The Watershed

spring / summer 2014

FREE FOR YOU

EDITORS' LET TER

Hello Progress When we set out to create this publication we wanted to celebrate fishing, the outdoors, and being active in nature. We also wanted to emphasize that enjoying the outdoors also means protecting it. The first step towards this is raising awareness. So in the following pages we talk to Yvon Chouinard, the founder of our favorite retailer, Patagonia, about angling and activism. We hear why he, along with biologist Matt Stoecker, made DamNation. The compelling film, screening at select Patagonia stores this summer, talks about America’s 85,000 dams and why many should be removed to restore natural habitats. We revisit 93-yearold dam buster Katie Lee’s naked crusade to save Colorado’s Glen Canyon. Then we bring it full circle, meeting 10-year-old Lola Randolph, the future of fishing, who cares as much about angling as the environment.

Within this issue we also introduce our other favorite "fishers"—the gender-neutral term for all those who love fishing. We see how women and children in increasing numbers are embracing the activity, and why learning to fish translates into a direct desire to safeguard the areas you cast in. Environmentalist, former police chief, and 1% for the Planet co-founder Craig Mathews talks about the art of catch and release. We discover how Patagonia ambassador April Vokey is empowering anglers around the world. And we find out about sustainably sourced salmon, river ecosystems, and tenkara— the beautiful technique of simple fly fishing.

Before making The Watershed, the most fishing we had done was for compliments. Now, we’re equipped to fish our local rivers, and also to help keep them healthy. We hope you’ll join us.

GLOSSARY

Don't know your hatcheries from your headwaters? Neither did we until we asked the experts. Use what they told us as a guide through the following pages, and to impress your friends.

1% for the Planet:

Angler:

Coachman: Fish farming:

A global movement of companies who donate at least 1% of their annual net revenues to environmental organizations worldwide.

A person who fishes with a rod and line.

An artificial fly used in angling.

Involves raising fish commercially in tanks or enclosures, usually for food.

W H AT ' S I N S I D E

3/ A WATERSHED MOMENT FOR HEALTHY RIVERS Our reasons how and why

4/ THE MORE YOU KNOW, THE LESS YOU NEED Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard's push back to a simpler life

6/ THE CHARISMATIC CASTER April Vokey is empowering a new breed of fishers with her wit, skill, and passion

7/ SPAWNING Is that baby a fisherman?

8/ UN-DAMMING OUR NATION Biologist Matt Stoecker's campaign to restore America's water ecosystems

10 / INTO THE GREAT WIDE OPEN

A place where (fish) eggs are hatched under artificial conditions.

Fishing goes beyond rod and line

Headwater:

The source of a river.

Director Travis Rummel on filming DamNation

Hydropower:

Power derived from the energy of falling water and running water, which may be harnessed for useful purposes.

13 / DEADBEAT DAMS

Hatchery:

Meltwater:

Redd:

River mouth:

Spawn:

Tenkara: [THE USUAL]

Watershed:

Water formed by the melting of snow and ice, especially from a glacier.

A spawning nest made by a fish, especially a salmon or trout.

The part of a river that flows into the sea, river, lake, reservoir, or ocean.

To produce or lay eggs in water.

The simple Japanese method of fly fishing where only a rod, line, and fly are used.

The area of land that includes a particular river or lake and all the rivers, streams, etc., that flow into it.

12 / RIVERS, REMOVAL , AND RESILIENCY

A visual compendium

14 / THE FUTURE OF FISHING 10-year-old Lola Randolph is focused on both technique and environmentalism

TENKARA AND THE CIRCLE OF LIFE : Patagonia's Joy Howard on how simple fly fishing can be transformational

15 / OLD SCHOOL ACTIVISM Dam buster Katie Lee's uncensored crusade for Glen Canyon

16 / ANGLING ATLAS Free Rivers vs. Derelict Dams

17 / TRANSPARENCY FROM SOURCE TO FORK Rethinking our food chain with Patagonia Provisions

18 / POLICING OUR WATERS How Craig Mathews, a former law enforcement agent, is fighting for healthy rivers

19 / SIMPLE FLY FISHING A kit for all your tenkara needs

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Cover: Fraser Murray, owner of Nimmo Bay Resort, fishing Coho salmon along the Central Coast of British Columbia, 2011. Photo: Jeremy Koreski

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F E AT U R E I N T E R V I E W

PATAGONIA FOUNDER YVON CHOUINARD'S PUSH BACK TO A SIMPLER LIFE At age 18 a curious Yvon Chouinard learned the art of fly fishing. This eventually led him to the centuries-old Japanese technique tenkara—or “simple” fly fishing. He's passed this knowledge on to experienced and novice anglers ever since, and recently penned Simple Fly Fishing: Techniques for Tenkara and Rod & Reel, with co-authors Mauro Mazzo and Craig Mathews.

But Chouinard’s passion for nature and fish also translates to direct action. A self-proclaimed dam-buster, Chouinard co-produced the film DamNation, to explore how our river ecosystems are endangered as a result of man-made dams, and how we can all be part of the solution.

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You just got back from the premiere of DamNation at SXSW? Yeah, we had 400 people show up, that's pretty good.

Why was it important to make this film?

I was taught that if you make a mess, you're responsible for cleaning it up. Somehow corporations and governments are immune to that kind of thing. They pollute a river and they walk away. They build dams and when they're no longer useful it's left to the taxpayers to clean it up.

That's wrong. So I wanted to establish a precedent, starting with dams, that if you build something—something massive like that—divert a river, or whatever you're doing, you need to put money into a trust so that when it is obsolete, you have to restore it to its original pristine condition. If that should ever become law they'd never do these massive things again.

The other reason for making this film is that I've been a dam-buster all my life. Patagonia's been involved for a long time in trying to take out dams. Our first victory was Edwards Dam on the Kennebec in Maine. It was preventing hundreds of miles of salmon tributaries from going up there. But it was a local issue. We decided to make it a national issue by coming out with full-page ads in the New York Times.

A lot of interest was given to the thing and it came out. It's gone, and salmon are now roaring up there, as well as shad and striped bass. It's amazing there. We were involved with the Elwha Dam even though it was absolutely hopeless at that time. Now it's gone and the fish are back! So we've had some of what I call "concrete" victories.

Most of us in the US grow up going to see these dams, not really understanding how bad they actually are. So what was really nice about the film was that it shined a light on the destructive nature of dams.

[The film] makes a good case for taking out obsolete dams and harmful dams. We need to make a stronger case for not building any more

dams and talk about the unintended consequences of existing dams: things like preventing sand from reaching the coastlines, which is very important, especially with the rising seas in the future. We're losing the beaches. And then we're losing nutrients. The Colorado doesn't reach the Gulf of California anymore; two-thirds of the Gulf is a dead zone. All the big fish are gone, because there are no nutrients. And the Aswan Dam of the Nile has killed the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean is a dead sea.

Within a decade or two, there won't be a single river in China reaching the sea. The whole South China Sea will be another dead zone. We're killing the oceans with these dams, because the nutrient cycles are being stopped. Then you’ve got evaporation. In the film we talk about how 8% of the total water behind Glen Canyon Dam is lost to evaporation every year. That's a lot of water.

We're having a big drought here in California and people are talking about building dams again. That’s not the solution. The solution is to replenish our aquifers. The Ogallala Aquifer is under the whole Midwest and responsible for all that agriculture. It used to be, on average, 30 feet under the ground. Now it's 300 feet. In another decade it'll be gone. And it's fossil water. It's millions of years old. So it's not being replenished. Instead of building dams, why not replenish our aquifers, which is completely possible to do.

The film makes the case for protecting these areas and rivers so we can actually enjoy them. You just made the book Simple Fly Fishing, which talks about fishing on rivers that are healthy and the beautiful art of simple fly fishing, or tenkara. What's so special about tenkara?

The book is a metaphor for society. The overlying problem is growth, which is what no one wants to address. Whatever gains we make as a society in cleaning up our act and becoming more so-called

Clockwise from top: Yvon Chouinard on the Henry's Fork River in Idaho fishing for Rainbows, 2013. Photo: Jeremy Koreski; Don’t fence me in. Yvon Chouinard wrapping up a bad day of fishing. Still beats workin', Wilson, Wyoming. Photo: Tim Davis; Salmo Salar, no reel no problem, Iceland. Photo: Malinda Pennoyer Chouinard. Opposite page: Yvon Chouinard, 2013. Photo: Jeremy Koreski

environmental are completely erased by growth. Whether it's population growth, the growth of companies, or the growth of consumerism. We're not getting anywhere. In fact, we're losing, every single day. The only solution is to go back to a simpler life.

the guide is a real teacher, your mind just shuts off. It's like being driven by a chauffeur to a place in the city 10 days in a row. Unless you actually drive there on your own, you'll never be able to do it because your mind shuts off while that guy's driving you there.

Trout Species*

MARBLE TROUT The rarest of the trout species, only found in Europe.

You perfect a sport when you can do all of these things with less stuff. The most impressive ascent of Everest was by the Swedish guy who bicycled from Stockholm to Kathmandu and then soloed Everest and bicycled back to Stockholm. That is cool, as opposed to this huge multinational guided thing with computers and internet cafes at the base of Everest. I'm really stoked to see some of the routes I did on Capitan that took us nine or ten days being soloed by guys in their gym shorts. That's the way sports should go.

Unfortunately, fly fishing has gone the opposite way. The industry has made people so insecure that they feel like unless they have a $1,000 rod, $500 reel, and multiple ones, they won't catch a fish. They have reels with drags on them that can stop a truck. So it's an industry based on enticing people to consume more and more. Which is the problem with our society. We need to get back to a simpler life where we consume less. We buy used clothes, we patch our clothes, we make things last. We buy less, but buy better quality that'll last a long time and hand it down to our kids.

That's what tenkara's all about. The technique goes back to 210 ad, when it was first written about. That's the way I and a lot of people in my generation learned to fish. We bought a bamboo pole, or cut one, and put a line on the end with a worm and we caught fish. Tenkara is a pole with a line on the end and an artificial fly. I started doing this as a novelty.

