Trout Unlimited
Description
Trout Unlimited is a national conservation organization that works to care for and recover rivers, streams and their trout and salmon populations.
It was founded in 1959 by a group of anglers along Michigan’s Au Sable River. It has grown into a national organization with staff, hundreds of local chapters and hundreds of thousands of members and supporters across the United States. Volunteers contribute hundreds of thousands of hours each year to stream restoration, citizen science, advocacy and youth education programs such as Trout in the Classroom.
Its conservation work is science based and focused on protecting, reconnecting and restoring priority waters across the country. It has helped remove dams, pushed for laws to clean up abandoned mines, opposed large-scale mining projects such as the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, and worked to protect millions of acres of public lands. It partners with government agencies including the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on habitat restoration.
The organization is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, with staff and chapters located in communities nationwide, from Oregon to Michigan to Maine. It combines restoration work, scientific research and policy advocacy to protect coldwater fisheries, clean water and public lands for both wildlife and communities.
Latest news
A healthy riparian corridor is critical to stream health
Picture a healthy stream with robust populations of fish, unimpeded by human development. No matter where you are in the country, you’re likely picturing a stream with native vegetation lining its banks. That’s because riparian buffer zones are a fundamental piece of fish habitat. Riparian...
25 Sep 2026
Fly fishing inherently makes its practitioners curious. We wonder what swims in the water flowing past us. We wonder what bugs are hatching and how they are behaving at that moment. We wonder about what lives in the larger ecosystem and how its health relates to that of the water we’re fishing...
17 Sep 2026
Photo Gallery of the Week – Fall
17 Sep 2026
The True Cast – Fishing meets AI? I’ll pass.
Rest assured, a human wrote this column, which isn’t always the case these days. Artificial intelligence is certainly a hot topic du jour. Depending on the source, AI will either pave the way for a brighter and more enlightened future for everyone or perhaps destroy humankind altogether. For the...
17 Sep 2026
Anglers are well aware of the benefits fly fishing provides to our physical and mental health. Time on our favorite river or creek offers peace and solace. Time spent picking out a fly to match the hatch creates an opportunity to slow down and tune in. Water flowing around our legs and swirling...
17 Sep 2026
Sometimes the best conservation is messy
Healthy streams don’t always look like the pristine babbling brooks in fairytales. Often, the best habitat for trout, steelhead and salmon is a messy affair with varying channels, depths, rocks, vegetation, wood debris, large logs sticking out at odd and amazing angles and a very connected...
17 Sep 2026
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