout here in New York start to spawn, I usually leave my favorite streams alone for a bit instead driving north to fish Lake Ontario's "Steelhead." however, there's one small stream that I make an exception of. This stream holds some great native brook trout but flows into a larger river with brown trout. These browns, often well over 20 inches, both eat and over-compete the natives. In this specific location, I feel little remorse harassing these browns when they are such a threat to the natives. In your opinion, would it be unethical to fish the browns that run up from the river in the fall? I never target a fish on a red, but I've definitely interrupted their spawning with my presence."
Well, Ryan, it's really a question that, you know, you have to decide for yourself. There's some people that never, ever fish near spawning fish and, you know, some people that do fish over them, and in your case, you're not going to help that brook trout population by harassing those browns or you're not going to hurt them. You know, it's not gonna matter either way. There's no way you're going to damage the brown trout population by fishing over a few spawners and, you know, again, it won't really help the brook trout but if you don't feel any remorse then don't bother. Just do it. Not that I want to encourage people to fish over spawning fish but if you don't really like those browns in there and there is a native brook trout population, then I think it would be fine. That's my opinion.
Here's an email from Cameron. "I live in Charlotte, North Carolina and frequently visit the western North Carolina mountains to fish for trout. Not too long ago I went outside of Asheville with a local Orvis-endorsed guide who let me use his 10-foot 3-weight dry fly rod. That rod was unlike any fishing rod I've ever played with. Ever since that weekend, I haven't been able to get my mind off how much easier it made small stream fishing. Don't get me wrong. My Encounter 9-foot 5-weight is a fantastic piece of technology and still handles perfectly, but I've started doing some research on three-weights to one day expand the arsenal. My question for you is regarding the rod length. I'm eyeing the Clearwater 10-foot 3-weight, but I'm curious to hear your recommendations on its length. Should I go to seven-and-a-half foot instead? What are some pros and cons to getting a long or shorter rod? I like to stick to wild streams for the most part as I believe that catching stock fish isn't as fun or rewarding."
Well, Cameron, you know, in my opinion, the only time to go to a really short rod like a seven-and-a-half footer is A, if you just like the idea of fishing a short rod or B, if you have really brushy streams where you don't have much back cast room. And I know a lot of those mountain streams in North Carolina, they're kind of broad and bouldery, and you have plenty of backcast room. So, you know, the 10-foot rod will work fine there and, you know, as long as you're not fishing really, really brushy rhododendron lined streams, then I think the 10-footer is going to be a better rod for you because you can also use it on bigger rivers whereas the seven and a half foot, three-weight is not gonna be as much use on bigger rivers. But again, if you just like the idea of fishing a small, short, lightweight rod, then go for it.
Here's an email from Mark. "Tom, I love the look of Sparkle Duns and Comparaduns. When tying these, how do you keep the body thin on Sparkle Dun and Comparadun where the deer hair is attached to the hook, especially on smaller flies?"
So, Mark, there's a couple of things you can do. One is one is to make sure that you use fine enough deer hair on that Comparadun or Sparkle Dun. And the other thing is you want to put a lot of pressure on that fine deer hair to make sure that you cinch it down as tightly as you can, but you are going to get some bulk in the thorax area. And you can taper that by cutting the deer hair at an angle back along the abdomen.
But, you know, you don't really need to have a super thin thorax on a mayfly imitation anyway because mayflies do get broader at the thorax. And you know, the legs are there. So, the fish see a little bit bigger profile at the thorax, so I wouldn't worry too much about having a little bit broader thorax, maybe even broader than a natural mayfly. I don't think the fish are going to care. One of the things that I do on small or really small Comparaduns and Sparkle Duns is I use either EP fiber or snowshoe rabbit fur instead of deer hair because those materials aren't as bulky, and you don't get as big of a hump up front. So, you can live with it. You know, try another material that is going to provide less bulk or just make sure you cinch it down and I think your Comparaduns and Sparkle Duns are going to be fine.
Here's an email from Kevin from Estes Park. "I also have a question about leader length. As the snow starts to melt, I move up into the small mountain streams to mostly dry fly fish. These little streams have all kinds of conflicting currents, so I like to fish a fairly long leader to help with drag. The problem is that there is normally a lot of wind up there which makes it very difficult to make an accurate cast with a long leader. Would you lean towards a shorter leader that cast better or a longer leader that deals with drag better? I know that's a matter of personal preference, but I'm wondering where you would make the compromise."
Kevin, that's a good question. It's a really good question. And so, a couple of things to think about. One is in a lot of these small streams, you're not gonna get a long drift. And I would try to place my fly so that I don't put my leader over conflicting currents, you know, you're going to use short drifts. With a short drift, you don't need to worry so much about drag, because you're going to place the fly on the water and let it float for a couple feet and then pick it up and put it back in there. But my solution to a situation like that, usually, is to use a shorter leader like seven and a half footer, and then put a little bit longer tippet on it, a little bit longer than normal, maybe, you know, 24 inches, 24 to 28 inches. That longer tippet's going to give you a little bit more insurance against drag, but you're still casting a relatively shorter leader. So, that might be a good solution. So, keep your cast short. Keep your drift short. Lengthen your tippet a little bit and try that out and see how it works for you.