Then I realized the combination of the flexible pole and being able to control the action of the fly—which you can't do with a stiff fly rod—I can make that fly dance in front of a trout's nose and he can't resist it. I’ll go out with some of the best fly fishers in the world, and at the end of the day, they'll maybe have caught 10 fish, I'll have about 50.

In Simple Fly Fishing you ask fly fisher Lefty Kreh to describe in two sentences how to cast a line. Can you describe in a couple sentences how to use the tenkara system to catch a fish?

I could teach somebody to cast in three minutes. It's that simple. If you want to turn someone into an angler, they have to catch fish. They can't go three days without catching a fish (laughs). As soon as they catch that fish, they're hooked. I was just down in Argentina and I had a waitress in a lodge and I promised to teach her fishing. I gave her a three-minute lesson casting a tenkara rod. I told her what to do, and she went out, she landed two rainbow trout! Two twenty-inch rainbow trout all on her own. So it's a metaphor for society in that if we have to go to a simpler life, it won't be an impoverished life, it's going to be a great life.

A lot of people learn a sport without ever learning the basics. A lot of climbers learn to climb in a climbing gym. Then they go out on a real crag and they don't know how to place protection or anything. They never learned any of that stuff. Fishing's the same thing.

People start out and immediately take a casting class or they go out with a guide. Unless

Tenkara teaches you the absolute basics. The most important thing is that it gives action to the fly, instead of this dead object that's floating on the surface with no drag. The thing is dancing around like a real fly does. If you get it in front of a trout's nose, it's a killer.

Fishing is such a male-dominated sport, women may be intimidated to pick it up.

You look through fishing magazines and there are women fishing in their bikinis. To fish, you either have to put on a bikini, or deal with the burly tattooed guy.

It’s not only male-dominated, but if you look at magazines and stuff, all the guides, they all have these great big bushy beards, they have tattoos, and they're talking about ripped lips, and it's become this testosterone-laden sport, where it used to be the gentle, contemplative sport. It's you against the fish now. And it's crazy! Women look at that and say, “Gee, that's not me.” But 38% of our business right now is women's fly fishing stuff, because no one else is paying any attention to [what they want].

Your wife doesn't fish. Has she tried the tenkara?

No, she doesn't want to poke holes in a fish's mouth. But you know, catch and release causes very little damage to the fish. There's the rare occasion where you could kill or hurt a fish. But I've caught the same fish in two different casts. I've caught a steelhead, released it, cast again and caught him again.

The fish was probably so annoyed.

You're tormenting fish, no doubt about it, but it's pretty harmless for the good that it does, which is to create anglers who really care about the environment and clean rivers and stuff like that. If you don't have any relationship with a river, then you don't care whether it's polluted or not. It does a lot of good in that respect. If you really didn't want to hook a fish, but you like the idea of outsmarting one, you just put a fly on that doesn't have a point or barb. The fish will tug on it and that's it. You get the same enjoyment.

Can you talk about the idea of “reading the river” and how it's important to fishing and being able to catch something?

Like I said, I could give people a threeminute lesson and then they can really start catching fish—if I tell them where the fish are. It's like robbing a bank: that's where the money is, but there better be money there!

It's the hardest thing for people to learn, and that's something they have to learn on their own, studying and even going out with guides who point out where the fish are. But that's the enjoyable part—learning.

You're known to go off on your own when you're fishing. Is that a good time for contemplation?

It takes an incredible amount of concentration to be a good fisher. You have to really study the water flow and think like a fish: “Where's the fish going to be in this kind of water? What insects are likely to come out at 2 o'clock this afternoon?” It’s very intense.

BROOK TROUT Stubborn, strong fighters, and one of the most beautiful fish in the world.

BROWN TROUT Unlike humans, they learn from their past, and are considered smarter than other trout.

RAINBOW TROUT The acrobats of the trout world; when hooked they take to the sky.

People say, “I don't fish because I don't have the patience.” That's a different kind of fishing. That's throwing a worm or some bait and sitting there waiting for something to bite it. Fly fishing's not like that. It's a completely proactive thing. Each person is in his own world. You may as well just go and do it yourself. Plus you want to get to the good places before your buddies.

Do you consider fly fishing a sport?

I don't think it's a sport. A sport belongs in the sport pages of a newspaper. Climbing doesn't belong there, and fly fishing doesn't belong there. It's a passion. With the tenkara, if you catch a big fish, you have to replace that reel with physical action. You have to run after the fish, you’ve gotta do all kinds of stuff to get that fish in. But that's the fun of it.

Does Patagonia have a particular fishing ethos that's different from other companies?

I think we're more concerned about protecting resources than a lot of companies. There are 30,000+ manufacturers of fishing gear in America. Of those, only 13 belong to the global organization 1% for the Planet. You'd think a company that's dependent on having clean rivers and healthy fish populations would feel more responsibility to do something about protecting them than your average taxpayer, but no. It's really a crime.

Then, I'm interested in getting people into fly fishing because they'll be advocates for protecting their resources. Right now, it's a dying sport. Kids are sitting at home, playing their Game Boys and they're not out.

Especially urban kids, who have a long ways to go before they can catch fish. I'm particularly interested in getting women and their daughters into fly fishing. There's tremendous interest from women, if it's done right.

You started fishing with your brother back in Maine. Were you fly fishing?

No, I didn't get into fly fishing until I was 18 years old when I was in the Tetons. One of the mountain guides, Glenn Exum, who owned the Exum Guide Service, was teaching his son how to fly cast. I was watching him out in the meadow and he looked over at me and said, “Hey. Come on over here, son.” He taught me how to cast, and that was it. I put away my spinning lures and became a fly fisherman.

The last time we talked you said you had to survive off cat food one summer because you were so poor— —that was the summer!

So once you learned to fish, you didn’t have to eat cat food anymore? (laughs) I only did that for one summer. I mean, I ate porcupine and ground squirrels. The butcher shop in Jackson would save bones for me. I scavenged a lot of different things. And yeah, I ate fish.

CUTTHROAT TROUT With a reputation for being easy, they fall for big, bright flies every time.

GOLDEN TROUT The most beautiful of all trout, they live in high-altitude streams and lakes. *FROM SIMPLE FLY FISHING

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F E AT U R E I N T E R V I E W

THE CHARISMATIC CASTER APRIL VOKEY IS EMPOWERING A NEW BREED OF FISHERS WITH HER WIT, SKILL, AND PASSION

BY JEANINE PESCE

April Vokey has made it her mission to educate and empower novices and enthusiasts around the world about the intricacies of fly fishing and environmental responsibility. Vokey is a writer, certified casting instructor, Patagonia ambassador, passionate guide, but above all, an angler. According to her there are three types of anglers: the ones who can cast, the ones who can fish, and the ones who can do both. After years of hard work and commitment chasing steelhead from her home base of Chilliwack, BC all the way to Australia and South America, we talk to Vokey about embodying all three. basically guiding for free. At day’s end, they expressed gratitude and delight about the relaxed, non-competitive atmosphere we shared on the water. It soon occurred to me that I appealed to a niche market whom I enjoyed spending time with, and so the journey continued.

How did you get into fly fishing?

I turned to fly fishing during my late teens after spending a lifetime pursuing fish, using terminal tackle (spinners, lures, baits).

My dad and I would troll worms when I was a child but that was about the extent of our fishing together. I became enamored with fly fishing because it presented a constant challenge—one with room for improvement.

Today, whether I am looking for alone time to clear my head, or for adventure amidst BC’s rugged terrain, fishing accommodates both of those needs.

Today, we take pride in working with guides who not only understand the behavioral patterns of steelhead, but also casting mechanics, efficient gear, and proper catch and release handling skills, all the while focusing on having fun outdoors.

Tell us more about the company you started, Fly Gal Ventures, and what makes it special.

I started Fly Gal seven years ago to open the door to people interested in the sport but too afraid to try it. Before Fly Gal, I had been taking friends to the river with me and was

You have a big following on Instagram. Do you think social media is playing a bigger role in connecting the fly fishing community?

I do indeed. I know that for me personally, it has allowed me to make some wonderful new relationships via social networking. That

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said, there are as many equally “disconnecting” factors that the internet plays as well. There are posing experts, forum drama, anonymous bravery, negative assumptions, mistaken identification, and over-promotion of fisheries that are unable to sustain the pressure. Every action has a reaction, so I do my best to accept the bad with the good.

You experienced some romance on the river and are newly engaged. Can you tell us a little about that?

Ah yes, love. I was on an Atlantic salmon trip in Norway last year, where I had booked lodging in a house with several other avid anglers. It was a trip much like most of the others I had partaken in over the last decade.

But this time as I stepped out the front door to put my waders on, I locked eyes with an already wadered up Australian. He looked as shocked as I did by the attraction—we literally fell in love on the spot and have been together ever since. >> FLYGAL.CA >> APRILVOKEY.COM

Clockwise from top left: April Vokey tying flies in a hotel in Terrace BC, 2012; April spey casting for steelhead in northern BC, 2012. Photos: Jeremy Koreski; April Vokey and her dog, Colby; April checking out a run for steelhead in southern BC, 2013. Photo: Jeremy Koreski; Illustration: The Bow and Arrow Cast

In addition to your home province of BC, is there another region of the world that you love to fly-fish in?

I have always had a passion for travel and saltwater fishing. Many countries have captured my heart over the years: Seychelles, Argentina, Belize, Iceland, New Zealand.

However, Australia has been largely unexplored by the fly fishing industry and I am smitten while I race around and treat my fishing palate to every species I can find in the vast continent.

What does fishing responsibly mean to you?

As a company, we use every opportunity to educate anglers on the importance of our fisheries and the benefits of catch and release.

We believe that if we take from the environment for our own enjoyment, we are obligated to give back. Individually, I travel the world preaching about our beautiful fisheries, letting anglers know their support is always needed. When a situation arises that I believe can use my help, I dive deep into it, never failing to remember that I owe Mother Nature so much more than she could ever owe me.

