The Big Story: Rivers Reborn and Rivers at Risk

Chinook salmon on their technique to spawning, view from Ballard Locks in Seattle | picture by Wlodzimierz

Wanting again, the massive story of 2025 was the miraculous restoration of the Klamath River. Following the ultimate elimination of the 4 decrease dams (Iron Gate, Copco 1 & 2, and J.C. Boyle) late final 12 months, 2025 turned the “Yr of the Return.” Stories from California Trout and the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Division confirmed what optimists hardly dared to hope: by late October 2025, over 7,700 fall-run Chinook had handed the previous Iron Gate web site, pushing into tributaries just like the Williamson and Sprague rivers that haven’t seen anadromous fish in over a century. The pictures circulating on Instagram—silver kings holding in water that was a stagnant reservoir simply 18 months in the past—are nothing in need of non secular for the angling neighborhood.

Nevertheless, the temper is starkly totally different within the Pacific Northwest’s Snake River basin. Whereas the Klamath flows free, the struggle to breach the decrease Snake River dams hit a legislative concrete wall. In a pointy reversal of 2024’s momentum, the brand new political administration moved in June 2025 to rescind Biden-era agreements that paved the best way for breaching. Discussion board chatter on native boards turned heated, with anglers debating the “power vs. ecology” trade-off as salmon returns proceed to flatline. This may occasionally stay the one most polarizing subject within the fly fishing zeitgeist as we transfer into 2026.