Outdoors

Fly fishing

A river otter cruises at Saltese Flats near Spokane Valley on Monday in this photo by Jerry Rolwes.

Every time I visit my grandmother, Marge, she offers me treasures from her life, as if she knows she is readying for a journey upon which they cannot be carried. This house that was once a symbol of the American Dream and fiscal responsibility and scraping the last molecules of butter off the dish (for they were also children of the Depression), is beginning to echo with premature goodbyes.

BOISE – Idaho residents who want to purchase lifetime hunting and fishing licenses will need to prove they’ve lived in the Gem State for five years in order to earn that benefit thanks to a new law – 10 times longer than the prior requirement after the legislation’s sponsor said some hunters and anglers may be moving to Idaho briefly to take advantage of the perk.

Jim Whittaker, the famous Washington mountaineer who was the first American to summit Mount Everest and later became the CEO of outdoor retailer REI, died Tuesday at his home in Port Townsend, Washington. He was 97.

The U.S. Forest Service, which oversees 193 million acres of public land, including 20 million in Idaho, 9.3 million in Washington and 15 million in Oregon, will undergo a major overhaul in the coming years.

Fishers aren’t easy to find.

The work to restore fishers to Western Washington seems to be paying off, with the small carnivores exploring new habitat and finding a way to make a living in places where they were once trapped to extinction.

Road work is going to shutter a boat launch and campground on Lake Roosevelt for the duration of the summer season.

A federal lawsuit filed Thursday accuses the leaders of the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife of attempting to silence a member of the citizen panel that oversees the agency in retaliation for her ongoing criticism of their administration.

Fly fishing

A 19th century building at Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area is getting a facelifft.

A mallard takes off at Saltese Wetlands in this March 23 photo by Terry Sanborn.

Some people work on their marriage by spending hundreds of dollars on a sofa across the room from a therapist who knows them well. Charlie and I work on ours by sharing a V-berth the size of a phone booth for a week within earshot of several strangers.

Idaho’s spring chinook season opens April 25 with a more aggressive bag limit for most of the Clearwater River system and more flexibility for fish managers to adjust the season on the fly.

When renewing my Washington hunting and fishing licenses last week, I was forced to confront the question of digital or print.

There’s been a new way to get around on Riverside State Park trails over the past few months.

Life’s misfortunes are often written on a body’s bones.