F E AT U R E E S S AY

IS THAT BABY A FISHERMAN?

TAKING KIDS FISHING 101

BY PAUL GREENBERG "Is it a boy, or a girl, or did you decide to wait and see?" to take a bite. I have even taken him crabbing, clamming, and porWhen you are an expectant parent this is the most com- gy casting. And so far, what my son is really, truly interested in is mon question you're likely to field from friends and passersby European football. as you stroll with your partner down a familiar thoroughfare.

It's not that he hates fishing. He (sort of) likes it. But what's missBut if you are an angler that question is largely irrelevant. If you ing is that total abandon that I knew when I took up the sport. are an angler the real question you are pondering is whether that The losing-track-of-time-ness. The obliviousness to splitting your baby in the belly will turn out to be a fisherman. pants when you hopped over a fence to illegally snare a largemouth To be sure, this is a birth that will occur long after the actual bass on some greedy landowner's private pond. The obsessive-combirth of your child. Though I know a fair amount of fishing fanatics pulsive research of the territory of a planned vacation and the prewho adorn the nursery with images of sea life and stock the toddler planning of jaunts you might take during said vacation to relieve toy room with plastic fishing games from China (present company the incessant fishing itch. That's what makes a fisherman a fishincluded), these are all the expressions of the hopes of the parent erman. And note when I say fisherman I mean a child of either rather than the passions of the child. Fishiness, i.e., the almost ge- gender. As Linda Greenlaw, a sword boat captain and author put netic proclivity to cast a line into any body of water larger than a it, "Fisherwoman isn't even a word. It's not in the dictionary. A fishpostage stamp, emerges at age 5 or so and blossoms into full flower erman is defined as 'one whose employment is to catch fish.' That in the tween years. Around about 13 the fishing jones withers in describes me to a T." the harsh hormonal light of adolescence, but it is apt to reappear Now, sadly, I've learned that a child is not a lump of clay that in the child's middle 30s, at which point the elderly parent should we angling parents can masterfully sculpt into a being with a mibe waiting to reap the final reward. For, really, what we fishing par- raculous back cast and a dexterous ability to whip up Royal Coachents are angling for when we set out to teach our children to fish is mans at a tiny fly-tying vice. Rather, a child is a feral beast who a fishing buddy who will accompany us in our dotage, remind us upon opening its eyes and flying headlong into consciousness of our youth, and maybe shell out for a fly fishing jaunt to Alaska might fall into any trap. So here's what you can do. Build your trap when our IRAs fail to mature as we had hoped. well. Adorn that nursery with marine life lithographs; hell, mount But I digress. What we're concerned with here is how exactly to a cane pole on the wall behind the nursing chair. Walk, holding end up with that fishing buddy late in life. How do we transform hands with your feral creature along the side of a stream, point that baby in the belly into a rangy Huck Finn-esque whippersnap- out that the dimples on the stream’s surface are tiny kisses trout per with a cane pole in the hand and an innate smell for fishy wa- are planting on the water from below. Note a tern as it dives off a ter in the nose? As the parent of a seven-year-old who may or may jetty, chasing a sand eel that is also being chased by a striped bass. not turn out to be a fisherman, what I can advise so far is that you Build in the mind of that beast of yours the web of life. That is really can't quite do it. I have taken my son on party boats off Long Island what we are talking about when we talk about building a fisherman. where so many fish came over the rails that it looked like it was For me a fisherman is defined as one who employs his or her time raining mackerel. I have planted him by lakesides rich in sunfish connecting to the vast, miraculous processes that drive the living and perch and put a worm on his hook so juicy that even I wanted planet. That describes me to a T.

KEEP IT SIMPLE. Kids don't need any expensive equipment; try the simple tenkara kit for the most basic setup PICK THE RIGHT TACKLE. Use a colorful, soft hackle fly Don't worry about big fish, just fish for fun KEEP IT LIGHT AND INTERESTING. Use the time for conversation BE PREPARED. Have the right clothing, food and drink, gear, and safety equipment BE GREEN. Don't leave your fishing line or other litter outdoors HAVE FUN.

THE DOS AND DON'TS OF SIMPLE FLY FISHING The beauty of fly fishing lies in its simplicity. But if you’re just starting out, there can be a lot to get your head around. Here, a few basics.

DO: KNOW YOUR KIT A slippery riverbank isn't the best place to be fumbling with your rod, line, and flies. Get familiar with your gear before you hit the road.

KNOW THE FISH Before you start casting, you should be able to identify the species you’re likely to encounter.

It’s not easy to flip through a guidebook with a frustrated fish at the end of your line. We've outlined a few trout and salmon species throughout this issue. You're welcome.

TALK TO THE LOCALS If you’re fishing somewhere new, it’s always worth approaching a few anglers from the area for advice about local spots, customs, and conditions.

LEAVE SOME SPACE If you arrive to find other anglers already on the river, leave a considerate distance and be attentive to the experience of others. At small holes, be patient and take your turn. Don't enter directly downstream.

RELEASE QUICKLY When handling a fish, wet your hands first. Your motions should be firm, gentle, and reassuring.

Release it as swiftly as possible—its life is more important than your perfect Instagram shot. Always remember that a hooked fish is a fellow being worthy of your admiration and respect.

PACK YOUR TRASH If you packed it in, then it’s up to you to pack it out—the thoughtful angler leaves no trace. If you come across trash others have left behind, pack that out too.

GIVE SOMETHING BACK Rivers, lakes, and oceans give to us with unending generosity. We can only imagine how much healthier they’d be if anglers spent as much on conservation and restoration as they do on the latest gear. The next time you’re feeling thankful after a good day of fishing, think about giving something back by supporting a group that works for clean waters and the survival of wild fish.

BY MALCOLM JOHNSON

DON’T: BREAK THE LAW

FALL IN THE RIVER

Make sure you have all the applicable licenses and stamps. Don’t fish during closures or in restricted areas, and don’t exceed your legal limits. Some of the rules may not make sense, but most are there for a reason.

Taking a tumble into the river is embarrassing at best and life-threatening at worst. On the shoreline, be conscious of your footing; when you’re wading, always take the current into consideration and try not to scare the fish, disturb redds, or stir up sediment that will affect the action downstream.

TRAMPLE PRIVATE LAND Or any land, for that matter. Shorelines are sensitive environments, so stick to established trails whenever possible. And be sure to respect Private and No Trespassing signs—an angry landowner can quickly ruin a peaceful Sunday.

MAKE UNNECESSARY NOISE You’ll spook the fish and annoy your fellow anglers.

Stereos blasting Nickelback are a definite no-go.

TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW The best spots are crowd sensitive. If you scored somewhere, you don’t need to tell everyone on Facebook exactly where it was.

F E AT U R E I N T E R V I E W

UN-DAMMING OUR NATION MATT STOECKER'S CAMPAIGN TO RESTORE AMERICA'S WATER ECOSYSTEMS

Matt Stoecker wants to blow things up. Namely he wants to take down the obsolete concrete structures holding our river ecosystems hostage.

A biologist, photographer, and activist, Stoecker's latest call to action is the film DamNation, which he conceived with Yvon Chouinard and coproduced for Patagonia with Felt Soul Media—he also shot the underwater footage. The documentary tells the story of thousands of US dams, that should be removed because they are outdated, unsafe, and cost taxpayers millions. DamNation screens in select Patagonia stores this summer.

Let’s start with the basics. Why are dams bad?

Dams are bad for a bunch of reasons. They block the flow of water, but also of nutrients up and downstream on rivers across the country. They block the sediment—silt, sand, gravel, cobbles—from flowing downstream to feed our coastal wetlands and our marine environments. That impacts not just ecosystems, but also on impacts caused by climate change. We're seeing sea levels rise even faster than projected a decade ago.

One of the only real sustainable ways to address that is to restore the flow of sediment to the coast. That enables beaches, barrier islands, and coastal wetlands to build up and grow, along with sea level rise and protection of coastal communities.

In the opposite direction, dams block the flow of nutrients in the form of sea-run fish, like salmon, steelhead, river herring, sturgeon, eel, and other species that migrate between freshwater and the ocean. The health of forests way inland, for example, in the Rocky Mountains depends on the millions of salmon that swim into the Columbia River and up hundreds of miles into Idaho, spreading nutrients from the sea throughout the whole upper Snake River watershed. At least 137 species depend on Pacific salmon alone

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for part of their diet, from redwood trees to orcas, grizzlies to ospreys. I don't think we've fully come to realize the massive impact of severing that connection between the land and the ocean.

Do you see any pros for having dams?

Not in the long-term. Dams were built for some beneficial uses and have been a really important part of our country growing. But for all those uses they were built for, we now have less harmful alternatives that make a lot more sense. So dams are just a really outdated, destructive technology.

The myth out there is that dams provide clean power. It’s [a story] being told by energy companies. They make the argument from the standpoint of carbon emissions. But a dam is similar to a coal-fired power plant when you consider implications on water quality and impacts on entire watersheds. Coal-fired power plants have obvious negative impacts to air quality and climate change by releasing greenhouse gases. Dams have that same impact on a river by degrading water quality, habitat conditions, and ecosystem health.

Further, more studies are coming out showing that the dams are actually a major culprit in the greenhouse gas emission

scenario; and worldwide, dams and reservoirs are one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. So the argument that dams provide clean hydropower has no legs. It’s great to see some states and investment portfolios dropping hydro dams from their list of renewable energy sources.

Dams and reservoirs are also a terribly inefficient long-term water storage proposition.

They lose storage capacity every year due to sedimentation filling in the reservoir, and the huge reservoir surface area evaporates more water than is actually used in many cases. Water efficiency measures, conservation, regionally appropriate crop selection, and groundwater recharge and storage are far more efficient options without the negative environmental, economic, and societal impacts.

Before seeing DamNation we knew little about dams. In the film, Ben Knight, one of the directors, says the same thing. Why aren’t more people talking about the issues surrounding dams?

There are over 85,000 dams in the US. Just about everybody in our country lives within a couple miles of multiple dams. If you look at a map, they're everywhere. But a lot of people assume that having a big body of water is a good thing.