Here's an email from Aaron from Shreveport. "Hi, Tom, I have a question and a tip. First, my question. I recently went to Arkansas and fished a small trout stream. I used several different flies and techniques that worked. But specifically, when I was getting action on dry flies, it seemed like it was when the wind would blow these little seeds on the water. I'm talking about those little fuzzy seeds that kind of look like small bugs. Do you think these seeds hitting the water triggered the fish to look up and eat on the surface? I did catch a few here and there when the wind wasn't blowing, but when the seed hatch was on, they really got going rising. Is this something you've experienced before? And then my tip. I've heard a lot of people on the podcast asked what they should use in a plunge pool. This particular stream had a very deep plunge pool. So, I tied on a balanced leech with a very heavy tungsten bead under an indicator. It worked fantastically. I almost felt like it was cheating, it worked so well. I caught six trout and three smallmouth bass in that pool before I lost my fly to a rock snag. I missed a few fish there as well. But I had a strike almost every cast doing this. I hadn't heard a balanced leached offered as a plunge pool option before, so I thought I'd share that success story with you. Thanks to you for sharing your knowledge with us. Take care."
So, Aaron, regarding your first question, that's contrary to what I've observed. I've found that when there's seeds falling on the water, or especially when there's cottonwood fluff falling on the water, dry flies don't work very well, because the fish, you know, the fish see a lot of floating stuff and they kind of start ignoring surface food because they get, I think, confused and they maybe they eat a piece of fluff and they realize it's not food once they get it in their mouth. And so, I have found the opposite when there's seeds falling on the water or leaves or whatever that fish tend to turn off on surface food. The only thing I can think of is perhaps that was a stocked stream.
If those were stocked fish or especially recently stocked fish, maybe the seeds falling in the water triggered the fish to look up to the surface but in my experience, it's the opposite when you have a lot of debris like that falling in the water that's not edible because trout won't eat plant material readily. So, I think that that was probably an anomaly. I don't think you're going to find that happening most cases. Regarding your tip, that is a terrific tip. And, you know, getting down into those plunge pools, a balanced leech with an indicator sounds like an awesome idea. And I'm glad you found that to work so well. I think that's a really, really good tip.
Here's an email from Caleb. "I am a young fly fisherman in North Florida. Wanted to thank you for this podcast as being from where I am, I have met less than a dozen other fishermen who even know how to use fly tackle and I utilize the information you provide every week. I have a question in regard to fly effectiveness. I tie all my own flies and, in my own opinion, have gotten relatively good for my age, tying more complex patterns like Crafty Changers and Dalberg Divers with consistent success. Yet I am wondering as to whether or not I'm missing a key detail of tying flies, that being effectiveness. For instance, I have a friend who solely uses Clouser Minnows and out fishes me any day of the week while I try to use these more complex flies that do not seem to perform to the same extent that the Clouser Minnows do. I'm not sure if it is my retrieval or presentation, but I feel that those are good as I have researched and practice countless methods. What my question really boils down to is this: are Game Changers and other flies in this category what they're made out to be? Would I be better off using the three hours that I would have used tying a single Crafty Changer to tie a dozen Clouser Intruders? Or is this a case of more time yields greater results as I have not noticed this to be the case yet? Thank you for all you do. And please keep releasing podcasts for years to come. Sidenote: in my area, the main target are redfish, trout, snook, gar and bass."
So, Caleb, it's hard to argue with the effectiveness of a Clouser Minnow. And you know, for those species you're fishing for, it's probably a better imitation of the stuff they're eating. And you know, Clouser Minnows get down on the bottom very quickly. And it's probably just in your area, that kind of fly is more effective. But I would not give up on those more complex patterns because Game Changers and Dahlberg Divers are deadly flies. And there are times when they work really, really well. But generally, when you have to get deep and you want to get your fly on the bottom, a Clouser Minnow is a better pattern. So, you know, I would still tie both of them. Tie those Clousers, use them where they seem to be more effective, but don't give up on those more complicated flies because you will find times when those more complicated patterns will work even better than a Clouser Minnow, believe it or not.
Here's an email from Craig. "Love the podcast, yada, yada, yada. Now cut to the chase. I just watched a short video you did where you talked about how to handle the situation when your line to leader knot has been pulled into the guides while playing a fish and the fish makes a run. My question is this: what do you do in general when you don't have a fish on and your line to leader knot is in the rod guides? For instance, when you move positions on a lake or stream, and you reel in your line. Typically, I wrap my leader around the back of the reel and attach my end fly to the leg of the guide but generally, still find my line to leader knot has been drawn in through one or more of the guides. What's the best practice to pull your line out? Do you set the rod down so you can reach the end of the rod? Do you grasp the middle of the rod so you can reach the end, or do you just grab the leader and pull it through and flex the tip a bit as you pull the line out? With no weight on the leader, you can't just cast it to pull a line out, and often the line will fall from between the guides pulling more of the leader in along with it. I usually just pull the leader, but the knot tends to snag at the tip guide and then the tip bends a bit until the knot freeze. Once I get a couple of feet of line out, I can start casting again. I wonder though if this might damage the rod or line though I don't see how it would. I realize this is probably a very basic technique question. I've been teaching myself fly fishing for a couple of years with only YouTube University instruction. I use a nine-foot-five-weight Orvis Clearwater six-piece rod with either five or six-weight line, nine-foot leader attached with loop-to-loop connection, typically about 18 to 24 inches of tippet on one end with one or two flies attached so I'm getting well past my rod length and leader and tippet. I fish primarily high mountain lakes in South Central Wyoming, and I've become pretty adept at managing my line for the most part as long as the line is out past the guides, but I find this one particular situation somewhat frustrating and I'm just wondering if there's some line management techniques that would make this easier or is it just the way it is or is my setup all wrong?"
