Here at CalTrout, we’re as excited as anyone to close the books on 2020 and ring in the new year. But we also have the added bonus of something special to celebrate together.

2021 marks California Trout’s 50th Anniversary – a milestone for a conservation nonprofit that puts us in rare company. We are incredibly proud of the impact we’ve made across the state over the past five decades, and you, our members, should be, too. Indeed, you’ve been integral to CalTrout’s success and for that we are forever grateful.

In celebrating our first half century of watershed stewardship across California, we’re using this opportunity to recognize all that we have achieved together, and the statewide influence we’ve garnered. From humble beginnings conceived in a fly shop on Leidesdorff Avenue in San Francisco’s Financial District by a group of activist anglers motivated to change how fisheries were managed, to the $15 million organization of today, California Trout has established ourselves as the leader in California water and fisheries restoration.

Over the next few months, we’ll be highlighting the seminal moments that got us to where we are today. From restoration work that established a new model for wild trout management, to David and Goliath legal victories that were instrumental in keeping water in the streams where it belongs, to groundbreaking scientific research that is shaping not only water policy but the entire California landscape – these CalTrout moments that write history illustrate the broad and lasting impact that will be felt for generations to come.

But we also know our work has only begun. While we honor our past, now is the time to aim our focus on the future, toward what we will accomplish in the next 50 years as the state faces more people, more wildfires, and more threats from climate change than ever before. Our vision is of a California where water flows free, clean and cold from headwaters to sea –a vision of watersheds teeming with native, wild fish whose resilience and diversity match that of the people throughout this great state we call home.

California Trout has come a long way from our early days as a small group of passionate anglers. With all that we have accomplished in the last 50 years, just imagine the landscape-level impact we’ll be celebrating at our centennial.

Thank you for your support to protect California’s future.

Curtis Knight, Executive Director