To get people aware and excited about rivers and to show the amazing recovery of a river after dam removal are things that words don't really work that well for. Blowing up a dam is this amazing event that instantly transforms a river's future. Visually it's such an incredible thing to see, which is why Yvon and I decided to make this film. Actually, (laughs) when we first approached [director]

Extremely cold water trickles out of the Glen Canyon Dam into what's left of Glen Canyon, forming an unnatural stretch of trout water on the Arizona/Utah border, 2013. Photo: Ben Knight

Travis Rummel about making the film with us, he looked at us like we were crazy and thought it was a boring topic. Travis and Ben turned it down at first.

The film said that out of the 85,000 dams that are around, only about 2,500 of them produce hydropower. Why do we have so many dams?

The three main things that dams have been built for in our country are power, water storage, and flood protection.

For example, in the deserts of the Southwest, with a lot of dams there, there's no intent to provide any hydropower. They were built to store water for irrigation and for potable water supply. Some of them were just built for recreation or stock ponds for ranching. On the Columbia system, which is in the wetter Northwest, a lot of those dams were built specifically for hydropower, and some of those dams had a very important part in building all the planes and other military equipment for World War II. Is the hope that all the obsolete dams at this point will eventually be removed?

Yes. Along with Patagonia and the river conservation group Save Our Wild Salmon, we developed a national call to action [www.change.org/petitions/presidentbarack-obama-crack-down-on-deadbeatdams]. It's focused around removing the four lower Snake River dams. But the call to action letter is also asking Obama to crack down on deadbeat dams across the country.

So the intro to the letter lays out that we've got a lot of dams that serve zero function and are obsolete. Many of them are safety hazards and it's time for the federal government to

take them out. The letter goes into more detail on the need to remove the four lower Snake River dams, because they are the most important federally owned and controlled opportunity to restore large selfsustainable runs of wild salmon. The Columbia system historically had the biggest salmon run in our country, so it should be a source of national pride and a focus in restoring that watershed.

What were the challenges in doing this film that you didn't foresee when you started working on it?

When Yvon and I decided to make the film, we sat down and wrote out what we wanted [from it]. The main objective was to have it be seen by as many people as possible and to grow this budding dam removal movement. Early on, we identified a lot of dams that we have supported removing, were coming out, or that we wanted to see come out.

The list was initially (laughs) a few dozen different dam removal stories.

The biggest challenge was to narrow that down to just a handful of stories, characters, and dam issues. It was frustrating because there were so many good stories I wanted to tell, but the most powerful stories rose to the top and we’re all pretty proud of how it turned out.

One of the most emotional moments in DamNation was seeing the Elwha River Native American community talking about their history and relationship to salmon—how the species is so sacred to them. It seems like many of these dams affected Native American communities profoundly.

Yeah, a lot of the Native American tribes were focused around these runs of salmon that provided sustenance throughout the year. [Searun fish] really were the absolute central focus and means of sustaining many of these tribes throughout the year. Not surprisingly, where there were these salmon runs, there were also rivers that had the potential to be harnessed for hydropower. If some of these dams were proposed now there's no way they would be built—it would be viewed as cultural genocide in a lot of cases.

In DamNation we thought it was important to capture the cultural issues that come from [building] dams, even the non-salmon bearing rivers, like Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River, which submerged hundreds of cultural sites. Dam construction has done that all over the country: submerging Natives Americans' important cultural sites. The impacts aren't just where the dams are, they spread up and down the whole watershed. So for Native cultures, a dam that might be hundreds of miles up or downstream from them has a huge impact.

Dozens of tribes are affected by one—or a couple—dams.

Salmon are talked about a lot in the story of dams, but there's also this focus on steelhead trout. Why are they so important to the bigger picture?

Steelhead are hands-down the most revered fish to catch on a fly rod in North America. There are a lot of passionate people that have gotten the fishing bug because of steelhead trout. So when you talk about salmon you’re often talking about sustenance and economic benefits for commercial fishers and benefits to the ecosystem. Steelhead, while they have these same benefits, also have this additional importance among recreational river fishers. Like the guy Lee, in [DamNation] who sits on an Oregon stream and watches and protects those steelhead. He's evolved from being super-passionate about fishing for them to not necessarily wanting to catch them anymore, just wanting to be in their presence.

Unlike some salmon species, steelhead live throughout a watershed year-round—for several years in many cases—before they head out to the ocean. Because they utilize the entire watershed, they are dependent upon healthy flows and habitat within that watershed. If you have a healthy steelhead population, that's a sign that the watershed is healthy enough to support them. That means that all these other native species will have the habitat and water quality they need to survive as well. To achieve successful ecosystem restoration it's really important to identify indicator species. It’s less about restoring steelhead and more about using steelhead restoration as a means of restoring and monitoring a watershed and the larger ecosystem’s health.

Do you fish?

I got into the work I do now because my brothers and I growing up were complete fishing fanatics. I was a fly fishing guide after college in Alaska and Mongolia. Since then I’ve really evolved into focusing on restoring and protecting these wild fisheries I love, and not fishing a whole lot. For the past decade I’ve been more excited about putting on a diving mask, snorkel, and some fins and swimming around with wild trout and salmon. Getting underwater and taking photos and shooting video of these iconic fish in their natural habitat is what I’m more passionate about now. Making this film was a way to bring the viewers underwater with me to soak in the beauty of wild fish and free-flowing rivers.

How did you get into dam removal activism?

The dam that got me inspired to work on dam removals is on my home stream called Searsville Dam that Stanford University owns. I've been fighting to get it removed for 16 years now. A lot of people think of [Stanford] as one of our nation's most progressive universities, yet they've got this destructive dam that they don't need. At the same time, they're claiming that they're a green, sustainable university—but they have an obsolete dam blocking threatened steelhead and degrading an entire watershed. So I started a coalition called Beyond Searsville

WHY BUILD A DAM?

YAY PROGRESS !

Dams are built for four main reasons: flood control, irrigation, municipal water supply, and power production. Through improved technology and smarter planning, we can provide these needs more effectively and without the negative cultural and ecological impacts of blocking an entire river system with a dam.

USA DAM REMOVAL SUCCESS STORIES Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams Clallam County, WA OPENING DATE: 1913 > DEMOLITION DATE: 2011-14 TYPE: Concrete gravity dam FACT: The largest dam removed in US history, being completed as you read this.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN FFECTS OF A DAM ON A RIVER? Dams disrupt flows, degrade water quality, block the movement of a river’s vital nutrients and sediment, destroy fish and wildlife habitat, and eliminate recreational opportunities. Reservoirs slow and broaden rivers, making them warmer, reducing water quality, allowing for destructive non-native species to disperse throughout the watershed and prey on and compete with native wildlife. The environmental, economic, and social footprint of a dam and reservoir may run the entire length of the river from the highest mountain peaks that feed the headwaters to the river’s delta at the ocean.

WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT DAM REMOVAL? Removing dams has proven to be an effective way to restore entire watershed ecosystems, revive wild and sustainable fisheries and associated jobs, protect coastal beaches and wetlands, improve water quality, and improve the lives of adjacent communities and native cultures.

WHO DECIDES TO REMOVE A DAM? A single person or small group usually takes the initiative, but this can often take decades. The dam owner (private/public utilities, federal/state agencies, etc.) is the final decision maker in a dam’s removal. Pressure from local activists, local government, natural resource agencies, and other groups mobilize and encourage the dam owner to remove it. Often, a dam costs more money to maintain and update than it does to remove it.

HOW ARE DAMS REMOVED? The techniques vary greatly due to the different environmental factors, physical features, and construction types of dams. Typical removals include controlled explosions and/or gradual demolition with heavy equipment. Generally, the reservoir is first drawn down, sediment is stabilized, transported away, and/or allowed to flow downstream with the river, and finally the dam structure is demolished.

FACTS COURTESY OF DAMNATIONFILM.COM

Condit Dam White Salmon River, WA OPENING DATE: 1913 > DEMOLITION DATE: 2011 TYPE: Gravity dam FACT: Largest removed dam before the Glines.

Dam and we have over 30 partner organizations.

We’ve pushed for Stanford to undertake alternative studies, including dam removal, and they are expected to make a decision about the future of the dam by the end of this year.

There are dams that are up for removal, but then there are dams that haven't been built yet, like this big proposal on Alaska’s Susitna River, a 735-foot, $5.2 billion structure. But is this just a US issue?

In China and India, down in South America— really all over the place—there are huge megadam proposals being built right now. There are a lot of protests being led by indigenous cultures: people physically fighting and being harassed, trying to stop dams from inundating their homes and territory. Our friends in Alaska are fighting their own state government over the most ridiculous dam proposal our country has seen in decades. Fortunately, a definitive new study by Oxford University just came out which assessed the economics of past large dam construction projects. They concluded that large dams are totally uneconomical and that project costs end up being nearly double the original estimate.

We're a few steps ahead, or a few decades ahead of a lot of these other countries that are making the same mistakes we already made. A lot of countries would say we're being hypocritical about trying to stop them from building dams, because look what we've done—we've dammed our whole country. But the hope was that by focusing on the US [in DamNation] we'd be able to show the history of dam-building here. Yeah, we did it, we went crazy, we took it way too far, and now look where we are. We're spending all this money trying to undo the damage now. Hopefully that will inspire other countries not to build dams and also to take dams out that they built.

So basically, the US is the case study showing what not to do.

Exactly! We're trying to say: We did it. We acknowledge that. And look at the mess it caused.

Save yourself. >> DAMNATIONFILM.COM >> STOECKERECOLOGICAL.COM

Type: Gravity Dam Material: Concrete, Rubble Masonry Reservoir

Concrete wall Inspection gallery Gravels Rock

Veazie and Great Works Dams Penobscot River, ME OPENING DATE: 1912 > DEMOLITION DATE: 2012-13 TYPE: Buttress-style dam FACT: The biggest East Coast dam removal effort involving four dams to restore eleven species of sea-run fish.

