By Mike Ainsworth | 03/31/2015 With just over 10 days left in the designated springer season it seems like the fish haven’t shown up yet. From the forecast that we have we’ve been expecting a good run again, but we aren’t seeing the run materialize yet. That doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. They […]
By Chris Shaffer | 03/29/2015 My eyes were focused roughly 12 feet below, through a tiny, circular, ice carved hole. Sitting on a lounge chair, in a hut, sporting insulated guide wear, even without a portable heater it’d got so warm I had to take off my down jacket. I’d stripped down to just a […]
By Todd Daniels | 03/24/2015 Cowlitz River Steelhead Spread Throughout the System Saturday was the busiest I’ve seen the Cowlitz River in two decades. When I launched at 6:30 am there was a line of 30 boats behind me, the parking lot was full and I’d say there were a minimum of 80 boats on […]
By Chris Shaffer | 03/23/2015 TJ Hester wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. In town to film Pautzke Outdoors, we planned to steelhead fish the Hanford Reach section of the Columbia River, but unstable water conditions kept the bite inconsistent for the week prior. Up until a few hours before launching we weren’t sure […]
By Ted Kessler | 03/22/2015 While the cold has brought a lot of ice to Lake Erie this year its spelled great things for the Lower Niagara River here in Western NY and for the guys fishing it on the Ontario, Canada side. That ice has kept our water from getting muddy and sets us […]
By Mark Chmura | 03/20/2015 Every year we are stuck with different challenges, but these last two years in Northern Michigan have brought a lull that’s hammered us with cold weather. For steelhead anglers these last two months have been insurmountable. The Manistee River, Michigan’s most heavily fished and well known, has been nearly unfishable […]
By Kevin Davis | 03/19/2015 The winter was brutal here in Upstate NY. There was more ice than I’ve ever seen. The Oswego River froze, we broke the all time record for the coldest February and Oswego Harbor was frozen solid. There was a month when I couldn’t even get the boat on the river. […]
BROOKINGS, Ore. – There’s no shortage of quality steelhead rivers in the Pacific Northwest. From Washington’s Bogachiel and Cowlitz to Idaho’s Snake and Clearwater to Oregon’s Nestucca and Umpqua, an avid angler could easily list a dozen streams worthy of being ranked among the best. No list of top steelhead rivers would be complete without […]
By Andy Bliss | 03/16/2015 February brought record low temperatures to the Salmon River corridor, which led to almost no runoff into the system. In fact, a portion of river was froze over, bank-to-bank, which I’ve never seen happen in my 17 years up here. While there are always guys that were fishing even through […]
By Big Dave Manners | 03/04/2015 The rivers are ridiculously low and clear around here. Because of it there’s very few people fishing in the Tillamook area right now. I don’t know of any storms on the horizon, but the next time we get a shot of rain the coastal streams are going to see […]