Ns9 15

7

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Deadly Sins Of Albacore Fishing

‘BRIGHT’ DAYS AHEAD! Portland-Vancouver, Deschutes-Klickitat, Hanford Chinook

+

Yaquina, Samish, Winter Harbour, Westport Salmon

SMOKING

SALMON The Ramsey Way ALSO INSIDE

Pugetropolis Humpies Clearwater River Steelhead

GET YOUR HUNT ON:

5

B Best Calibers FFor NW Bucks Ghostbusting: Chasing Blacktails North Sound Grouse, Geese

u|xhCFCHEy24792tz]v!:^

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Sportsman Northwest

Your LOCAL Hunting & Fishing Resource

Volume 9 • ISSUE 12 PUBLISHER James R. Baker ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Dick Openshaw

ANGLER 17 CENTER CONSOLE ARIMA

AL S!

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20ON M O 15 DE

EDITOR Andy Walgamott

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21 HT SEA RANGER ER R

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19 SEA CHASER

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22 HT SEA LEGEND LEG EG GEND GE

LEAD WRITERS Jeff Holmes, Andy Schneider THIS ISSUE’S CONTRIBUTORS Eric Chambers, Dennis Dauble, Doug Huddle, Carl Lewallen, Buzz Ramsey, Brian Robertson, Del Stephens, Don Talbot, Terry Wiest, Dave Workman, You – our readers SALES MANAGER Katie Higgins ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Becca Ellingsworth, Mamie Griffin, Steve Joseph, Garn Kennedy, Mike Smith, Paul Yarnold DESIGNERS Sonjia Kells, Sam Rockwell, Sable Talley, Liz Weickum GENERAL MANAGER John Rusnak PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Kelly Baker OFFICE MANAGER/ACCOUNTING Audra Higgins COPY EDITOR/ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Katie Sauro INFORMATION SYSTEMS MANAGER Lois Sanborn WEBMASTER/INBOUND MARKETING Jon Hines CIRCULATION MANAGER Heidi Belew DISTRIBUTION Tony Sorrentino, Gary Bickford ADVERTISING INQUIRIES ads@nwsportsmanmag.com CORRESPONDENCE Email letters, articles/queries, photos, etc., to awalgamott@media-inc.com, or to the address below.

ON THE COVER Scott Fletcher hoists an upriver bright fall Chinook caught near Vernita Bridge in the Columbia River’s Hanford Reach. (DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST) DEPARTMENT OF OVERDUE CREDIT A photo credit for the August issue’s inset image was unintentionally left out of the masthead. It should have credited the photograph of Bill Monroe Jr. with a nice big Buoy 10 Chinook to Bill Monroe Outdoors.

Our apologies for the oversight.

DEPARTMENT OF ISSUE MOTTOS Sorry, all dried up – please check back this winter.

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES Like us (please, please, we’re so needy, we’ll be your BFF!) on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and get daily updates at nwsportsmanmag.com.

MEDIA INDEX PUBLISHING GROUP

MOST M OST MODELS & SIZES IN STOCK V l ’ LLC Y Verle’s Your C Complete l t H Hunting, ti Boating, B ti Fishing and Repair Destination Since 1948.

1-877-426-0933 www.verles.com 8 Northwest Sportsman

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WASHINGTON OFFICE P.O. Box 24365 • Seattle, WA 98124-0365 14240 Interurban Ave. S., Suite 190 Tukwila, WA 98168 OREGON OFFICE 8116 SW Durham Rd • Tigard, OR 97224 (206) 382-9220 • (800) 332-1736 • Fax (206) 382-9437 media@media-inc.com; mediaindexpublishing.com

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Northwest Sportsman 9

VOLUME 9 • ISSUE 12 (ANDY SCHNEIDER)

CONTENTS

101 TROLL UP COLUMBIA KINGS There’s more to waylaying upriver brights than sitting on anchor in the hoglines between Longview and Troutdale. Our salmon sharpie Andy Schneider details how to work Lower Columbia flood tides for September’s bumper run!