Type: Buttress Dam Material: Concrete, Timber, or Steel

Reservoir

Concrete buttresses spaced along the wall Concrete wall Gravels Rock

San Clemente Dam Carmel River, CA OPENING DATE: 1921 > DEMOLITION DATE: 2014 TYPE: Arch dam FACT: The largest removal in CA history, set to begin summer 2014.

Type: Arch Dam Material: Concrete Reservoir

Concrete wall curved in plan Gravels Rock

Edwards Dam Kennebec River, ME OPENING DATE: 1837 > DEMOLITION DATE: 1999 TYPE: Hydroelectric dam FACT: The once vibrant fishing industry here had all but disappeared until the dam's removal.

Type: Hydroelectric Dam Material: Concrete Reservoir

Powerhouse Generator long distance power lines Turbine

River Intake

Penstock

Photos from top: Wildly controversial, a November 2012 ballot initiative that aims to study the potential removal of the O’Shaughnessy Dam in Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley will be in the hands of San Francisco voters, 2013. Photo: Jim Hurst; Salmon jumping on the Elwha River past the former Elwha Dam. Photo: Matt Stoecker; Matt Stoecker filming salmon underwater for DamNation below the former Elwha Dam. Photo: Ben Knight

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P H O T O E S S AY

INTO THE GREAT WIDE OPEN Being a fisher means so much more than just catching fish. It's being outside, getting in the water, enjoying the great wide open. Photographer Jeremy Koreski knows that sentiment well, "I've just always loved the journey and the simple adventure of getting there," he says. The following images here, taken over the last few years in British Columbia and Oregon, show the joy that being in nature can bring.

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Only about 2% of all salmon hatched will live to adulthood. Many salmon pass at least eight major dams to and from the ocean, which block and flood their habitats, increasing migration times, predation, and stress. Additionally, natural predators—like birds and disease—contribute to a salmon’s demise. If more obsolete dams are removed, and habitat restored, salmon will be free to enjoy their full life cycle, as illustrated below.

THE LIFE CYCLE OF SALMON !

!!

Young salmon: Going downstream, some are killed by a dam's turbines; others are stunned and become easy prey.

Adult salmon: Many die trying to find and negotiate fish ladders that were set up (largely in vain) to pass a dam.

Incubation Emergence

In late autumn a female salmon digs a nest (redd) with her tail, then deposits eggs—each nest contains between 500 and 1,200 eggs. Then, a male comes around to fertilize.

In late winter, the eggs hatch, resulting in tiny alevins that live on their nutritious yolk sac on their undersides. Three to six weeks after hatching and when the yolk sac is gone, they emerge for food.

Spawning When salmon enter freshwater to spawn, they stop eating and in many cases their bodies transform. Most salmon species die within one week of spawning.

Freshwater Rearing Juvenile salmon feed on insects as they grow.

These fry may spend hours to years in freshwater, depending on the species. Sockeye spend the longest amount of time in freshwater (1–3 years).

river [fresh water]

!

Estuary Transition and Rearing Saltwater meets freshwater in estuaries. This is where fry learn to adapt to saltwater. They become less active and more vulnerable to predators. Young salmon may spend days or months in estuaries and nearshore waters as they adjust and grow, getting ready for an ocean journey.

Migration to Spawn

!!

Eventually, salmon return to their home stream, lake, or river to repeat the spawning cycle.

ocean [salt water]

Ocean Residence Estuary Ocean Transition

Depending on the species, salmon may feed and grow in the ocean from six months to five years. Most follow the coast north, where they may travel thousands of miles.

At this stage, juvenile salmon travel from the protective waters of the estuary into the open ocean.

RIVERS, REMOVAL, AND RESILIENCY TRAVIS RUMMEL ON FILMING DAMNATION

BY MALCOLM JOHNSON In the summer of 2012, a few months after the removal of the Elwha Dam on Washington's Elwha River was completed, Nature reported that salmon and steelhead were spawning in tributaries that had been "inaccessible for over 100 years."

A year later, biologists were mapping hundreds of spawning redds upstream of the former dam site. It's a story that shows dam removal can work—the damage we've done can be slowly undone, if we can only summon the will and wisdom to give fish a fighting chance. Travis Rummel, who co-produced DamNation with Matt Stoecker and co-directed with Ben Knight, shared some of his thoughts on dams and rivers shortly after the film's premiere this spring at SXSW, where it won the Audience Award in the Documentary Spotlight category.

ON DAM REMOVAL “It doesn't happen quickly. For the Elwha specifically, it took over 30 years of people working to actually get it to happen. That was the largest dam removal I know of in the world that's ever been undertaken, so it's not like you can just go in and consult the textbook and say, ‘This is how we do it.’ The Matilija Dam in California was approved for removal in 2000, and there was money allocated for it from Congress, but then the Army Corps came in and couldn't figure out how to deal

with the sediment that had backed up behind it, and it's languished for the last 14 years. It's all so nuanced to the specific environment— how you do the deconstruction and how you deal with the effects. It takes a lot of time, money, and study. Yvon Chouinard made a great point at the premiere, which was that if companies were required to set aside enough money to remove these dams at the end of their useful lives, nobody would build them in the first place. They're kind of just left there for the taxpayer to come in and clean up.”

ON RIVERS AND CULTURE “Ben Knight and I did a film [Red Gold] in Bristol Bay, Alaska, which is one of the last big strongholds of wild salmon. The fish are such an important icon to the Native people up there, and it's incredible to see four generations of a family out harvesting fish. At that time of year, everyone stops what they're doing in the rest of their lives and they come together to celebrate the fish. It's kind of the last pillar of culture up there. I think the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe has suffered by not having access to that part of their culture for the last hundred years. So as you see in DamNation, it's a huge thing for them just to have access to the salmon fishery and to have much of the river reconnected to the ocean again.”

ON RESILIENCY “We were at the former Condit Dam site, on the White Salmon River [in Washington], with all of these nonprofit stakeholders who had fought for a decade or more to get the dam out. To be filming them as they were kayaking and rafting through there was really powerful. It's towards the end of DamNation, and you can see how awe-inspired people were to be on the river.

You can't even really tell there was a dam there just one year before. The resiliency of nature is really impressive—these structures have been blocking the rivers for 100 years, and as soon as they're gone, sediment is getting flushed out and fish are moving up above the dam. It was really encouraging to see that dam removal can work.”

ON SMALL DAMS “I think it'll be a long time before the Hoover Dam or Glen Canyon Dam or some of the mainstem dams on the Columbia River are going to come out. But we're just trying to get people to re-examine each dam in its own right. A 3-foot dam and a 700-foot dam have almost the same ecological impact, as far as stopping sediment and keeping migratory fish from being able to go up into habitat they need for their life cycle.”

ON GETTING INVOLVED “We're doing a national campaign to petition the White House to remove the four lower Snake River dams. There's an online petition and cards in Patagonia stores, or you can text DAM to 91990. That will bring attention to those dams, and we're also trying to raise awareness of the proposed Susitna Dam in Alaska. But what we hope to happen is just for people to get involved and work on a local level to restore watersheds. It doesn't have to be some big act on a national level—if there's a derelict dam in your backyard and you can work with a grassroots nonprofit to create some movement to get rid of it, that's the bigger goal for us. We just want people to think critically about the issue. When you have an idea of what a healthy river looks like, you might value that more than a shitty old dam.” >> DAMNATIONFILM.COM >> FELTSOULMEDIA.COM

A VISUAL COMPE NDIUM :

D E A D B E AT WASHINGTON Glines Canyon Dam

MAINE Veazie Dam

CALIFORNIA Klamath Dams / Matilija Dam / Searsville Dam

DAMS

Images taken by Matt Stoecker while traveling the country filming DamNation.

MAINE

Fish ladders and traps, such as this one at the Veazie Dam on Maine's Penobscot River, have failed to prove effective in recovering endangered Atlantic salmon.

Fortunately, this ladder and dam were removed in 2013 and now salmon and other migratory species have access to expand upstream and restore themselves. >> PENOBSCOTRIVER.ORG

CALIFORNIA

CUT HERE: Instructions on the Ventura River's deadbeat Matilija Dam. Plans to remove this California dam, restore the flow of sand to local beaches, and improve watershed health are widely embraced and have been underway for over a decade. >> MATILIJA-COALITION.ORG

CALIFORNIA

Prevented from migrating any further upstream, a pair of spawning pink salmon flirt over a gravel bed a stone’s throw from the now removed Elwha Dam powerhouse, in a scene from DamNation. >> AMERICANRIVERS.ORG

CALIFORNIA

Stanford University's obsolete Searsville Dam blocks one of San Francisco Bay's last wild runs of threatened steelhead trout, while the stagnant reservoir causes harmful algae blooms, degrades water quality, harbors non-native species, emits greenhouse gases, and contributes to dewatering the creek downstream. >> BEYONDSEARSVILLEDAM.ORG

MAINE WASHINGTON

Washington State's Elwha River flows free between the remaining abutments of Glines Canyon Dam as the largest dam removal project in US history restores this Olympic Peninsula watershed. >> AMERICANRIVERS.ORG

Hydro turbines go silent at the Veazie Dam powerhouse where the Penobscot River Restoration Trust has recently removed the dam and is opening up thousands of miles of formerly blocked habitat to devastated runs of sea-run fish like Atlantic salmon, river herring, shad, and eel. >> PENOBSCOTRIVER.ORG

Types of Salmon

Max. Length: 59 in Max. Weight: 125 lb . Max Age: 9 years

Max. Length: 39 in Max. Weight: 35 lb . Max. Age: 7 years

Max. Length: 43 in Max. Weight: 34 lb . Max. Age: 5 years

Max. Length: 30 in Max. Weight: 15 lb . Max. Age: 3 years

Max. Length: 33 in Max. Weight: 17 lb . Max. Age: 8 years

THE FUTURE OF FISHING

TENKARA AND THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

LOLA RANDOLPH IS ANGLING 2.0, WITH A FOCUS

PATAGONIA'S JOY HOWARD ON HOW SIMPLE FLY FISHING

ON BOTH TECHNIQUE AND ENVIRONMENTALISM

CAN BE TRANSFORMATIONAL Despite our early 6:00 a.m. phone call, Patagonia’s VP of Global Marketing, Joy Howard is already effusing adrenaline while she simultaneously walks her dog and gushes about the outdoors. A Georgia native, Howard’s infectious Southern accent becomes more pronounced when talking about what she loves: being in nature with her daughter and learning tenkara with her boss Yvon Chouinard, who recently took her fishing.