So first of all, Craig, your setups not all wrong. Your setup sounds good. And yeah, you know, these days, we do fish longer leaders than we used to in the past. I think for good reason. They seem to work better and spook fewer fish and this is one of the reasons why Orvis doesn't put a lot of hook keepers on fly rods because if you put your fly in a hook keeper, your leader is probably going to be inside the guides, and then you got to pull it out through the guides. So, when you have a longer leader, just keep going up further on the rod, you know, you're doing it right by wrapping the line around the reel, and then putting it on a guide. And if your leader is super long, then just go further up on the rod and hook your fly on a guide that's further up toward the tip. And as far as getting that leader knot out through the guides, there is no good clever way that I know of. Anyways, you really need to put the rod down and physically pull the line to leader connection straight through the rod. You don't want to try to yank that leader knot out of the rod when you have the full length of the rod out there. That can break the tip on a rod and a lot of tips on rods are broken that way because the line hangs up on one of the top guides and you're putting all the pressure on just the tip section of the rod and that can break it. So, you know, there's no easy way. Just put the rod down. If you're in a boat, it's kind of a pain. You have to put the rod down at one end of the boat and pull the line out or if you got a fishing buddy, ask them to pull the line out of the guides. But if you're waiting around the bank, just set the rod down on the bank somewhere. Use your hat, put the reel inside, put your hat down on the ground, put your reel in the hat so you don't get any dirt or mud or debris in your reel and just pull the line straight through the guides. No cool way that I know to do it any better.
Here's an email from Lance from Missouri. "I was wondering if you ever fished for crappie. I've been fly fishing for a couple years now, mostly for stocked trout. Crappie fishing is big where I'm from and I'd like to start targeting them with my fly rod. I'm not sure if you've done a podcast on this or not. But I'd love to hear any tips or recommendations you have on this. I have a four-weight seven-foot Clearwater that I use. I also have been tying flies for a little while. Any jig or fly recommendations would be appreciated as well. Thank you for everything you do. And I've enjoyed the podcast very much. It's a lot of help."
So, Lance, I do fly fish for crappie. And you know, the hardest part is finding a bunch of them. You know, generally, they're going to be over some submerged structure. So, if you know where there's crappie, there's two ways to do it. One is to use a sinking line or a sink tip line because they don't tend to come up out of that structure that often. You know, they tend to stay relatively deep. So, you need either a sinking line, a sink tip line or you need a heavy fly like a Clouser Minnow with a long, long leader so that you can get down to the fish. And in general, any bait fish imitation will work well for crappie, you know, Clouser Minnow in black and white or chartreuse and white seems to work very well. I think crappie like white flies. I've found that, you know, in my part of the world, they like white flies, but it's just a matter of getting your fly down to them and then retrieving with little, short strips and then letting the fly kind of sink in between each strip. And I think you should be able to catch them with nearly any baitfish imitation that sinks well. Again, a Clouser Minnow is a deadly fly for crappie so, you know, like I said, the hard part is finding them. Once you find them, if you can get down to them with your fly outfit, they should be pretty easy to catch.
Here's an email from Rick from Arizona. "Like you, I fish a lot of small streams and love to fish dry dropper. How to connect the dropper to the dry fly seems to be a question a lot of people have. Here's my method for small streams. I don't know if this will help anyone but here goes. If I'm not fishing the dry fly off a tag, which I like a lot, my favorite way to tie on a dropper is to attach a piece of tippet above the dry using a uni knot and then tie the dropper to the end of that piece of tippet. The uni knot will slide down to the dry fly so it's almost like the dropper is attached to the eye of the dry and the dropper hangs nicely below the dry. The thing I like about this method is that it makes changing the dry fly very easy. You just slide the uni knot up the leader above the dry fly, snip off the old dry, tie on a new one and slide the uni knot back down to the dry. That's easier for me with my older eyes than tying a knot through the eye of the dry fly every time I want to make a change."
So, Rick, that is a great suggestion and sounds like it's going to work really well. I'm going to try that myself because often I do want to change the dry fly and not the nymph. So, it makes it easier to change either fly. So, thank you for that tip. That's a really, really good one.
Trevor: Hey, Tom, this is Trevor from Missoula, Montana. I'm super excited for you to retire and let the chatbot GPT take over. I'm really looking forward to those upcoming podcasts. And just want to thank you for all you do for the sport of fly fishing, and especially your emphasis on conservation. My question today is somewhat conservation related. I fish in the Rockies, Euro nymph, indicator nymph, dry fly fish, streamer fish. And as the season opens up, again, back here, I'm just looking at my spools of monofilament and fluorocarbon. I carry quite an array of each based on circumstances and style. And I'm thinking about just replacing all of my fluorocarbon with mono. I know that fluoro has, you know, some abrasion resistance qualities and other things that might be superior to mono. But I'm wondering just about, you know, the maybe ethical conservation side of it, of fluoro not really breaking down, you know, when I cut tags, and they escape from my hand and end up in the river or on the bank. If I'm replacing and just running pure mono, is that okay? I mean, am I going to notice a difference?
You know, I'm just doing my fishing here in the Rockies. You know, what am I not thinking about? You know, I know this stuff's gonna break down and I'll have to replace it maybe more often. But is there anything else I'm not thinking about? You know, can I get away with this? Just maybe your thoughts and opinions would be greatly appreciated."
Tom: So, Trevor, that's a very thoughtful question. And, you know, I don't think you'll notice a difference, fluoro does give you a slight benefit in that it's more abrasion resistant, and it also syncs better. So personally, I like it with streamers and nymphs and saltwater flies, but I have a lot of friends who don't use fluoro, and they use nylon, and doesn't seem to bother them a bit. So, I would just replace it. Don't think twice. Personally, I don't worry so much about losing a little piece of fluoro. You know, I try to remove plastics in my life as much as I can but I'm more concerned about the bigger pieces of plastic, the packaging and plastic bottles and things like that, than a little piece of fluorocarbon getting lost in the environment. And actually, nylon, when it breaks down, probably puts microplastics in the water anyway, the same as any other plastic would. So, you know, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. But, you know, my philosophy is to try to replace the bigger pieces of plastic in my life and not be as concerned with the little, tiny pieces of plastic that you might lose.
