The Clark Fork River is Coming Home

Clark Fork River, Fishing, , , , , , ,

American Angler Magazine has recently published my latest article on the impacts of removing the Clark Fork Dam near Missoula. You can read it at my website under the link Free Lance writing. In researching the subject, I discovered the Clark Fork Coalition. Based in Missoula, it is a blue ribbon organization fostering environmental stewardship. The staff of professionals are committed to their mission and action oriented. I plan to write a sequel to the Milltown Dam removal article, focusing on current restoration initiatives underway and planed for the upper Clark for River – from Missoula to its head waters at Warm Springs.

Closer to home, in the Kittitas Valley of Eastern Washington, The Yakima River, my home Yakima Riverwater, has several water quality restoration projects being coordinated and managed by the State Department of Ecology. We are planning an April meeting of key stakeholders including, state and local officials, landowners, farmers, and representatives from the yakima nation. Unlike other great western trout streams, the Yakima River needs an advocate organization to preserve and expand quality fishery and recreational opportunities for current and future generations. If you are interested in joining a mailing list to receive updates, please e-mail me direct at michael@troutdogs.com.

Yakima River

Yakima River

Fishing, Yakima River, ,

Yakima RiverApril/May brings the annual “flood irrigation” of farmland in and around the Yakima River, near Ellensburg. Toxic fertilizer runs into creeks like Cherry and Wilson that feed the Yakima River. Below Wilson Creek, the Yakima River struggles to absorb the brown layer of muck and debris. Solutions have included creating holding tanks to filter the irrigated water near where it runs into local creeks. Farmers argue that it’s too expensive to build. So year after year the cycle is repeated. It’s time to unite all stakeholders in an effort to create a strong voice for the long term health of the Yakima River. Troutdogs is exploring the establishment of a coalition to address the many issues that confront the use of this unique resource. Please contact me at Troutdogs if you are interested in participating. Future posts will provide updates.

Deadly Hatch

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Coming in 2011 – The Deadly Hatch – a new Miles Cavanaugh mystery

Excerpt – all rights copyrighted, 2010, Michael Hamilton

“What is it about the coming sunrise that makes the new day yet to be lived full of promise and possibility.  Where does the hope linger in each of us that the new dawn will bring something fresh, something undiscovered?  In the darkness, before the coming light gains quickly on the day, not pausing for a second to stop and rest awhile, I have felt giddy with excitement and apprehension.  Maybe even blessed, not in any religious sense, because I don’t believe in any one man’s religion, but more thankful to marvel at the colors and clarity of the moment while not knowing how the day will turn out. I would soon discover that no one in the Eastern Washington town of Cascade could have imagined what this day would bring, how it would turn out, as the sun broke above the horizon in a fiery blaze of glowing reds, smeared like a streak of paint across the new born sky.  It was an eerie scene. Thin, funneled shaped clouds with jagged edges, looking like an army of red tinged daggers, marched in columns ahead of the rising sun.  Someone up early for work or school or just coming home from the graveyard shift at Braxton Fertilizer must have thought to themselves, “Red Sky in the Morning Sailors Warning”, maybe even said it aloud.  But if they did, no one could remember hearing anything of the sort.  Too bad. “