Name: Lola Randolph Age: 10 Location: Ketchum, Idaho

Lola R andolph is of the next generation of fishing that cares as much about angling as the environment. She recently fell in love with tenkara on a fishing trip with her dad and Yvon Chouinard. She chats with us while on a quick break from her busy 4th grade school schedule.

What do you love about fishing?

You have to be patient.

It's fun to cast the rod and see what type of fish you caught. [Dad interjects: to spend time with your dad?]

Yeah. Me and my dad go fly fishing a lot.

What do you love about being outdoors?

There are really good views, and I like hearing the birds and the river. We’ve seen really big dragonflies and garter snakes, bald eagles.

Do you have any advice for someone who's never gone fishing?

Have fun, and have someone like Yvon come with you. And be patient. There’s not a lot, you just have to learn how to cast the rod, and what parts of the river are good for fishing, and what parts aren’t.

How do you know what parts of the river are good?

Where we were fishing down in Ashken, there were a bunch of rocks.

Is there a special way to figure out where the fish are?

There are tons. The method teaches you to think. You’ve got to figure, fish are trying to eat, and they’re trying not to be eaten. So they’ll be under patches in water where they’re likely to skim some bugs but also where they’re not likely to be seen by birds that are going to kill them. They’re in little ripples and pools and you see a certain pattern on the water and you know that’s likely where the fish are.

A lot of people think fishing means sitting out there for hours waiting to catch something. Is that your experience?

The operative word there is “sitting.” It’s not like you sit there and wait for the fish to come by. There’s tons of wading and casting and scampering here and there.

Tenkara is a really active way of fishing; it's like hunting for fish. It’s a whole mindset. One of the biggest parts of it is being smart and figuring out where they swim, and where on the river they would be. Then you have to get your ass over there to them.

And with tenkara you wanted to get the fly behind the rocks so that the fish could see it. That’s usually where you find the little flies that get stuck in the water and float down.

How is the tenkara rod different from a normal fly fishing rod?

With a fly fishing rod you have a reel so you can get line off of that, and with a tenkara rod you only have a certain amount of line, and when you catch a fish you have to pull back the rod and grab the line so you can pull in the fish. With the tenkara it’s more simple. There aren’t as many things on the rod and it’s lighter.

Some say fly fishing is a sport; some say it’s a spiritual experience. What’s your take?

It's not sporty at all. Everything we do as a company is because it’s outside and because of the effect that being physical in nature has on you as a person. We’re about doing things in nature that transform you, not going out there and treating nature as a backdrop for sport.

You don’t have to call it spiritual. For some people it’s just a way to stay sane. For some it’s as basic as bread and water. For some it’s a treat from time to time. But most people who have made their way to work at a place like Patagonia see it as a foundational need to be alive, to be physical, to be outside, to practice these sports in a way that makes you the person that you are—hopefully a better person.

What have you learned about the environment through fishing?

When we were fishing recently, there was this biologist that came and she was telling us that when there are too many plants in the water it produces too little oxygen during the day. And the fish are starting to die because of the water quality and how much trash is getting into it.

Did she say there was anything we can do to help?

Yeah, when you go fishing don’t leave any trash behind and pick up what you use and [Dad: don’t spill things like oil and fertilizer. And buy sustainably produced food].

Every fisher has a favorite fishing story, what’s yours?

One time my dad and I were fishing down near our house and my sister and I went down in the water because it was pretty deep, and we got washed down the river and my dad had to come down and help us get out.

>> Joy Howard, Grand Teton National Park, 2013. Photo: Yvon Chouinard; Fish!, Grand Teton National Park, 2013. Photo: Joy Howard, Instagram @joyrocker

Does your sister also fish?

She is a vegetarian, so she doesn’t fish because she thinks it's mean.

<< Lola Randolph geared up and ready to fish tenkara for trout on a small river in Idaho, 2013. Photo: Jeremy Koreski

I’m sure everyone asks you this, but what do you want to be when you grow up?

Either a famous fisher or a famous hockey player.

What’s your background with simple fly fishing?

I fished a lot growing up. I hadn’t done it in a long time, so when Yvon invited me, I was really excited.

We all went to Jackson, WY to his old cabin right along the edge of the Tetons in the Snake River. We took a 15-minute casting lesson the night before and then he gave me a couple things to read. The next morning we hiked out, and I was catching two at a time within minutes. The whole tenkara method is super easy to learn. All you have to do is learn how to cast and pay attention.

What do you love about fishing?

The cool thing is [it's] the circle of life. The whole time we were fishing with Yvon it was catch and release, catch and release, until the last day. Then he said, “I’m going to get one more fish.” He casts, pulls the fish out.

Later that night he gets the fish out, and cuts it open to look inside its stomach to see what kind of flies are in there. He got his little magnifying readers out, split the fish's belly open, and looked at all the bugs in there. He then pulled the feathers to tie the flies that he needed for the next day based on the fish’s stomach. That’s how it works. How cool is that?

OLD SCHOOL ACTIVISM KATIE LEE'S UNCENSORED CRUSADE FOR GLEN CANYON

L

ong ago, pristine wildlife stretched over 170 miles of Colorado's Glen Canyon. No one relished in this land more than activist, folk singer, and natural beauty Katie Lee. Lee ran in its rivers, climbed its sun-kissed cliffs, sang in its valleys, named its nearly 96 side canyons. She was as much one with the untouched habitat as were the birds, trees, and unique fish that populated this dense expanse.

When its survival was threatened with flooding to build the Glen Canyon Dam, Lee was the first to speak out in opposition.

She did this in the most effective way possible: getting naked among the river and red rock, she was captured on camera by photographer Tad Nichols to show the beauty that would be lost if the area were to be dammed.

Despite her efforts, a 710-foot-high structure was built in 1963, leaving Lee pissed off and broken-hearted. Featured in DamNation, we see that 60 years later, at 93, she is a staunch proponent for the dam's removal. She's no longer dropping her drawers in dissent anymore, but she's just as loud in other ways.

At a glance

GLEN CANYON DAM Country: USA States: Arizona, Utah Type of dam: Concrete thick arch-gravity Impounds: Colorado River Opening date: 1966 Owner: US Bureau of Reclamation Length/height: 1,560 ft/710 ft

THE BATTLE FOR

PEBBLE MINE - SITE LAYOUT

BRISTOL BAY

Estimated 25 year pit outline

SAY NO TO PEBBLE MINE

BY MALCOLM JOHNSON

Pipeline and road to port

5000 ft

BRISTOL BAY IN SOUTHWEST ALASKA PRODUCES NEARLY 50% OF THE WORLD'S WILD SOCKEYE SALMON. Threatened by the proposed open-pit Pebble Mine, which would create staggering amounts of waste and require the construction of a huge earthen dam, the area's future hangs in the balance.

Because of the threat Pebble Mine poses to the environment, a coalition of fishers, scientists, and concerned citizens have been campaigning against its approval. In early 2014, the EPA initiated a review under the Clean Water Act, which is good news, but the battle for Bristol Bay is by no means over. >> SAVEBRISTOLBAY.ORG

Katie Lee reflects in one of Glen Canyon's magical side canyons before they were flooded in 1963 by the completion of Glen Canon Dam and what she calls “Res Foul” (aka Lake Powell) in a scene from DamNation. Photo: Katie Lee Collection; Katie Lee and dynamite. Photo: Kate Thompson; Katie Lee pool. Photo: NAU

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ANGLING

ATLAS

FREE RIVERS VS. DERELICT DAMS

Klamath River Dams Proposed for Removal COPCO DAMS 1 + 2

JOHN C. BOYLE DAM IRON GATE DAM

BILL KLYN, Patagonia's International Fishing Development Manager

Kenai River

Skeena River

Deschutes River

Snake River

Rio Grande

Gaula River

COUNTRY: USA PROVINCE: Alaska SOURCE: Kenai Lake MOUTH: Cook Inlet LENGTH: 82 mi

COUNTRY: Canada PROVINCE: British Columbia SOURCE: Spatsizi Plateau MOUTH: Pacific Ocean LENGTH: 354 mi

FACT: In June, it is light 24 hours a day, meaning no sleep for anglers trying to keep up with the huge king salmon who are always on the move.

FACT: The finest steelhead angling in the world makes this a mecca for serious anglers.

COUNTRY: USA PROVINCE: Oregon SOURCE: Little Lava Lake MOUTH: Columbia River TYPE OF FISH FOUND: trout and steelhead LENGTH: 252 mi

COUNTRY: USA PROVINCE: Yellowstone Ecosystem, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Washington SOURCE: Rocky Mountains MOUTH: Columbia River TYPE OF FISH FOUND: salmon, steelhead, trout LENGTH: 1,078 mi

COUNTRY: Chile and Argentina PROVINCE: Tierra del Fuego SOURCE: White Lake in Chile MOUTH: South Atlantic TYPE OF FISH FOUND: rainbow and brown trout LENGTH: 100 mi

COUNTRY: Norway PROVINCE: Sør-Trøndelag SOURCE: Holtålen MOUTH: Trondheimsfjord TYPE OF FISH FOUND: salmon LENGTH: 90 mi

FACT: Its name comes from the S-shaped hand gesture the Shoshone tribe made to represent salmon—explorers misinterpreted it to mean "snake."

FACT: Considered the world’s finest sea-run brown trout fishery, the area keeps getting better because of conservation efforts and an emphasis on catch and release.