FEATURES 29

In our finale, we share your waterside panoramas, shots of the wild, best friends, togetherness, downriggers rods and more themes!

50

81

113

SHOTGUN RIG Double your odds on salmon and steelhead with this set-up!

125

CLEARWATER KICKS INTO GEAR Hard-fighting steelhead and resurgent Chinook provide great catch-and-release fishing on the Idaho river this month.

WINTER HARBOUR HAUL If you’re going to make the haul to the north end of Vancouver Island, you expect to bring back some fish – and that’s just what Jeff and Erika Holmes do in another of their fishing adventures.

135

7 DEADLY SINS OF ALBACORE FISHING

165

Pride, sloth, envy – none know the list better than Northwest tuna guru Del Stephens, who also has your antidotes.

GUIDE ADVICE FOR DESCHUTES, KLICKITAT BRIGHTS Dennis Dauble was on the verge of Couging it – blanking on abundant Columbia fall kings – until he had a very wise idea.

YAQUINA SALMON SLAYER An oldie but a goodie is memorialized in this excerpt from a book on family, faith and fishing by local angler Eric Chambers.

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107

1ST ANNUAL PHOTO FEATURE, PART II OF II

A “TIP” FOR HUMPIES Cazart! The 1,499th way to catch pinks in rivers has been found!

GHOSTBUSTING, NORTHWEST STYLE Nobody says hunting our forest ghost is easy. That makes killing a blacktail more of a feat for those up to the challenge – are you?

SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Go to nwsportsmanmag.com for details.

NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN is published monthly by Media Index Publishing Group, 14240 Interurban Avenue South, Suite 190, Tukwila, WA 98168. Periodical Postage Paid at Seattle, WA and at additional mail offices. (USPS 025-251) POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Northwest Sportsman, 14240 Interurban Ave South, Suite 190, Tukwila, WA 98168. Annual subscriptions are $29.95 (12 issues), 2-year subscription are $39.95 (24 issues). Send check or money order to Media Index Publishing Group, or call (206) 382-9220 with VISA or M/C. Back issues may be ordered at Media Index Publishing Group offices at the cost of $5 plus shipping. Display Advertising. Call Media Index Publishing Group for a current rate card. Discounts for frequency advertising. All submitted materials become the property of Media Index Publishing Group and will not be returned. Copyright © 2015 Media Index Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be copied by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording by any information storage or retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher. Printed in U.S.A.

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CONTENTS

COLUMNS 59 WESTSIDER Don’t give up on the world’s “Salmon Fishing Capitol” just yet!

Westport serves up a coho derby and Terry has fish-catching tips!

119 BASIN BEACON Don Talbot is opening up a can of whoop-tuna to get at this year’s big run of Hanford Reach URBs.

DEPARTMENTS 137 BUZZ RAMSEY Buzz shares the super-simple ways he stores and smokes all the salmon and steelhead the Ramseys catch.

143 NORTH SOUND Doug has how to stay clean while fishing “The Ditch” – the Samish River – for fall kings, as well as the scoop on early bird and buck ops.

17

THE EDITOR’S NOTE

19

CORRESPONDENCE

20

THE BIG PIC A photographic tour of the Skykomish River system at extremely low flows.

41

PHOTO CONTEST WINNERS Monthly Daiwa, Browning prizewinners

43

THE DISHONOR ROLL Depoe Bay charter company arrests; International seafood trafficker apprehended; Kudos; Jackasses of the Month

45

DERBY WATCH Everett Coho Derby; Results from Brewster and South Sound Salmon derbies; Upcoming events

47

OUTDOOR CALENDAR; Record Northwest Game Fish Caught This Month

(DAVE WORKMAN)

155 ON TARGET As hunting seasons near, Dave has the top five calibers of all time for Northwest deer, and talks shotgun barrel length.

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117 RIG OF THE MONTH Cowlitz salmon-steelhead set-up

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We Have What You Need For Your Next Hunting, Fishing Or Camping Adventure!

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THEEDITOR’SNOTE

K

udos to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for embarking on a project to simplify the fishing regulations.