All right, that is the fly box for this week. Let's go talk to Chris Wood about all the exciting and positive things that are happening with Trout Unlimited.
Chris: Yeah, let's do it.
Tom: All right, I'm gonna introduce you and then we'll take it from there.
Chris: Right on.
Tom: Well, hang on a second, I knocked the trash can over. I don't want to be making bumping noises. My guest today is Chris Wood. And Chris has been on the podcast a number of times. Chris is the president and CEO of Trout Unlimited. And it's an organization which I have tremendous respect for and a big supporter of and I'm a big fan of Chris because Chris, I think you've done some amazing things with Trout Unlimited, bringing diversity and younger people into the organization and really, really moving the needle, really making things happen. So, welcome back to the podcast, Chris.
Chris: Oh, Tom, it's a pleasure. It's always good to be with you. Always great to talk to you.
Tom: And we're gonna talk today about some recent news from Trout Unlimited, about some really exciting funding that you've gotten and then we're going to look at a couple of projects that you've got planned for this funding. So, why don't you talk about, first, about the funding and how it happened?
Chris: Well, we ended up securing a $40 million agreement with the United States Forest Service to do habitat restoration on the green, the so-called Greenlands, the Forest Service managed lands, and then on adjacent private lands. And the reason that this is such a logical partnership is that if you overlaid a map of all of the native trout habitat in America with the map of the 191 million acres of the National Forest System, there's almost a direct overlap.
We have places like Maine, which are different than most of the rest of the country where you've got incredible stronghold populations of brook trout, largely on private or state lands. We just don't have, you know, national forests in Maine, but in every other every other state, there's almost a direct overlap. Like, you know, the best brook trout fishing in Vermont is arguably in the Green Mountain National Forest.
Tom: Absolutely. Yep.
Chris: Move over to New Hampshire, it's the same thing with the White Mountain National Forest. We've worked on the Monongahela, which is one of my favorite forests down here in West Virginia. And we've worked with over 400 individual landowners to extend the cold-water influence of the Mon to adjacent private lands through restoration. So anyway, what happened was that, you know, we started talking with the Forest Service, when, you know, word on the street was they were serious about doing an infrastructure bill. And, you know, we tried to do this, Tom, in 2008, the last time they had another big infrastructure bill.
My colleagues and I here, made a ultimately fruitless effort to try to convince Congress and then the agencies that...that infrastructure bill was, I think, 900 billion. And we tried to make the argument that we should be investing in natural resource infrastructure. It's not just bridges and railroads, but it's making, you know, replacing undersized culverts with bridges so that in the next flood, when the next Irene comes along, you know, we're not stranding entire communities in Vermont, because, you know, the natural resources infrastructure wasn't prepared. Anyway, we weren't successful in '08, but we were successful this go round. So, we have hundreds of billions of dollars in the infrastructure law, that are allocated for doing things like removing dams or doing watershed restoration or helping to protect downstream communities from floods by replacing either antiquated or outdated things like culverts with bridges that will allow not only the flow to pass but allow fish to pass as well.
So, it's a very exciting opportunity for us. And you know, what's really cool is the Forest Service is our largest agreement, but we've secured an additional, just about 50 million bucks from other agencies like the Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries. Those are the folks who are responsible for salmon and steelhead while the Fish and Wildlife Service does inland fisheries like trout. And, you know, it's gonna allow us to create an envelope of restoration, the likes of which we've never seen in my lifetime.
Tom: That is such great news.
Chris: It's super cool. It's super cool. You know, TU is such an interesting cat. There are tons of groups that do awesome habitat restoration, great groups that you and I probably belong to, like Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Ducks Unlimited. And there are other groups that do a terrific job on policy advocacy groups like the, you know, The Wilderness Society or NRDC. But there are very few groups, in fact, I'd dare to say there's only one group that does both. And that's TU. You know, I know you've talked frequently and Orvis has been a huge supporter of our efforts to protect Bristol Bay, which is a great example of an advocacy campaign, and the secret I think to the organization's success is that what we do is we create good will in hundreds, thousands of local communities around the country by the great restoration work that we're doing in these communities. And then we take those relationships, and we try to leverage them to help on things like Bristol Bay or reinstating the protections of the Clean Water Act. And, you know, this infrastructure opportunity is going to help to supercharge those efforts.
Tom: Now, is that money in the bank? Can that be taken away? These appropriations are often very slippery. But is that money you can bank on?
Chris: Yeah, well, the about 90 million that we'll spend over the next few years has been committed. They call it obligated. So, that is safe, but the hundreds of billions of other infrastructure funding that we can use for, you know, creating climate resilience and doing restoration, that could be clawed back. I think it's unlikely because, you know, the Senate and the House are so close. And this is really, I think the White House views this as their signature achievement. So, you know, I don't see it happening. I think the President would veto an effort to, you know, to claw it back. They call that a Rescissions Act. I think he would probably almost certainly veto that. And I don't think they have a strong enough margin, the people who would want to take it back. It's just the House and the Senate are so close that I just can't see that gaining traction. And you know, the other thing to think about is there were 18 Republicans in the Senate who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure law. And, you know, part of our job is to make those folks realize this was a really good investment, and they were wise to do it. That's what we're up to for the next few years.
Tom: Okay, great. So, let's talk about a couple of these projects that you're planning and what they involve.
