Saving Coldwater Fisheries with Chris Jordan, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Northwest Fisheries Science Center
Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Podcast & Blast with Hal Herring
Release Date: 07/01/2025
Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Podcast & Blast with Hal Herring
BREAKING: Since this interview was recorded, a new attempt to permit a copper-nickel mine upstream of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is underway. On Monday, Jan. 12, Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn) introduced , which would lift the federal moratorium on mining in the Rainy River Watershed, just upstream from the wilderness border. , and call your elected officials directly on the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is a 1.1-million-acre expanse of lakes, rivers, and boreal forest—accessible only by paddle and portage—and...
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It was the late spring of 1932 when Idaho outfitter Jim Renshaw first saw the upper Selway River from the back of a horse. The packstring was led by his father, Alvin, who had been working for the U.S. Forest Service since he was 13 and had bought the Pettibone Ranch, deep in the wilderness, where Bear Creek drops into the Selway River. Jim Renshaw was two months old at that time. For the next 16 years, he, his mother and father, and two sisters lived at the Pettibone Ranch, guiding hunters in the fall and fishermen and wilderness wanderers in the summer. Jim would become one of the most famed...
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On this episode of the Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Podcast and Blast, host Hal Herring sits down with Josh Jackson, author of The Enduring Wild and founder of The Forgotten Lands Project. Jackson’s journey into California’s Bureau of Land Management landscapes reveals the forgotten backbone of conservation — the so-called leftover lands that belong to all of us, yet are loved by too few. Through photography, storytelling and hard-earned curiosity, this conversation explores why these places matter, why they’re vulnerable, and why building a broader coalition of people who know...
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Hunters and anglers across the country may never set foot on Alaska’s Dalton Highway—but what’s unfolding there affects every American who cares about public land. In this episode, Hal Herring sits down with fisheries ecologist and writer Dr. Kevin Fraley to unpack a sweeping threat to some of the most accessible caribou and fishing country in the entire state. A new push in Congress aims to throw out the Central Yukon Resource Management Plan—a plan built over a decade with input from hunters, anglers and local stakeholders—and potentially reopen millions of acres around the Dalton...
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BHA's new President & CEO Ryan Callaghan probably needs doesn't need an introduction. But you may be wondering what he and BHA are planning for the future, why now is such a critical moment in the history of public lands and waters, and how and why you should get involved with BHA. Here's your chance to learn the answers to those questions and a whole lot more as Cal sits down with Podcast & Blast host Hal Herring for a conversation you don't want to miss.
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During the 2025 fight against the mass sell-off of America’s public lands, Utah-born cowboy, big game guide, and U.S. Army veteran seemed to be everywhere, from his barrage of fiery commentary on X to the Tucker Carlson and Shawn Ryan podcasts, to addressing public meetings across the West. He was the most powerful and tenacious conservative voice of the pro-public lands movement. He hasn’t let up, and he never will. Join us for the story of a true American original, a soldier who suffered catastrophic injuries in a suicide bomb attack in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2006, and fought successfully to...
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A controversy over public lands’ management in Indiana’s 204,000-acre Hoosier National Forest turns out to be a microcosm of a burning (pun intended) national debate over using fire and targeted logging operations to create habitat for wildlife and a healthier, more diverse and more resilient forest. From the 1960s to 80s, The U.S. Forest Service, in the grip of the so-called “timber beast” style of management, clear-cut millions of acres of publicly owned forestland, leading to widespread loss of wildlife, sediment-filled streams, and a furious backlash from conservationists. A...
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The American pronghorn is North America’s most unique big game animal, a Great Plains living relic from the end of the Ice Age—a creature of speed, agility and beauty that once shared the landscape with the American cheetah, lions, dire wolves, steppe bison. The pronghorn has outlasted them all to become an icon of the wide open spaces and a species honored and beloved (if sometimes cursed in frustration) by anyone who has ever hunted them. But now, the pronghorn, like the American Great Plains ecosystem, needs our help. Beset by the disruption of migration corridors, the conversion of...
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is taking public comments on the proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule, which affects 45 million acres of our national forests. Why is this such a big deal? Why are we throwing this baby out with the bathwater? Join Hal and Trout Unlimited President and CEO Chris Wood, who knows this subject inside and out and was working for the U.S. Forest Service in the late 1990s--when the Roadless Rule was created after decades of study, conflict, watershed failures, and the quest for both balance and fiscal responsibility in public lands’ management. You'll...
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BHA’s Podcast and Blast is proud to be sponsored by Silencer Central, the nation’s largest clearinghouse for silencers. Motto: “Silencers Made Simple since 2005.” This episode features Brandon Maddox of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, who founded Silencer Central 20 years ago from his home. He saw both the growing demand for silencers and the difficulty of navigating federal regulations. Today, Silencer Central handles it all—from expert guidance on the right fit to a step-by-step process (simple enough for even Hal, a self-proclaimed Luddite) that delivers a silencer directly to your...
info_outlineChris Jordan has some unwelcome news for the watershed and fisheries restoration movement. Restoring robust populations of salmonids and other fish species in degraded rivers and wetlands is much more complex than we could have ever imagined, and we’ve been doing it wrong for decades. Most of us, even those of us who view our fishing and our rivers as a kind of religion, don’t even know what a truly healthy river looks like.
But Chris also has some welcome news, though, and it’s the subject of today’s podcast: we know how to restore functioning watersheds for coldwater fisheries now, and it’s imminently achievable. Real watershed restoration that can last and bring back healthy cold water fisheries – it’s called “process-based restoration” – is the future. It’s not just about removing archaic dams and putting curves and woody debris back into broken and degraded creeks. It’s about beavers, muck and mire and willow thickets, floodplains and aquifers, wildfire and wetlands, gravity and shade.
It is, as Chris has studied and implemented successfully for the past few decades, about “helping rivers do their jobs with a lighter hand and a larger scope” and recognizing that the messiest natural systems are the very best at producing the strongest and healthiest fisheries. Join us- 100% guaranteed, you’ll see your favorite rivers and creeks in an entirely new light.
The Podcast & Blast with Hal Herring is brought you by Backcountry Hunters & Anglers and presented by Silencer Central, with additional support from Decked, Dometic, and Filson.
Join Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, the voice for your wild public lands, waters, and wildlife to be part of a passionate community of hunter-angler-conservationists.
BHA. THE VOICE FOR OUR WILD PUBLIC LANDS, WATERS AND WILDLIFE.
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