Outdoors

Fly fishing

There are some places I need to go back to, year after year, as if they are a kind of touchstone to Mother Nature – a place that reminds me that not all things feel volatile, shocking or urgent.

A bull elk takes in a golden sunny morning at Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge last month in this photo by Buck Domitrovich.

Washington’s early modern firearm deer season opens Saturday, marking the start of the 10 days in October that rifle hunters have to fill their tags.

For the first time this fall, Washington hunters are not allowed to use bait when targeting elk, deer or moose.

Wildlife officials are mulling the future of hunting seasons in Washington and looking for public input.

They had me outnumbered.

The partial federal government shutdown has closed the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park unit and museum in Seattle’s Pioneer Square.

LOS ANGELES — A popular and promising young mountaineer fell to his death on Yosemite's El Capitan on Wednesday, a tragedy that was reportedly live-streamed on social media. Balin Miller, 23, from Anchorage, Alaska, had already reached the top of the 3,000-foot granite wall — among the most famous and challenging rock climbs in the world — when a gear bag he was hauling behind him got stuck, ...

Cooler temperatures are allowing more chinook salmon to move into the Snake River, and fisheries officials in Washington and Idaho are lifting the prohibition on anglers taking home wild salmon. 

Fly fishing

I first heard the word solastalgia in a workshop with author Paul Bogard. He was referring to the loss of the night sky, its dilution at the mercy of street lights, flood lights, billboards, and a societal addiction for brightening the globe with nary a thought to the broader impact. Or even whether the globe needs to be lit up.

A pelican and its friend putter around on the Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge in late September in this photo by Mark Hendrickson.

Five lakes in Eastern Washington that closed to fishing on Tuesday could have longer seasons next year.

A federal government shutdown began Wednesday morning, prompting furloughs and plans for scaling back operations at federal land management agencies until Congress can agree on a spending plan.

It’s always about the money.

ST. JOHN, Wash. – It was 9 a.m. on a hot Thursday in August and Dean Nizer was on the phone.

Although my waterfowl season was abbreviated last year due to the pressing need for $20,000 worth of medical and dental emergencies, it was actually very satisfying. I shot a banded goose in Canada in September and a banded mallard in December – the fifth and sixth banded birds in a lifetime of hunting.

A pile of kokanee salmon were illegally dumped in North Idaho earlier this month, and now game wardens are looking for answers.