Chris: Well, I'll tell you, one topic I want to talk about just because it never gets enough coverage. I often liken TU as the patron saint of forgotten environmental causes. We take on all the tough ones. You know, western water law, or, you know, some of these other thorny, somewhat intractable issues. But abandoned mines are a huge issue across the United States. And new funding that was found within that, they call it the Abandoned Mine Land Program. Take a state like Pennsylvania, which has just, you know, arguably, some of, if not the best, wild trout fishing in the east. You know, they've got, you know, it's something like 5500 stream miles that are polluted with acid mine drainage. And a strong majority of those, it's like 4000 miles, are cold water streams. And historically, this thing called the Abandoned Mine Land Fund, which is basically, it's funded by a tax on the production of coal and it's used to go back in and remediate, you know, these landscapes that were, you know, mined maybe 100 years ago, where we didn't have environmental laws on the books and go back to clean those up. So, we typically get about 65 million a year from the Abandoned Mine Land Fund in Pennsylvania. And because of passage of the infrastructure law, we're gonna see, that's gonna, it's more than tripled. It's like quadrupled, it's like 250 million a year for the next 15 years.
And if you think that, you know, we've been at work in that watershed, in those watersheds, we're talking largely, the West Branch of the Susquehanna. We've been working there for about 20 years, and we've been involved in about, oh, I'd say, we've probably recovered 20-plus miles, maybe it's 26, I think it is, miles of the West Branch of the Susquehanna have where they were previously, you know, orange and dead and lifeless, they now are wild trout fisheries.
Tom: Wow.
Chris: Yeah, it's just so cool. And so now, you know, now we'll be able to use this funding from the infrastructure law to... I mean, we've modeled how, in places like Kettle Creek, where when I first visited Kettle Creek, it was interesting because the way that acid mine drainage, it's not the traditional, you know, bright orange that you see. And you're like, "What the heck's going on here? That's not natural." But this was this gin clear trout stream, but it was just dead. And now we've got, you know, I think it's eight miles of naturally reproducing native brook trout, which have moved down into Kettle Creek from some of the tributaries where they hadn't been impaired.
Tom: Wow.
Chris: With this kind of funding we have, we can expand this restoration so dramatically. And, you know, there's parts of, I don't know if you've fished much out of Lake Hancock in the Upper Delaware system.
Tom: A bit.
Chris: Yes. So, when you look at Hancock, it's got two beautiful rivers that flow through it. And yet, you know, it's not a thriving community, put it that way. And there's a ton of communities that are like that in western Pennsylvania. And if we can turn those things into destination fisheries, kind of like what's happened in the Driftless [SP] area, you know, we can see a lot of these communities, you know, they call them resource-dependent communities. And what they used to mean by that term was, well, they used to do a lot of forestry here, but they slipped off the hillsides of all the trees, or they used to do a lot of mining here. And that's what we traditionally mean by resource dependent, but our hope is that we can make these communities resource dependent again, but the resource is going to be, you know, healthy, abundant, thriving trout fisheries because of the clean water that's coming out of the rivers.
Tom: Yeah, and cleaner water for people too, and communities.
Chris: Well, not [inaudible 00:52:02] the people, right? Yeah, that's exactly right. So, that's my favorite. You know, in the East. But, you know, the opportunities right now are just, they're all over the country. You know, you think about the West. You know, we've got one project that has received a bunch of funding from this cycle. It's the Fish and Wildlife Service's fish passage program. It's the salmon superhighway. And so, this is coastal Oregon coho streams. And, you know, these aren't salmon and steelhead that are impacted by dams. What they've been impacted by is historic development practices, and agricultural practices. And so, I don't know maybe a dozen years ago, we formed a partnership with places like the Tillamook Creamery, and a local brewery out there, and a whole bunch of local partners and our state and federal agency friends, and we created this thing called the Salmon Superhighway. And the reason they came up with that name, Tom, was in this part of Oregon, often what happens is these culverts that go underneath roads, and that the stream is supposed to pass through, during high water events, they would get plugged up. And the fish, there's famous photographs of salmon swimming across flooded highways to get into the creek on the other side of the road, so they can continue upstream to spawn.
And we've opened, we have a goal of opening like 250 miles of habitat back up, that's presently often impassable to fish. And you know, salmon, obviously, they have to come in from the ocean. And then they return to the streams they were born in, to spawn. And that's how the whole cycle continues. And so, we've opened up like 170 miles so far, of our goal of close to 300. And, you know, this funding from the Fish and Wildlife Service's fish passage program, which the infrastructure law funded at about 250 million bucks. Historically, it was funded at around 20 million bucks. So again, we can just supercharge these efforts to, as you put it, not only to help, you know, recover salmon and steelhead habitat, but also, you know, if you replace a perched culvert with a bottomless arched culvert or a bridge, you're protecting the road prism above the culvert which is important to human infrastructure. I mean, you know, I remember during Irene the communities that were literally stranded in Vermont, because their, you know, their roads blew out.
So, you know, this is the, you know, aside from the listeners of your podcast, most of whom I assume are like you and I, and they're kind of fish geeks, that's a fairly small subset of America. And so, part of our job as advocates is to talk about these issues in ways that resonate with more people. So, when we talk about protecting headwater systems, like the greenlands on the Forest Service, we're not only talking about protecting our best remaining fisheries, we're also talking about reducing water filtration costs for downstream communities. And when we talk about reconnecting rivers to their floodplains, that's not only good in terms of creating spawning and rearing habitat for fish, but it helps to dissipate the energy of the next flood, so that the bridge downstream doesn't get taken out.