The agency is starting out with what, on the face of it, are pretty easy species to manage towards – trout and bass – and its commission is scheduled to make a decision on them and other ideas at its meeting in Seaside early this month.

It’s long overdue. A common complaint these days (heck, probably ever since the first pamphlet came out) is that the rules almost require a lawyer to decipher. That’s especially true for salmon.

The annual compilations that govern everything from the whats, wheres, whens and whys down to how to hold our mouths while we fish have grown so large and cumbersome that Washington earned a scathing headline in a recent Yakima Herald-Republic article by Scott Sandsberry: “Bloated rule book full of legalese leaves anglers bewildered.”

But – and you knew this was coming – not everybody is on board with ODFW getting out its editing pen. One proposal is to ditch bass limits across Oregon. Longtime John Day River guide Steve Fleming isn’t a fan of that. He points out that his stream is known as one of America’s best for smallmouth, and he believes they’re playing together nicely with its young salmon and steelhead.

If the commission approves the change, it’s unclear if anglers will descend on the John Day with their tube jigs and Yeti coolers. A Washington fishery manager says they’ve seen no evidence of that after their commission waived daily and size limits on bass, as well as walleye and channel catfish, in parts of the state two years ago.

Really, it’s more about showing federal overseers that Oregon is serious about protecting Endangered Species Act-listed salmon and steelhead from predation by nonnative but widely loved spinyrays.

In fact, there is new concern – though perhaps not evidence – about that. As water temperatures trend upwards in the John Day system, smallmouth appear to be moving into the headwaters where spring Chinook and summer-runs rear. Because the salmonids didn’t evolve with bass, they have no fear instinct towards them.

Then again, neither did this year’s big class of upriver brights while they grew up in the Columbia’s Hanford Reach.

It’s an admirable project on the part of ODFW to simplify the regs, but perhaps in the case of the John Day (and Umpqua) an exemption to the statewide limit ditch is still needed to surgically target bass straying into known rearing grounds, while protecting a nationally known fishery that surely must generate some income for the cash-strapped agency. We live in a complex world that’s going to get more complicated for fishery managers. The regs probably have to be complex in some parts by necessity. –Andy Walgamott

and Follow the Law It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3...

1.

The ONE place not to be is in the path of whales. Don’t position your vessel in the path of oncoming whales within 400 yards of a whale.

2.

Stay at least TWO hundred yards away from any killer whale (200 yards = the distance of two football fields or about 200 meters).

3.

Remember these THREE ways to Be Whale Wise: follow the guidelines for viewing all wildlife, check for local protected areas and restrictions, and always be safe.

400 yards

WHALES’ PATH

WHALES’ PATH

400 yards

Visit www.bewhalewise.org to learn more, download the laws, regulations, and guidelines, and to report violations.

Report Violations:

The Northwest’s most complex fishing rules center on salmon – blue and yellow highlighting in 2015’s pamphlets for Oregon’s Nehalem and Washington’s Puyallup Rivers call out changes from last year – but even something as seemingly simple as setting statewide rules for fecund bass isn’t easy either. (ANDY WALGAMOTT)

Enforcement 1-800-853-1964 or online at www.bewhalewise.org

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CORRESPONDENCE UP TO THEIR OLD TRICK AGAIN The Wild Fish Conservancy is back at it. The group whose lawsuit scuttled winter steelhead smolt releases in Puget Sound last year is again suing the Leavenworth, Wash., National Fish Hatchery, where spring Chinook, summer-runs and coho are reared, this time for alleged ESA and NEPA violations. And they’re so bothered by the fact that Leavenworth hasn’t had one certain operations permit since 1979 that they say they intend to sue about that one too. On our Facebook page, it led Mike Gilman to wonder, “Why do they have so much influence? The far majority of salmon steelhead fishermen want hatchery fish. They are disgusted with WFC.” Brian Johnston replied, “Mike, I believe it is because they are united, and organized, which is exactly what us sportfishermen need to be to fight these guys!” There were signs of that in midsummer, as steelheaders rallied around a new study by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife that, in part, downplayed the risks of inriver competition between hatchery and wild smolts in Puget Sound. One key argument we can make was summarized in Arten Easty’s response to another hatchery study we posted. It found spring Chinook supplementation in the Yakima Basin didn’t impact wild fish. “Stands to reason that the more hatchery smolts in the water, the less likely wild smolts will get gobbled up during downstream migration. Ergo, bigger numbers of returning natives,” he wrote.

