News — tips & techniques

3 tips for Low-Clear Water Steelhead Fishing

Posted January 02, 2015

Steelhead & Salmon fishing is a constant adaptation of tactics. In this tutorial, we are going to talk about three ways that you can step up your float fishing game in low & clear water. Many tactics such as drift fishing and plug pulling are not ideal in light, low clear situations. As bank steelhead fishermen, we have found that light presentations of bobber & jig are deadly.The first change you must make is to your leader. A floating braid mainline is still fine under most conditions but it is essential to have light leader. Fish can see pretty well...

How to Rig Thill Steelhead Bobbers

Posted December 19, 2014

Washington's 7 Tiger Musky Lakes

Posted September 11, 2014

Author with a Mayfield caught musky. The evergreen state currently has 7 Musky lakes, with the lakes spread fairly evenly from the west side of the state to the east. The lakes are planted annually with one Musky per every 2 acres. The WDFW (Washington department of fish and wildlife) has no plans to add any more lakes at this time, so the current 7 may be it for the foreseeable future.In this article I give a short description of each lake with a rating from my own personal experience. Being a west sider, a few of the east side lakes I've...

Summer Steelhead in Low & Clear Water

Posted August 12, 2014

Summer Steelhead are a unique anadromous target. They are different from their winter counterparts in that they are built to enter fresh water before they are sexually mature, and as a result they spend a long time in the tributaries before spawning. Summer Steelhead in the Columbia River start showing up in March and April, and continue to enter the mouth all the way through fall on their way to tributaries like the Cowlitz, Deschutes and other notable summer steelhead tributaries.Anglers love summer steelhead for a number of reasons. "Summers" are fantastic to eat due to their high fat content...

Wobbler Fishing With Bobbers

Posted August 12, 2014

Why Bobber the Wobbler?We've been blessed these last few years along the Columbia River with great runs of King Salmon. This fall season brings good weather, great fishing, and mostly a party-like atmosphere among the hog-lined anglers waiting for their rods to load up with big salmon. Honestly, it's one of my favorite times of year to guide as it's fairly easy to get my anglers into lots of quality fish. The boat anglers have been fishing the same ways for years, but last year I started playing with floats and for me, I'll never fish the old school way...

Tiger Musky 101

Posted August 04, 2014

Tiger Musky 101The fish of 10,000 casts...the Musky. We're fortunate in Washington state to have 7 lakes in which to pursue this fun and hard fighting fish! This is the first in a series of articles on hunting the Tiger Musky. The Tiger Musky is a cross between a pure bred Musky and a Northern Pike. They have been planted in Washington state to control populations of nuisance fish such as the Northern Pike Minnow and various species of Suckers. Tigers can grow to 50+ inches and 40+ pounds, making them an  appealing sport fish. They are known as ambush...