And the coolest opportunities, I think, in this infrastructure law, goes back to that sort of resource-dependent community concept. We can help to make these communities across rural America resource dependent again, but this time, the resources are sustainable. And all that restoration work that we're talking about, we're talking about creating hundreds, thousands of high-paying family wage jobs in often rural communities across the country. The opportunities, they're pretty awesome right now. And, you know, I hope, maybe in a year or so, I can come back and we can talk about some specific projects that, you know, before and after stuff just to give your listeners the sense of the scope and the scale and the opportunity presented in the next few years.
Tom: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. How about a couple more, give us a couple more projects that are going to be impacted by this, Chris.
Chris: You know, one of my favorites is, so believe it or not, the agency that's responsible for damming up much of America, you know, the Corps of Engineers, they actually received, I think it was 150 million bucks for dam removal. And, you know, we talked previously about, you know, the impact of the Snake River dams on salmon and steelhead, you know, we're down now to 1% to 2% of the salmon numbers we had, you know, in the '50s before the dam. Well, there's another in the Upper Columbia Basin, there's another dam, truly a deadbeat dam.
It's called the Enloe Dam. And so, if we took out the Snake River dams, we would open up hundreds of miles of habitat for spawning and rearing for salmon and steelhead. When we take out the Enloe Dam, we're talking about potentially reconnecting 1500 miles of upstream habitat for chinook and steelhead. And we've got funding now in agencies where we have great leaders, guys like Mike Connor, who heads the Corps of Engineers. He's a serious angler, ran the Bureau of Reclamation previously. You know, he's now in charge over there at the Corps. And so, we're having conversations with people like Mike and others about, you know, focusing resources to take out the Enloe and open up, you know, 1500 miles. I mean, when we opened up, we took out two dams on the Penobscot and bypassed a third and that opened up I think it was 1100 miles of habitat, which had a profound effect, unfortunately, not as dramatic as we would have liked on the salmon, but it had a profound effect on other monogamous fish like stripers and shad, and herring. And I do think... Well, I think ultimately that will help to bring back Atlantic salmon out there. But, you know, if you think about 1500 miles of habitat, that may be the largest river restoration project I've ever heard of. So, that's a real unique opportunity out west.
Another one, it's not really tied to... It's probably not, actually, what I should do is I should talk about brook trout. You know, we've got, I think I told you, you know, about the fact that, you know, West Virginia, you had previously, in a regular unrestored stream, you know, a 6, 7, 8-inch fish is kind of what you'd expect to catch. Well, we've done about, as I said, we worked with 300, 400 landowners to extend the cold-water influence off the Monongahela onto private lands. Now with this Forest Service agreement, and with this infrastructure funding, we've already installed over 100 miles of livestock fencing to keep the cows out of the creeks in West Virginia. We've done instream habitat over the past 20 years on 30 miles of rivers, we think that we've probably restored about 100 miles. And that was all with base funding, you know, the way we do it is we get some from the Forest Service, we'll get some from, you know, our donors, we'll get some from landowners. And then we sort of, you know, alchemize it into a project.
But we're now growing 15, 16-inch fish in these areas where we've done habitat restoration in West Virginia.
Tom: Fifteen to 16-inch brook trout?
Chris: Brook trout.
Tom: Wild brook trout?
Chris: Native, not just wild, but native.
Tom: Wow.
Chris: Yeah, I mean, if you build it, they will come. I mean, we've done... So, we do these large, you know, I mean, you know the story, Tom, you know, back in the day, not because anybody was doing anything wrong, they didn't know it was bad. But the first thing that timber companies did is they built roads right along the rivers, because, you know, the floodplains were the flattest, and then they took all the trees because that's where the big ones grow. And so, a lot of these systems are just bereft of large wood. And we found based on some, working on the Battenkill actually, that Orvis has been super helpful with, the Battenkill project. But we found in every year class, every single year class of fish because on the Battenkill, the system was bereft of large wood. And we did a bunch of shocking, shocked the river to find out how we were doing. And we found out that there were good numbers of large fish and good numbers of very, very young fish, but the whole middle class was missing, all the middle-year class. So, we used large wood installations, and went back in and shocked the year after, and we found increases in every single year class, three times the number of fish, the density of fish that we had previously. And so, you know, with the funding that we have now, on public lands, for public lands and public waters, these are all public access fisheries, you know, it's just with the base funding, we've seen, you know, more 15-inch fish, 16-inch fish coming out of streams off the Monongahela and other rivers like the Greenbrier in West Virginia, where we've done these large wood installations. And now, with the support of our partners like the Forest Service, you know, the sky's the limit.
Tom: So, I want to ask you, you said you extended the cold-water regime in these streams. Was it strictly by fencing out cattle, or were there other things that you did to lower the stream temperatures?
Chris: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, and, you know, just sticking with the West Virginia example, for a minute. We planted trees on over 1000 acres down there. And so, but you know, the first priority is to keep the cows out of the creek because they down cut the banks and then, just by their weight. And in the hot summer months, they want to wallow in the creek. And so, we basically hardened some spots that the cows could come in, or we created off watering ponds, basically, offsite water storage, fenced the creek, and then a ton of replanting, like I said, over 1000 acres of riparian restoration. And typically, when you put, and you know this already, but when you plant these creeks that have been down cut and over-widened, you put willows in there, those willows will close in on the creek within a couple of years, especially if the cows are fenced out. And so, it's a combination of large, you know, literally putting large wood back in these systems, so, you know, which enhances spawning and rearing and gives protective cover from predators, including us. And then, you know, a lot of tree planting because the cows have been down there eating everything in the creek, and then at times we have to do physical restoration as well where, you know, maybe a farmer may have, you know, ditched the creek up against the edge of the property, you know, 100 years, 70 years ago, and we'll go back and we'll use like LiDAR imagery or satellite photography to find out where the bends should be in the river. And then we'll literally go back and recreate the original river, which is a more intensive, you know, heavy equipment-focused operation. But the majority of time, we're just going back and letting these systems kind of heal themselves.
