By Chris Shaffer | 07/31/2014 After catching and releasing nearly 30 summer steelhead on Northern California’s Lower Klamath River, fishing guide Mick Thomas of Lunker Fish Trips turned to me, opened his palm and smirked. “I told you,” he said, unclenching his fist and revealing a nickel size piece of Natural BorX O Fire cured […]
By Gary Blasi | 07/30/2014 I’m a bait guy. A few guys around here use spoons, but I’m trolling bait everyday and have for many years now. Keep in mind, I charter for a living. I wouldn’t use bait if it didn’t work consistently. Bait put limits of salmon in the boat. And, we’ve done […]
By Chris Shaffer | 07/29/2014 We hadn’t left the dock yet and Gary Blasi’s hands were green, possibly closer to chartreuse. Perhaps stained was a more fitting way to describe the coloring on his palms, between his fingers and caked under his fingernails. I looked down at my clean hands, smiled and compared them to […]
By Andy Couch | 07/28/2014 With another king salmon fishing season over on all Mat-Su Valley rivers and streams (except the Eklutna Tailrace fishery for hatchery salmon), bait fishing on most streams opened on Monday July 14. To most local salmon anglers, bait fishing is synonymous with fishing cured salmon roe, but with emergency king […]
By Brad Wagner | 07/25/2014 It’s been an exciting July here in Central Washington. We’ve seen more than 600,000 sockeye salmon cross Bonneville Dam, the first of seven dams these fish swim past on their way up to Lake Osoyoos in Canada. There’s so many sockeye in the Upper Columbia River right now that it’s […]
By Brad Wagner | 07/23/2014 It makes me chuckle when I’m often asked about my “secret” shrimp cure, largely because there’s nothing secret about it. Oftentimes guides, me included, overthink the process of making the perfect bait. Sometimes, I think it’s best to keep it simple. That’s what I’ve tried to do with my shrimp […]
By Bret Stuart | 07/22/2014 It’s summertime in the Willamette Valley and while salmon are all along the Oregon Coast we are targeting summer steelhead. So far this summer, we are seeing a slightly better than average year. In fact, we’ve already noticed that counts are roughly 5,000 more steelhead than last year and more […]
By Scott Feist | 07/16/2014 Salmon season opens today on the Sacramento River and I can’t wait to hook my first fish this year. If you’ve paid attention to what’s going on along the coast I think we are going to have a good year. It’s going to be similar to last year. Some days […]
By Rick Kennedy | 07/15/2014 With Stampede Reservoir being my home kokanee water for the last several decades and the fish being smaller than average there in recent years I’ve wandered over the hill to Lake Tahoe the last two seasons in search of larger kokanee. And, fortunately, I’ve found them without expending too much […]