Atlantic Salmon Reserve

Mataura River

Searsville Dam

Tarbela Dam

Arase Dam

COUNTRY: USA PROVINCE: San Mateo County, CA TYPE OF DAM: Masonry IMPOUNDS: Corte Madera Creek in the San Francisquito Creek watershed OPENING DATE: 1892 OWNER: Stanford University LENGTH/HEIGHT: 275 ft/65 ft This watershed was just listed as one of the 2014 Most Endangered Rivers by conservation group American Rivers, due to Stanford's dam.

COUNTRY: Pakistan PROVINCE: Tarbela TYPE OF DAM: Earth and rock-filled IMPOUNDS: Indus River OPENING DATE: 1976 LENGTH/HEIGHT: 9,000 ft/470 ft from river level

COUNTRY: Japan PROVINCE: Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture TYPE OF DAM: Hydroelectric IMPOUNDS: Kuma River OPENING DATE: 1955 OWNER: Kumamoto prefectural government LENGTH/HEIGHT: 689 ft/82 ft

Rynda and Kharlovka rivers COUNTRY: Russia PROVINCE: Murmansk TYPE OF FISH FOUND: Atlantic salmon

FACT: This is home to some of the best Atlantic salmon fishing in the world, called "the fish of 10,000 casts." Here, it is the pursuit more than the catch that matters.

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"In Monglolia, they have taimen, these wild fish. They call them the wolf of the river and they use squirrels to catch them because these things just attack anything in the water. I went traveling with the nomadic Cossack tribe, the last of the eagle hunters. That was spectacular, riding on a horse along with a golden eagle on your arm."

TAKE ACTION: If these dams are removed, 420 miles of historic habitat would open for the first time in more than a century.

GET INVOLVED: klamathriver.org

COUNTRY: New Zealand PROVINCE: South Island SOURCE: Mountains to the south of Lake Wakatipu MOUTH: Toetoes Bay TYPE OF FISH FOUND: brown trout LENGTH: 120 miles

FACT: For recreational anglers this is the single most important fishery, famous across the globe. At 120 miles long it can sustain substantial angling pressure, but we have to be careful not to love some of these rivers to death.

FACT: A world-renowned fly fishing river with incredible angling for trout and steelhead combines challenging wading and long casts.

Klamath Dams

(Iron Gate, Copco 1, Copco 2, J.C. Boyle dams) COUNTRY: USA PROVINCE: Oregon and California IMPOUNDS: Klamath River OPENING DATE: First one built in 1909

FACT: The federal government, dam owner, and most of the impacted stakeholders support removal.

TAKE ACTION: beyondsearsvilledam.org

FACT: This is the world's largest earth-filled dam and second largest by structural volume.

FACT: The British popularized this water in the late 1880s and it is considered the best sport fishing water in Europe.

FACT: This is Japan's first large dam to be removed but the struggle will continue until obstructions to the Kuma River—such as the Setoishi Dam— are fully removed.

P ATA G O N I A P R O V I S I O N S

Patagonia Provisions was born to show that good, simple food can be enjoyed without harming the environment. The brainchild of Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia Provisions is about finding ways to rethink the food chain, which means transparency, care, research, and sustainability. Starting with wild salmon, Provisions demonstrates that fish can be responsibly caught and processed.

Fortunately, we can all be part of the solution with smarter, more informed choices.

TRANSPARENCY FROM SOURCE TO FORK RETHINKING OUR FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN WITH PATAGONIA PROVISIONS

BY MALCOLM JOHNSON

W

hen you turn over a package of wild sockeye from Patagonia Provisions—six ounces of lightly smoked, ready-to-eat Alaskan salmon—the first thing you’ll see is this simple sentence:

Provisions' wild sockeye salmon is fully cooked and ready to eat. Enjoy as is or incorporate into one of the recipes to the right.

ENJOY AS IS

It’s a statement that may seem overly obvious, or far too general to mean much of anything. Of course it’s salmon; you already knew that. And besides, consumers these days want detail, and a lot of it. But those three words are more assertion than identification. This, the people at Provisions are saying, is what salmon should be—wild, sustainable, and harvested by a community that knows its own survival is closely bonded to the survival of the miraculous, red-fleshed fish that so faithfully return to the river of their birth.

Starting its journey in the mountains near the small town of Yakutat, the Situk River wanders some 20 miles from its beginnings before flowing into the cold seawaters of the Gulf of Alaska. Not so long ago, there were endless rivers like it along the West Coast of North America, each home to abundant runs of Pacific salmon. Today, though, the Situk is one of the precious few. While so many other rivers and runs were diminished or destroyed by overfishing, pollution, and urban and industrial development, the Situk’s wild fish populations continued to thrive.

OR

HEAT

DRAIN

SERVE

It’s a river that has always provided for those who live near it. In present-day Yakutat, a long-held respect for salmon is still very much alive, and the community’s bond with the fish is one of the reasons Patagonia Provisions chose to source sockeye there.

Setting out to create positive change in the commercial salmon industry, the company knew it needed to work with people who saw salmon as a resource to be honored rather than exploited.

Using short-soak nets anchored to shore, the Situk sockeye fishery—where Provisions fish are harvested—is highly selective, minimizing fish caught unintentionally, and leaving a large net-free area through which fish can pass on their trip upriver to spawn. Carefully monitored and carefully performed, it’s the sort of fishery that Patagonia is proud to partner with. It’s good for all involved—the fishers are supported in their way of life, the community carries on with its traditions, and consumers who don’t have the opportunity to catch their own fish get access to some of the world’s best food. The Provisions program is just a start. However, it’s an opportunity to demonstrate that, for the industry as a whole, supporting wellmanaged, small-scale local fisheries like this—and in the future, areas of Bristol Bay—is a responsible and good way to go.

Caught mindfully in a clean, free-flowing river—for Patagonia, this is what salmon should be.

“Salmon is more than an industry for them,” says Paul Chanswankul, one of the managers of Provisions. “It’s a way of life. It’s heritage, something that’s been going on for so many generations.”

There are a number of critical issues facing Pacific salmon fisheries, but one of the most fundamental problems is this: when you catch a salmon in the open ocean, you don’t know what river it’s from. There are physical signifiers that show you what species it is, and you can tell if it started its life in a hatchery or a spawning bed, but that’s about it. And since salmon always return to

the place they’re born, the population that mingles in marine waters is actually a mix of separate sub-populations, each originating in, and belonging to, a specific river. Without knowing where an individual fish is from, you don’t know if you’re contributing to the further decline of an already threatened run. It’s only by fishing in-river that you know exactly what run you’re drawing on and whether that river’s population is abundant enough to be responsibly fished.

THIS IS A SPORK. A spork is a hybrid form of cutlery taking the shape of a spoon-like shallow scoop with three or four fork tines.

Great for eating salmon!

>> PATAGONIA PROVISIONS PRODUCTS ARE AVAILABLE AT PATAGONIA STORES WORLDWIDE AND THROUGH PATAGONIAPROVISIONS.COM

KEITH MALLOY'S FISH TACOS INGREDIENTS Fresh fish of your choice 2 eggs 1 avocado 8 oz. cheddar cheese Chopped cabbage A bit of cilantro Salsa Hot sauce

PREPARATION "I like to make fish tacos with my fresh fish. I bread the fish with egg and bread crumbs and then fry it in olive oil. The rest involves cooking the tortillas stove-top in some olive oil, slicing avocado, tomato, cutting up cabbage and cilantro, adding a little bit of salsa, cheddar cheese, and hot sauce and you are good to go."

- Patagonia surf ambassador Keith Malloy

LAURA SIEVERT'S WILD SALMON DIP INGREDIENTS 1 package Patagonia Provisions Wild Sockeye Salmon Lemon Pepper 1 package Neufchâtel cream cheese (8 oz.)

2 bunches of green onion (or you can substitute with a small sweet onion) Big handful or two of parsley (I like to use a mix of regular and Italian from my herb box) 1 lemon Dash of Worcestershire sauce PREPARATION "Open Salmon package, save 1/2 of juice for use.

Chop onion and parsley somewhat fine. Break up cream cheese with a fork and add: 1/2 of salmon, salmon juice, dash of Worcestershire sauce, squeeze 1/2 a lemon–mix well. Fold into mixture: big handful of chopped parsley, chopped onion, squeeze other half of lemon and remaining salmon, broken into larger pieces. Serve with bread or simple crackers. Great on the trail!"

- Patagonia Provisions' friend Laura Sievert

Above image: After a long surf on the northern tip of Vancouver Island, Patagonia surf ambassador Dan Malloy cooks freshly caught salmon on a cedar plank that he found on the beach, Great Bear Rainforest, BC, 2012. Photo: Trevor Gordon

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Types of Fly Fishing Knots No. 1 Stopper Knot

Policing Our Waters HOW CRAIG MATHEWS, A FORMER LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENT, IS FIGHTING FOR HEALTHY RIVERS

No. 2 Surgeons Loop

Rarely is an ex-police chief also an outspoken member of the environmental movement. But Craig Mathews, with his wife Jackie, have made habitat conservation their lives' work, driven by a love of fishing and catch and release. Patagonia's founder Yvon Chouinard met Mathews in his store, Blue Ribbon Flies in West Yellowstone, WY some 30 years ago. They've been kindred spirits on angling and activism ever since, founding 1% for the Planet together and collaborating on the book Simple Fly Fishing, along with Mauro Mazzo.

Can you talk about the technique of catch and release?

Simply catch the fish and bring it in with a barbless hook.

Take the hook out and you can photograph the fish and then release it carefully. It’s as simple as it gets. Tenkara is perfect for this because it’s intuitive. All you do is put a rod in someone’s hand, particularly a beginner. Children are awesome because you just give them a rod with a fly on the end of it and they catch fish. But they don’t actually want to catch fish; they want to let them go.

Is catch and release a common practice where you are in Yellowstone?

The economy of catch and release is huge for the fly fishing business and local communities. Some of the trout here in Yellowstone country are caught and released as many as eight times a year. That means a lot to local communities in Montana—which is a very large state but sparsely populated. Fly fishing is responsible for over $300 million a year to the state, in no small part because of catch and release fishing regulations. You take a fish home one time and eat it, that’s one thing, but when you can catch that same fish and provide that enjoyment and that sport and that thrill to anglers eight times a year, that’s huge. Nowhere in the world are there so many public trout streams and trout rivers open to the public than right here, within a hundred miles of where I stand. Yellowstone country certainly has cornered the market on wild trout—the trout aren’t planted here. And consequently the fish are a superior breed. Because of that it’s huge for our local economy and it provides thousands of jobs.