Tom: And bends do a lot in cooling the water, right? Because some of that water flows underground where it presses up against a bank and then the ground cools it and then it comes back out on the other side, so.
Chris: Exactly right, Tom. Exactly right. And those bends are really important for fish cover. You know, you've never seen a heron clean out a stream of brook trout, you know, fast [inaudible 01:06:10] in one where it's straight, and the heron can just kind of move along and pick them up one at a time. But when there's banks or large wood to take cover in, they're a lot harder to get to whether it's for mink or for avian predators.
Tom: My favorite, mergansers.
Chris: Mergansers. They do a number on you.
Tom: I hate them. I hate them.
Chris: Well, you know, what's cool, what's happening right now on the Potomac, so the shad have just arrived. And I mean, the river's up now so you can't really fish it, but we have these, I mean, thousands of mergansers that come up and follow the shad. And they are like the vacuums of the sky. It's incredible.
Tom: Yeah. Now, don't you have some work going on, on the Potomac as well, in the upper Potomac?
Chris: Yeah, we do. A lot of that landowner work that I mentioned is actually in the headwaters of the Potomac system, which is trout water. And Trout Unlimited, actually, is right now the fiscal sponsor of a group called Friends of Fletcher's Cove. We have this remarkable fishery down here, the shad fishery. It's actually a whole bunch of other species that are fun to fish for, but it's been closing in, silting in because of some fill that was put in upstream before passage of the National Environmental Policy Act. And so, TU has been helping that group to try to fix that problem. But yes, the headwaters of the Potomac are really fantastic brook trout fishing.
Tom: Yeah, I've seen it. It's pretty spectacular.
Chris: Yeah, it's cool. It's very cool. And you know, the other thing that happens is it's almost like there's a virtuous circle. A lot of these landowners have a... They're fairly cynical about the federal government and they're pretty distrustful of most people, they don't really like outsiders. I mean, it's like, I mean, everybody's the same everywhere, really. But, you know, what's happened in West Virginia, for example, and really, it's happened in the Driftless. It's happening on the Battenkill. It's, you know, it's happening, wherever we do this restoration work, we'll find one landowner who's willing to talk to us when we explain that, you know, we'll work with the government, you don't have to do that. We'll take care of all the paperwork. Basically, you have to put 10 cents down on the dollar. And we'll come up with all the rest of the funding. And, you know, you won't have, you know, you're not going to have the Feds on your land, they're not going to be making demands of you. And so, we'll finish the work. And then the next landowner will look over and see how the cows are still getting fed and watered but the creek isn't eroding as badly. It's not literally taking away their property, and the fishing has gotten much better. And so, he'll say, "Hey, Jimmy, who was it that you were working with to do that work?" And they'll say, "You should talk to guys over at Trout Unlimited."
And like, Dustin Wichterman, who's one of our project leads in West Virginia. He's like a fifth-generation boy from West Virginia. So, you know, he's a trusted entity. They're not, you know, a bunch of fast-talking white guys like me. Our project coordinators, they come from the communities that they work in, typically, and so there's a lot of trust that's built up and we literally just march down these streams year after year, helping to recover and improve people's property values.
Tom: Yeah, it's great when you can get that kind of buy-in from private landowners. It's so key.
Chris: It makes all the difference. It makes all the difference. And the other piece of it is, you know, Orvis has been terrific to us with some work on the Battenkill. And, you know, one of the cooler things we did on the Battenkill was we engaged about 400 volunteers to do tree plantings and trash removal, and you know, not sexy stuff, but and especially if you can get young kids involved in that, you know, they'll talk to their parents about it. And so, it's almost like a twofer. So, the work to engage, like, we know, we can walk away from a project when the community has basically taken it over. And that's kind of our objective everywhere we work is to create so much community engagement and buy-in, in restoration, that the community will feel a sense of ownership for making the good work about those projects continue.
Tom: Yeah, I know, on the Battenkill, my son and I planted trees, and they had a whole group from their high school to go and plant trees, and they did it regularly.
Chris: Did you do any of the trash removal stuff up there?
Tom: Oh, I have over the years, yep.
Chris: Yeah, I was talking to Jacob Fetterman, who's our project liaison up there. He told me they took out a ton and a half of trash. It's amazing.
Tom: I'm actually bigger on planting trees. I mean, trash removal is a good thing. And it's a good thing for the community to see. But it's kind of cosmetic, right? Planting trees is an investment for the future. So, I'm much, much bigger on planting trees than removing trash.
Chris: Well, you're just saying that because you probably have some favorite washers and dryers that are creating in-stream habitat for your secret spots there.
Tom: You're talking about a pool I fish quite often.
Chris: Don't be taking that trash, don't be taking that washing machine out of there. That's creating good large wood for me.
Tom: Yeah, yeah. No, I'd rather see wood in there than a washing machine. And Trout Unlimited and the Forest Service and the state working together in the Battenkill Watershed Alliance have done an amazing job of putting those in-stream structures in there. And the other thing is, when they're done well, you don't even know that it's artificial. Right? Because I mean, you can't even tell that it was engineered. It just looks like a log jam.
Chris: I mean, it's so cool, isn't it? Literally, you're like, "Where did this large wood come from?"
Tom: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Chris: [inaudible 01:12:50] put it there.
Tom: Yeah. And one of the amazing things was that all of those structures survived Hurricane Irene without washing out, which was, you know, what a testament to how well they were engineered.