DYING FISH WORRY READERS The heat and low waters really began to hit home in mid-July with reports that 50 percent of the Columbia’s half-million-strong sockeye run had disappeared while dozens upon dozens of dead oversize sturgeon turned up around Tri-Cities. “Found a dead 6-footer floating on the Snake last Saturday,” noted Scott Sutton on our Facebook page.

After we reported on the loss of at least 1.5 million young salmon and steelhead at Washington hatcheries, Mike Hood said, “It just keeps getting worse,” while Calvin Schertenleib succinctly stated, “This sucks,” Cody Marston posited, “Might as well cancel fishing for a few years” and Ken Sheafer gave it four thumbs down. On our blog, in the wake of the recreational closure of sockeye fishing in the Brewster Pool, PJ expressed concern about tribal gillnetting there, but Hank Wiebe helped straighten things out: “I had the opportunity to go out on the boat netting fish at the mouth of the Okanogan. They stay within the allotted catch. Also they handle all fish to be released with extreme care.

All fish caught are counted and recorded. What the Colville Tribe is doing for our fisheries is second to none.” A good example for others.

MOST LIKED PIC WE HUNG UP ON OUR FACEBOOK PAGE DURING THIS ISSUE’S PRODUCTION CYCLE Roger Goodman’s 30-pound Newport Chinook ruled the waters as we built the September issue.

Fishing with herring, he also took a 25-pounder back home to Union, in Northeast Oregon.

(DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST)

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Sky Low A look at low-flow conditions on one of the hardest-hit, most popular fisheries in the area.

Story and photos by Andy Walgamott

W

ith Northwest streams flowing at or near all-time record lows this summer and hot-water diseases killing fish, my youngest son Kiran and I surveyed conditions on three Western Washington rivers I’ve known most of my life, the Skykomish, Wallace and Sultan.

On that mid-July Saturday, we only saw one dead fish – in the state salmon hatchery’s adult trap – but we did find young

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steelhead, coho and Chinook in tiny rockbound pools.

As summer’s hottest, driest weeks wore on, and with longterm forecasts increasingly sure that we’ll see a dry, warm El Niño winter, it’s pretty worrisome stuff for the future.

How low will our rivers go this year? We’ll find out this month and in early October before fall’s rains return.

Meanwhile, using my smartphone I snapped these and the following images to record the historic conditions.

MIXED BAG

Kiran has the grim news – hot days, shrunken streams, lots of river bank exposed. While that is not unusual, the fact that it occurred so early is. The Skykomish, among several basins, saw record low snowpack that melted out quickly because of warmer-than-normal weather, leaving a lot of big boulders exposed at the mouth of Proctor Creek, above. A U.S. Geological Survey gauge a mile below where this panorama was taken showed that the river was running at 425 cubic feet per second at the time, less than a sixth of the long-term average for the date. Even more jarring was that it was nearly twice as low as the old record minimum flow, set back in 1940. “Puget Sound river systems are definitely being stressed to the max,” Bruce Stewart, a fish health manager with the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, told The Herald in Everett, the county seat at the mouth of the watershed.

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Kiran spies young wild salmon and steelhead trapped in a warm pool amidst sunbleached boulders. Without a fine-mesh dipping net or a prybar to open a way to the Skykomish, we couldn’t rescue them without inducing more stress. We saw another small fish in (left) Proctor Creek, which drains a lowland valley between Mts. Persis and Haystack – and also disappeared into the gravel just below this spot. Elsewhere in Washington, the Walla Walla River temporarily went dry at Touchet in late July when its water was used to battle the Blue Creek fire, as well as for irrigation withdrawals.

To protect fish lucky enough to have retreated to the cool depths of the Sky’s North and South Forks, state managers implemented “hoot owl” angling restrictions, closing fishing after 2 p.m., the time of day that river temperatures really spike.

