Category Archives: Trout

A Simple Spawn Sac Upgrade That Catches More Steelhead & Browns

By: Andy Bliss I’ve been fishing egg sacs for brown trout and steelhead for over 25 years, and to be honest, the spawn sac game—especially from a guide’s perspective—is pretty simple: you just need a lot of them. That said, I’m always looking for ways to make my sacs more effective and more appealing to […]

Steelhead Anglers: Here’s Something New to Try

By: Joe Diorio I’ve never used chartreuse eggs in spawn sacs before. To be honest I saw a FireBlog post a few weeks ago about anglers having success with blue eggs, and was wowed. The eggs looked so good. After seeing it, I wanted to try chartreuse, and see if they worked too. My though […]

Farmington River Trout Bite on Fire

By: Chris Shaffer In the decade we’ve been filming Pautzke Outdoors doing a show in Connecticut has never been on our list. Overshadowed by New York salmon and steelhead and Pennsylvania and West Virginia’s robust trout stocking programs we’ve passed on opportunities to fly to the Farmington River and target trout. Meanwhile, a conversation with […]

Heavy Stocking Arriving on West Virginia’s Blackwater River

By: Chris Shaffer It’s no secret that the Blackwater River is one of West Virginia’s most treasured trout fisheries. Located roughly an hour from Elkins this well-known river is inches from Davis and Blackwater Falls and receives heavy stocking to the beat of roughly 20,000 fish each year. Trout plants are well underway and more […]

Big Boy’s New Spawn Sac Cure

By: Kyle Deavers It’s seems like every winter I tend to get the same questions from anglers. They always want to know how I’m curing my eggs. As often as I cure eggs I’m constantly changing what I do to get more bites. Competition is increasing each year and I have to make better eggs […]

Fenton Lake Sporting Good Ice Bite

By: Chris Shaffer With the Eastern United States dealing with high water this week we rerouted to New Mexico and decided to make a flame run to Fenton Lake this morning to try our chance at ice fishing in the Land of Enchantment for the first time. Ironically, to this day when we talk about […]

West Virginia Ramping Up Trout Stocking

By: Chris Shaffer While trout stocking beings in January in West Virginia it’s February that marks the start of larger trout plants. The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources has already been releasing trout into the state’s rivers, creeks, lakes and ponds and almost a million more are coming this year. We called Jim Hedrick, […]

New Mexico’s Eagle Nest Lake: Excellent for Ice Fishing

By: Joe Vallejos It’s already been a good ice fishing season on Northern New Mexico’s Eagle Nest Lake and the good news is that ice should remain at least into mid March. It’s been two weeks since I was able to fish the lake, but the ice is still over a foot thick and the […]

Big Brookies Being Stocked in South Carolina’s East Fork Chattooga

By: Chris Shaffer Trout stocking has been occurring weekly in South Carolina’s Upstate. However, most of the trout plants are taking place in park lakes and special regulation delayed-harvest areas. That will all change in late February as full trout stocking resumes. However, the East fork of the Chattooga River is getting some pretty impressive […]