Looking for a hunter ed class? Now?
February 2, 2012 by Scott Sandsberry
YAKIMA, Wash. — Since the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has gone to strictly online registration for its hunter education classes, some local classes aren’t filling up nearly as fast as they used to. Classes that used to fill up within a day after the old routine — announcing them in the local newspaper [...]
Several fish-run predictions are plenty optimistic for 2012
January 31, 2012 by Scott Sandsberry
YAKIMA, Wash. — One year after sport fishermen pulled out a record number of hatchery spring chinook salmon from the Yakima River, state fish managers and the people who predict fish runs are cautiously optimistic for an even bigger year in 2012. Some of them, anyway. While the NOAA Fisheries Service has predicted a mainstem [...]
Yakima County Farm Bureau opposes state’s wolf plan
January 31, 2012 by Scott Sandsberry
YAKIMA, Wash. — As far as Mark Herke is concerned, the occasional cougar was bad enough. He’s lost cattle on his Ahtanum ranch in 2005, 2007 and 2010 — a bull and a cow the first year, a calf in each of the latter two, each time killed by a cougar. But a cougar, he [...]
Phillips: Focus shifts from hunting to fishing
January 31, 2012 by YH-R Outdoors
YAKIMA, Wash. — With waterfowl hunting ending this past Sunday, most of Washington’s main hunting seasons have come to a close and many folks will be turning their atten-tion to the up-coming fishing seasons. Some of those, such as the early trout fishing seasons, are now only a month away and with a stellar spring [...]
1/31/12 Outdoors What’s Happening
January 30, 2012 by YH-R Outdoors
District may extend spring trail closures Officials at the Naches Ranger District, already facing an uproar over the prospect of some system trails falling to the wayside in light of the loss of trail-maintenance funding, are considering raising even that decibel level. In hopes of minimizing resource damage to motorized trails by early-season riding on [...]
Phillips: Winter’s blast keys pursuit of whitefish
January 23, 2012 by YH-R Outdoors
If you think last week’s big winter storm put the kibosh on all outdoor activities, you are mistaken. There is a group of anglers who have patiently been sitting by just waiting for, hoping for, in fact praying for a winter event like this to hit. Who are these winter-wanters? They are the reclusive, but [...]
1/24/12 Outdoors What’s Happening
January 23, 2012 by YH-R Outdoors
Channel clearing for White Salmon steelies Only weeks ago many anglers were wondering whether the silt-clogged lower White Salmon River would be fishable again any time soon following last fall’s removal of the Condit Dam. That time, apparently, is now. Last week state fish managers reopened the lower portion of the River to fishing for [...]
Yakama Nation closes Boundary Reach to anglers
January 16, 2012 by Scott Sandsberry
YAKIMA, Wash. — Rule-breaking anglers certainly don’t like it and even some law-abiding fishermen may not like it, but state fisheries biologists are quite pleased with the Yakama Nation’s decision to close to sport fishing the stretch of the Yakima River that borders the reservation. For years, tribal and state fisheries and enforcement officials have [...]
Annual bird count delivers ‘firsts’
January 16, 2012 by Scott Sandsberry
YAKIMA, Wash. — Birders are all about firsts — the first time they’ve seen a particular bird anywhere, or the first time in their state, or the first time that year, and so on. And considering that the Yakima Valley Audubon Society has been Christmas Bird Counts for more than a quarter-century, those firsts are [...]
‘Lords of Nature’ to discuss how beasts of prey fit into the ecosystem
January 16, 2012 by YH-R Outdoors
YAKIMA, Wash. — While the sight of — or even the possibility of — cougars, wolves and bears in the great outdoors might produce fear in some of us, those very predators serve a valuable part in a well-balanced ecosystem. That’s the message of “Lords of Nature: Life in a Land of Great Predators,” a [...]