Over three dozen streams across the state saw that or blanket closures to protect vulnerable salmon, steelhead, trout and char, while Oregon enacted similar. If there’s a positive to low flows, it’s that this is a fine time to better acquaint ourselves with the rivers we plumb – though no matter how hard I peered into the beautiful emerald waters below, I couldn’t see what it is that likes to snag up my spoons and jigs.

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Kiran looks into a dry raceway at the Wallace Salmon Hatchery, while spigots feed fresh water into others occupied by young fish. As of late July, WDFW reported that it had lost 1.5 million salmon and steelhead at its hatcheries this year due to disease outbreaks caused by warm water. It also released another 107,000 young fall Chinook a year early because of rapidly declining water levels at a Green River hatchery. Meanwhile, federal managers shuffled spring Chinook from a Central Oregon facility to the cooler waters of the Little White Salmon National Fish Hatchery, and Idaho biologists grabbed what sockeye they could at Lower Granite Dam to truck them around Hells Canyon. Back on the Wallace, as of the end of July, only 631 summer Chinook had made it to the adult holding pond, just a quarter of the average for the date over the past dozen years.

Low waters were preventing more from moving up: A very bony riffle just below the hatchery was blocking at least three kings that I could see, and a Tulalip Tribes biologist said the rest of the run was hunkered in deep pools in the Skykomish and Snohomish. With these warm waters, the longer the fish have to linger in them, the more it potentially impacts their egg production. Between the state and tribal hatcheries, broodstock goals for fueling fisheries on the Sky, Tulalip Bubble and Tulalip Bay were woefully behind.

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MIXED BAG

Leaves fall off trees all the time, but these in the Sultan by my old house on Trout Farm Road, the 96-gallon garbage can’s worth of needles I raked up in my postmark-sized yard just north of Seattle and all the dying blackberry and Scotch broom along I-5 are telling signs of the extreme drought conditions gripping the Northwest. Heck, it’s been so dry that Olympic National Park saw its largest rainforest fire since creation of the park in 1938. Below, a tongue of the Sultan reaches the Skykomish. This spot has launched untold successful salmon and steelhead floats – once-famed Cracker Bar is also on the other bank – but this part of the river was closed to fishing until further notice. This month will see perhaps hundreds of thousands of pink salmon swim past the put-in. They could overwhelm the spawning grounds, crowding Endangered Species Act-listed wild summer Chinook into suboptimal areas. Regionwide, our waters have become hazardous to fish this year. As much as 80 percent of the Columbia sockeye run isn’t expected to make it to Canadian spawning grounds and dozens of long-lived sturgeon died in the Tri-Cities area due to the heat. In the headwaters of the Skykomish, the river’s four main glaciers shrank 45 percent between 1958 and 2009, according to researchers, and they say that has led to sharply increasing numbers of days with critically low flows in late summer since 1986. Unless it rains and hard, new record minimums will be set this month. The only question is, how low can the Sky go? NS

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Panoramas

1st Annual

Northwest Sportsman Photo Feature!

I Part II of II

n part one last issue, we highlighted some of your best non-grip-and-grin photos. We focused on gorgeous light over the Northwest’s woods and waters, the peace that comes with being afloat, those not-so-serious moments between bites, and action shots. This month, we wrap up with beautiful panoramas, the essence of the wild, man’s best friends, togetherness and – your favorite theme, judging by all the images we received! – rods in the ’riggers. Enjoy! –Andy Walgamott

From top: Jetty fishing by Jacob Dunthorn; Dark clouds over Puget Sound salmon anglers by Andy Walgamott; Morning launch at Oregon’s East Lake by Brad Hole; Neah Bay from Snow Creek Resort by Matt Keefer

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Rods in the Downriggers

+76<-;< ?166-:

There is just something about the arc of a downrigger rod in the holder that demands a photo be taken – it was, literally, the strongest theme among the hundreds of pics we received – so we give you a page of beautiful bows!

