Montana’s Governor Brian Schweitzer led off the fishing on Montana’s Silver Bow Creek late last month, marking a milestone in the restoration of the Clark Fork River watershed. Even the careful coaching of 85-year-old Bud Lilly, the dean of Montana’s fishing guides and the pioneer of catch-and-release flyfishing, could not raise a trout for the Governor. But after over a century of Silver Bow Creek being officially dead (no fishing regulations for the creek even existed until this spring), the fish are back.

Governor Schweitzer, who has been Governor since 2005, has been an outspoken advocate for restoring the Clark Fork watershed and other lands and waters damaged during the devil-take-the-hindmost pillaging of Montana’s resources during the heyday of the Copper Kings and other extractive industries. It’s fitting that Schweitzer was among the first to fish Silver Bow, even if, as described in the Billings Gazette, he got skunked.

Some critics of my posts occasionally claim to see a hidden political agenda when I report specific actions by specific politicians and parties that threaten serious damage to programs that protect the resources supporting our sports. Some even believe I exaggerate the support from hunting and fishing groups for those programs and protections.

For this post, I'll let the nation's hunters and anglers speak for me.

In this case the issue is "Sodsaver," a feature of the Farm Bill that has protected our precious but dwindling base of upland cover since 1985. It doesn't cost taxpayers anything. It works by telling farmers they will lose government subsidies if they decide to plant land that hasn't felt a plow in at least 20 years. Yet there are some in Congress who would see it weakened or killed.

by Bob Marshall

Are they crazy or brilliant?

That's a question Trout Unlimited and a growing number of sportsmen are asking about the House leadership after it launched yet another attempt to block a proposed new wetlands guidance that could restore protection to millions of acres of wetlands, including headwaters of trout streams across the West.

The latest effort comes from the House Appropriations Committee, which voted along party lines for a measure that would prevent the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from spending any money to implement the guidance, expected to be issued by the Obama Administration in the next few months.

Two House GOP budgets previously contained similar policy directives, neither of which made it through Congress. But the fact this try came so late in the game – and from a different vector – makes many conservationists nervous.

While some Western congressmen may be trying to "release" roadless and wilderness areas, sportsmen in their home states cheered last week as the Colorado roadless rule to protect such habitat moved one step closer to completion.

The Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership praised the release of the U.S. Forest Service's final environmental impact statement of that rule in a combined statement that said "while citing the need for final refinements called this version an "on-target plan for managing more than 4 million acres of public lands." The rule can become law in 30 days.

by Bob Marshall

If there's one word waterfowlers and others concerned about wetlands should keep in mind in the weeks ahead it's this: Buster.

As in Swampbuster and Sodbuster--two programs in The Farm Bill that are critical to preserving some of the nation's most important waterfowl wetlands habitat. And both are at some serious risk as Congress continues to consider reauthorization of the Farm Bill.

Sodbuster, which dates to 1985, seeks to prevent landowners from plowing grasslands that have remained intact for at least 20 years by costing them eligibility to some or all farm assistance payments. The original goal was to prevent plowing of highly erodible lands from adding to the high environmental cost of erosion, which impacts everything from floods to water and air quality. But the practice also aids wildlife by helping preserve the last reserves of native grass prairies--highly important as nesting cover for waterfowl.