You have to wonder

For quite a while now I have been questioning the value of national and now international conservation organizations, FFF just became IFF. It seems as if TU has it's hands out every week either by letter or e mail and it gets old fast. IFF used to be a nice conservation group that had really nice gatherings and at them you could exchange ideas and flies or fishing techniques but they have gone off on a disturbing trend, now every body has to certified as an expert, what does that tell new members who just might want some information and a group to belong to, maybe get some help, you need to be an expert-not! I loved their news letters and magazines because they were filled with good information about flies and techniques but to get the magazine you have to pay extra! I am just not sure I need to belong to them any more, what do I get for my money- a nice window sticker.
  Now to TU, if there were no local chapters this would also be a waste of money, at least your local chapter if it is active offers a meeting and gatherings to help you move forward in fly fishing. The national and state councils are rife with politics and infighting, not what you need to help our natural resources. I remember a few years ago when National would not take a stand on angler access in Montana, that told me a lot about their politics, let's not piss some very rich person off and just forget about it. They took a stand on global warming but not access to streams, not really logical. I wonder what they think about the outright war going on in Utah over stream access or are they just going to stand around and put their head in the sand? Have you ever seen how may people TU employs, well it a good number and no wonder their total focus is raising money. I know that some of the local chapters really do good things for their area, look at Spring Creek Chapter- they take great care of the entire Spring Creek water shed. In the end I must confess TU is worth the money if you have a strong local chapter that is active and you ignore the snail mail and the e mails.
  The very best conservation organization that I belong to is The Henry's Fork Foundation, this group is focused on one of the best rivers in the West. In the Fork's hay day the fishing was just wonderful but then it crashed, local framers and ranches dewatered in during the summer and over the winter there was little water coming from the reservoir. All that changed because a group of people knew it could be better and they slowly and gentlemanly worked with local groups and formed a great plan to keep the gates open during the winter to assure that junival trout had the necessary water flow for them to over winter. The also worked with all the local water conservation groups on the river to work out a plan to keep enough flow in the river to keep the rainbows healthy and happy. They work to keep the fences up to keep cattle out of the river, open or provide fish passage to spawning rainbow in the tributaries. If you every fish there or want to this is a really fine group to belong to, I know it is not local but they do great work and deserve all of our financial help.
   I feel the tug to hunting big fish-streamers!!