Clockwise from top: Triple rainbow over Puget Sound off Everett by Bob Findlay; Two rods in the ’rigger by Jason Hudgins; Splitting the sun’s light at Astoria by Ashley Nichole Lewis; Waiting for the rod to go off at McNary by Garrett Norling; Trolling Lake Cle Elum by kayak by Brad Hole; Waves rock the rod below Bonneville by Andy Walgamott

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Our Buddies!

We land a lot of fish and harvest a lot of game here in the Northwest, but for many of us, one of our best catches might just be our faithful four-legged companion. Whether sniffing out the bite or working for kibble pointing and retrieving game, man’s best friend is welcome company afield.

Clockwise from top: Baetis the chocolate Lab trains for duck season by Thomas Thayer; Isabella on the tiller by Tim Lenihan; Fishing with boxers Roxie and Jack by Jill Pierce; Rosco in silhouette on the Columbia by Sean Leonard; Catch of the day – Drew, the golden retriever – by Bill Monroe Jr. 32 Northwest Sportsman

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The Wild

CONTEST WINNER!

Some outsiders might think that we are unblinking in our pursuit of game, focused on end results alone. But if anything, our eyes are more wide open to the fauna and flora – the editor has taken, literally, a ridiculous number of fern shots – of our region than anyone else.

Clockwise from top: Newt beside a Southwest Washington steelhead stream by Rusty Shackleford; Blue Mountain foothills mule deer herd on the run by Chad Zoller; A fresh bear track by Kelly Peterson; Forest-floor view of morel mushrooms by Logan Odom; Good sign by Kelly Peterson; Seagulls scarfing down fish guts by Cami Bayer

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Together

+76<-;< ?166-:

Speaking as a parent of two young boys, I have to admit that it is nice to have a quiet moment on the water and woods to myself, but I also have to say it’s funner to enjoy time afield with family and friends, not to mention safer. Whether passing along traditions, sharing camp camaraderie or lending a strong back, our outdoors are best experienced together.

Clockwise from top: Learning to fly fish by Megan Billinger; Celebrating Karissa’s Chinook by Jack Etling; Teaching my oldest how to crawdad on an Oregon creek by Amy Walgamott; Daddy’s little rower, Lela, on a Cascades lake by Rusty Shackleford; The elk packers by Matt Paxton; Selfie with Dad while deer hunting by Ashley Masters 36 Northwest Sportsman

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Success!

Success comes in many forms, from just getting out the door, to revisiting old d haunts hau aunt ntss with old friends, to even for a moment just â&#x20AC;&#x153;touchingâ&#x20AC;? a fish. If those leave smiless on our our faces, our grins grow warmer when we fill a stringer or notch a tag. Though there h re can he an be regret at ending the life of a wild thing, we honor it through unending devotion otion to ensuring many more of its kind will continue to grace our woods and waters.

Clockwise from top: Admiration by Ashley Masters; Just before release by Logan Odom; Springg gobblers gobb go bble bb l rs le ho w ithh it on the game pole by Eric Braaten; Winner, winner, springer dinner by Chris Palmquist; Heading home with the catch by Megan Billinger 38 Northwest Sportsman

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CONTEST WINNERS! In addition to the photographers called out in the preceding pages, other winners from our 1st Annual Photo Feature and whose images appeared last year include Dominic Aiello (Oregon goose hunting) and Ashley Masters (jumping steelhead). Congrats, and thanks to all who contributed, we truly appreciate it!

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PHOTO CONTEST

WINNERS!

ALUMAWELD STRYKER

SMOKERCRAFT OSPREY California Sportsman reader Chris Swanson is this issue’s monthly Daiwa Photo Contest winner, thanks to this shot from a Cabo San Lucas trip that yielded several dorado. It wins him a Daiwa hat, T-shirt and scissors for cutting braided line, and puts him in the running for the grand prize of a Daiwa rodand-reel combo!

SUN CHASER PONTOON

SMOKERCRAFT PHANTOM OFFSHORE David Affeldt’s pic of his Northeast Washington black bear is our monthly Browning hunting photo contest winner! It scores him a Browning hat.