Chris: Yeah. And you know, and so, it's interesting, like you think about the arc of how this stuff goes. I remember talking to a biologist, a salmon biologist, when I was just starting out. And he told me how, when he was a young biologist, that he used to work on a crew that went around the West removing wood from creeks because they thought it was blocking passage for the fish. And then he said he ended his career putting the wood back in. You know, we'd anchor a lot of this wood in place. And then what would happen is you get these big, like hurricanes or floods, and the wood would not only not hold up, it would rip out of the bank, and then take a big chunk of the bank with it. And so, now they've actually created many of these structures so they can actually mobilize when you get a big flood.
They're not locked in place. They'll actually move like large wood would do if a tree, for example, just happened to fall into the river. So, the restoration practices have come such a long way.
Tom: Yeah, they have, they really have. I know it's interesting you say that. The stream that I live on, back in the old days, the biologists thought that it was too cold, and it wasn't producing trout well enough. So, this was, you know, maybe 75 years ago, and they told the farmers to, you know, cut the trees along the banks so that the river would warm up, so it'd be more productive and then they came back, you know, I don't know how many years later and said, "Oh, no, we got to get those trees back in there. We got to plant them." So, you know, it does breed this distrust of the government because there's, you know, over the years, there have been conflicting philosophies about how to manage trout rivers.
Chris: Exactly right. And they probably, I'm sure there was, you know, stocking trout played a big role in, you know, trying to keep anglers happy historically.
Tom: Yeah, that was before my time here in Vermont. We don't have much stocking anymore. Thank God.
Chris: Well, I mean, that's right. I mean, I think it's if you can create the habitat conditions necessary for wild fish to reproduce, why would you want to stock ever?
Tom: It's a lot more cost-effective.
Chris: So much more cost-effective. And, you know, that's beginning to happen. I'll tell you a great story. It's really not tied to infrastructure. But we have a chapter, they're on the, oh, I'm gonna get it wrong. It's not the Westfield River. It's in Western Massachusetts.
Tom: Deerfield, Westfield.
Chris: Thank you. It's the Deerfield. So, the Deerfield Watershed chapter of TU, they were catching fish that were too, they were first of all, they would catch these big giant browns, but they were also catching browns that were too small to have been stocked. So, they went to the state and said, "Look, we think you've got natural reproduction happening here." This is a tailwater fishery, and there was a hydropower relicensing process that was underway.
And so, the chapter went to the state and said, you know, "You've got natural reproduction happening here." The state said, "No. No, we don't. Those are all hatchery fish." So, the chapter went out and they bought the state a boat that they could...and then they bought shocking equipment, so the state could actually go out and shock the Deerfield.
They found that not only was there natural reproduction occurring, it was occurring at twice the rate that they were stocking. There were twice as many wild fish as hatchery fish. And we actually ended up working with the Sylvia Conte Geological Survey lab up there doing some studies on the migratory patterns in these big browns. And as part of the relicensing process right now, this chapter is advocating the cessation of stocking in the river, and instead just turning it into a wild shot fishery. And you know, Tom, we're seeing that...you think about the evolution of things, of restoration, etc., the evolution of TU chapters around the country. You know, I remember when I first started working here, a lot of people were critical of TU for advocating stocking, especially stocking over wild fish.
We have turned the corner on that. And increasingly, there's more and more chapters that are out there, you know, becoming hardcore advocates for wild fish and hardcore advocates for creating the conditions that wild fish need to survive, so we can get rid of those mongrel trout that are raised in concrete tanks.
Tom: Yeah, I mean, in some places they're necessary. You know, people need to know that, that some places can't support reproduction. And in that case, if you want trout fishing, you're going to have to stock.
Chris: That's right. That's exactly.
Tom: But there are many places where we, we, we shouldn't be stocking.
Chris: That's it. Yeah, any place you have natural reproduction, I think should be considered inappropriate for stocking.
Tom: Yeah. I mean, maybe you won't have as many fish or maybe you won't have as many big fish, but you have to take what nature provides you, right? What the ecosystem provides.
Chris: And if we did that, all those anglers who have grown accustomed to catching hatchery fish, and think that that's normal, you know, with air quotes, those folks would become advocates for conservation, they'd become advocates for tree planting, they'd become advocates for restoration, you know, because they want to see better fishing in their local rivers and streams.
Tom: Yeah, yep. All right, Chris. Well, that was a good overview of what's going on with TU, the exciting things that are happening. And, you know, congratulations to you and your huge crew of professionals that advocate and work in these resources. I mean, you have how many biologists do you have and scientists on your staff? Do you know?
Chris: It's shocking. When I started at TU, we had 30, no, 28 employees, and 20 of them were in the Arlington office. Today, we've got 330, and there's about 25 in the Arlington office.
Tom: And the other ones are in the field doing the work.
Chris: They're all where the trout are. You know?
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: They're all where the trout are. You know, there are no trout to save here in DC. There's a lot of work to do to advocate for them, but there are no trout to save here in DC. So, we put our people where the fish are. And that's how they build those relationships that, you know, result in really awesome public-private partnerships so that when opportunities like these blue moon opportunities to get, you know, a trillion dollars of restoration done, when they come along, you know, we're oiled up and ready to roll.
Tom: Yeah. That's so great. All right, Mr. Wood. I want to thank you for taking the time out of your very busy schedule today to talk to us on the podcast and appreciate all your knowledge and sharing it.
Chris: Always a pleasure, my friend.
Tom: All right. I'll be talking to you soon.
Chris: Bye, bye now.
Tom: Thanks, Chris.
Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast with Tom Rosenbauer. You can be a part of the show. Have a question or comment? Send it to us at