There’s still some controversy around the idea of catch and release, that it could harm fish.

What do you think about that?

If they’re not handled properly, certainly. That’s where a barbless hook comes in, and you handle them gently; you don’t remove them from the water. You just take your forceps and there’s a tool called a Ketchum Release, made in Ketchum, Idaho, and you just slide that down your tippet and force it against your fly and it pops that barbless hook right out of the fish without injury. And the fish is free to fight another day.

No. 3 Perfection Loop

Was it nice for you to have that outlet of fishing, while on the force?

That was my outlet. If I were having a bad day, I would sign off and just tie a few flies. And that would bring me back.

When you started your business you had handicap workers doing the ties?

Yes, when we started we had a wholesale business that hired handicap fly tiers. And we did that for a couple of years. When I decided to bag the police department we decided to go retail and we opened up a little fly fishing business.

That’s how Chouinard and I met. I was in here one day by myself, tying flies and on the phone talking to somebody. This little guy walks in and he’s agitated because I’m taking my time on the phone. He’s looking around and he can see there are feathers all over the floor—he can see this is a working fly shop.

Finally after I got off the phone he asks, “Why don’t you carry Patagonia clothing?” I said, “I’ve tried to get it for over a year now, but I can’t get the rep to give it to me.” He says, “I own Patagonia, and this is a working fly shop, and I want you guys to have it.” He and I became instant buddies. It was probably 30 years ago.

In the intro to Simple Fly Fishing, Yvon talked about fishing being akin to the intangible experience you get when you’re climbing, or enjoying other outdoor sports. Do you feel that?

No doubt about it, and what’s really cool about being in this business is hearing the thousands of stories from new anglers who come in and say the same thing. That thread is so common throughout the entire fly fishing community, particularly with tenkara. It’s so simple that people aren’t messing around with other gadgets, with the reels and all the fancy-dancy stuff. They just take a tenkara rod and a box of flies and catch fish.

They’re thinking about nature. They’re looking at the wild trout stream for what it is: a stream with clean water and aquatic insects, and their mind can engage with that. A lot of people think it’s all about the fishing. And after a couple of weeks you see that it’s not about the fishing so much as the total experience.

Tenkara is still relatively new in the US. Why isn’t it as popular as other forms of fishing?

This little fly fishing industry has done a good job making things more difficult and expensive.

Let’s face it: we’re in the industry to sell toys. I think people in this sport—everybody calls it an industry, but fly fishing is a little wimpy business—I think manufacturers and retailers are afraid of it. They’re afraid of stepping back and selling $200 rods. But bologna. I love to sell $1,000 fly rods and $500 reels, but you can break that down and certainly those that become involved in tenkara sooner or later are going to go buy traditional gear, and they’re going to buy an expensive rod and reel and they’re going to fish that way too.

How can we get more women excited about fishing?

Most of the time the family will come in, and it’s all about the old boy—he’s here to fish. And pretty soon you pick up a tenkara rod and you extend it and all of a sudden a little kid's eyes will get really wide. And then the wife will chime in and say, "That’s something I can do," and then you’ve got them on a roll and they’re hooked. What else tickles me is that some of the most curmudgeon fly fisherman will look at a tenkara rod and go, “Are you nuts?” But sooner or later they’ll try it, and that’s the way they end up going. They want to fish simple.

You and your wife Jackie used to work in the police force?

Yes, here in West Yellowstone. That’s what got us here; we were going to be here for just one year.

I hired police officers that knew how to fly-fish. At one time we had the most educated police force in Montana, yet we made the least amount of money. They all had college degrees and we were all here to fish. I was going to move up the ladder, but we got involved in this crazy little fly fishing business, and here we are some 30 years later still tying flies.

I imagine the mentality of fishing is different than running a police department?

No doubt about it. It’s easier to deal with fly fishers—you’re not shackling them, chasing them around, getting shot at.

Why was it important to make the Simple Fly Fishing book?

To tell the story of how it really is, how it should be: simple. That’s how you get these kids away from these god awful things they carry around with their thumbs going a hundred miles an hour. I wrote about this story in the book: these two old guys—they’re billionaires—they’re sitting down in their private water and they can’t fool these fish. They’re talking about this and that, with expensive rods and lines. This little kid came up, and I had given him a tenkara rod, and he starts catching fish. That broke them down. Now they’ve tried it.

Simple Fly Fishing: A Kit for All Your Tenkara Needs

The kit includes a tenkara fly rod, line and leader, box of flies, and Simple Fly Fishing book. 25 years ago, a friend of Yvon's gave him a tenkara fly rod. The rod was light, sensitive, and elegant. Yvon found this incredibly simple technique—a centuriesold Japanese one—highly effective at catching even the most selective fish. He believes tenkara will bring many new people to fly fishing.

8'6" TENKARA FLY ROD* For small stream fishing, ideal for younger and smaller anglers. *10'6" or 11'6" also available

40' FLY LINE AND 8' LEADER Tenkara-specific, single 40-foot piece of level line, plus tapered leader.

FLY BOX Contains 12 versatile soft hackle flies.

3 x Mormon Girl [Soft Hackle] 3 x Partridge Pheasant [Tall Soft Hackle] 3 x Partridge Peacock [Soft Hackle]

SIMPLE FLY FISHING BOOK The most comprehensive book on simple fly fishing and tenkara. By Yvon Chouinard, Mauro Mazzo, and Craig Mathews.

3 x Partridge Hare's Ear [Soft Hackle] Recommended by Yvon!

QUICK SET-UP GUIDE Includes information on using tenkara rod, with additional resources on fish, wet flies, nymphs, and dry flies.

"[Fly fishing] can teach us to see, smell, and feel the miracles of stream life—with the beauty of nature and serenity all around—as we pursue wild fish." - Yvon Chouinard

Retail price for the entire kit is $259—$279, depending on rod choice. >> KIT COMPONENTS ARE ALSO FOR SALE INDIVIDUALLY AT PATAGONIA STORES WORLDWIDE AND PATAGONIA.COM.

CONTRIBUTORS

EMILY ANDERSON is the creative director of The Usual, based in New York City and Montauk. She makes smart, irreverent branded content and spends her free time having fun on the water—surfing, kayaking, clamming, and boating.

Twitter @english_emily

YASHA WALLIN is a New York City and Berlinbased writer and editorial director of The Usual.

She writes about art, travel, culture, and the environment for various international publications.

The most fishing she's done is for compliments, but she keeps at it, hoping someone will take the bait.

Twitter @ywallin

MALCOLM JOHNSON writes from his home on Vancouver Island, mostly about the culture and environment of the British Columbia coast. His fishing craft of choice is an aging Clipper canoe.

Twitter + Instagram @malcolmrjohnson

The son of a commercial fisherman in British Columbia, JEREMY KORESKI has been around wild fish all his life. His first job was cleaning salmon on the Tofino docks; these days, he's a busy outdoor photographer. jeremykoreski.com Instagram @jeremykoreski

Publisher: The Usual × Patagonia

Infographic Designer: Stefan Knecht

Editorial Director: Yasha Wallin

Contributors / Photographers: Trevor Gordon, Paul Greenberg, Seth Herzog, Malcolm Johnson, Jeremy Koreski, Jeanine Pesce, Jim Mangnan, Matt Stoecker - Many thanks guys!

Creative Director, Designer, and Illustrator: Emily Anderson For year round entertainment: patagonia.com | @patagonia theusualmontauk.com | @theusualmontauk

Extra Special Thanks: Vickie Achee, Malcolm Johnson, Jeremy Koreski, Joy Lewis, Matt Stoecker Special Thanks: Bart Bonime, Beda Calhoun, Jess Clayton,

STEFAN KNECHT is a Brooklyn-based graphic designer, illustrator, and wood working enthusiast.

When not on the clock, he enjoys skateboarding and sketching out new tattoos.

Instagram @knechtwith

PAUL GREENBERG is the author of the bestseller Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food. He contributes to The New York Times and has written for National Geographic Magazine, GQ, Vogue. His next book American Catch, about how we lost and might regain American local seafood, comes out this summer.

Aaron Durand, Mike Dunn, Alie Keegan, Bill Klyn, Samantha Park, Greg and Lola Randolph, Jason Rainey, Cameron Ridgeway, Travis Rummel Copy Editors / Proofreaders: Carolina Gonzalez, Rachel Sampson Front-cover image: Fraser Murray, British Columbia, 2011.

Photo: Jeremy Koreski Back-cover image: San Juan River Mexican Hat, Utah, 2013.

Photo: Jim Mangan

JEANINE PESCE is a writer, stylist and the founder of Range, an editorial platform and creative agency specializing in active trends, color forecasting, and marketing. When not plugged in, she enjoys camping, snowboarding and beach combing.

Twitter @thisisrange

MATT STOECKER is a biologist and photographer focused on restoring rivers and wild fish populations through Stoecker Ecological.

Stoecker is Beyond Searsville Dam's director, which advocates for the removal of Stanford’s Searsville Dam. DamNation, which he conceived and produced with Yvon Chouinard, in collaboration with Felt Soul Media, is out this summer.

The Watershed Spring / Summer 2014 Manhattan / Montauk, NY info@theusualmontauk.com Proudly printed locally in New York at Linco Printing The entire contents of The Watershed are © copyrighted and may not be reproduced, either in whole or in part, without written permission from The Usual × Patagonia. © 2014 The Watershed

Previous page: Craig and Jackie Mathews. Photo: John Juracek; Above water: Blake Klopfenstein releasing a steelhead on a river in northern British Columbia, 2013. Photo: Jeremy Koreski; Below water: Niomi Mio releasing a steelhead, 2013. Photo: Jeremy Koreski; This page: Illustration: The Snap-C Cast

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