Sportsman Northwest

Your LOCAL Hunting & Fishing Resource

For your shot at winning Daiwa and Browning products, send your photos and pertinent (who, what, when, where) details to awalgamott@ media-inc.com or Northwest Sportsman, PO Box 24365, Seattle, WA 98124-0365. By sending us photos, you affirm you have the right to distribute them for our print or Internet publications.

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Owners, Staffers At Depoe Bay’s Tradewinds Charters Facing Serious Charges A

n Oregon Coast charter outfit allegedly failed to turn over tens of thousands of dollars in fishing license fees, it was reported after 10 owners, employees and skippers of Tradewinds of Depoe Bay Charter Company were arrested on a host of felony and misdemeanors in early July.

The charges came out of an investigation by the Oregon State Police over alleged irregularities about how licenses were issued by the company. A pair of troopers went on two undercover trips booked through Tradewinds, and on the second, both were only given a

paper receipt instead of an actual fishing license, according to The News Guard of Lincoln City.

Search warrants were served on Tradewinds’ offices in March, and then in July, a grand jury indicted the 10. Owners Tim and Julie Harmon, ages 67 and 52, of Lake Oswego, and their daughters Eva Harmon and Noelie Achen, 24 and 30, of Depoe Bay were each charged with two counts of racketeering, four counts of first-degree theft, two counts of firstdegree aggravated theft, four counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree theft, as well as failure to remit license sales

By Andy Walgamott money, and violating wildlife laws, among other charges.

“We have never done anything intentionally wrong,” Tim Harmon said, according to a July 10 article in The Oregonian. “We have not changed or done anything differently than we have for 80 years.”

He said it was a misunderstanding, but The News Guard reported that “Tradewinds collected a minimum of $48,000 from license sales that it did not turn over to ODFW,” according to the grand jury indictment. Said The Oregonian, “Court documents show that at least $70,000 was collected from customers for licenses that were never purchased from the state.”

:DQWHG 6KHOOÀVK 7UDIÀFNHU $UUHVWHG

W Scott S. Steer. (WDFW)

ashington wildlife officers reported that a Canadian man they had long sought for allegedly stealing $9,000plus worth of spot shrimp in 2011 and illegal trafficking in other seafood was captured just north of the border in late July.

To go with the 10 felonies that WDFW detectives had filed against Scott S. Steer in a Whatcom County court, another 10 were levied by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans after his arrest in Surrey, British Columbia. Steer will eventually face charges in Washington too.

JACKASS OF THE MONTH

O

ut, damned spot!

That’s what two people must’ve thought after poaching a buck in a La Grande cemetery last year.

Too bad their one-act play was all caught on security cameras, including when they came back with cleaning material to hide their crime.

The video made what was done pretty hard to undo, and an easy case for Oregon wildlife troopers to prove one suspect was hunting big game in a prohibited area, failed to notch a tag and tampered with evidence, while the other conspired to aid in the wildlife offense.

T

KUDOS

he Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Division’s Enterprise/La Grande troopers were named the agency’s 2014 Team of the Year earlier this summer.

Described as a “very tight knit and cohesive team assigned to cover a vast landscape of Northeast Oregon,” members include Sgt. Chris Hawkins, and Senior Troopers Kreg Coggins, Kris Davis, Mark Knapp, Marcus McDowell and Brian Miller.

Last year, the team arrested five dozen people for criminal violations of state fish and wildlife laws, including one person charged with nearly 30 offenses for allegedly using traps and dogs to take bobcat, and another who killed a 319 Boone & Crockett bull elk in the Chesnimnus Unit without a tag and after trespassing.

Keep up the good work, fellas!

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44 Northwest Sportsman

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By Andy Walgamott

EVERETT COHO DERBY SET FOR SEPT. 19-20

O Matt Featherly is 2015’s King of the Pool, thanks to his 19.68-pounder, the largest Chinook weighed at the 10th Annual Brewster Salmon Derby. (CHARHARMIERPHOTOGRAPHY.COM)

19.68-POUNDER WINS BREWSTER SALMON DERBY Mother Nature once again threw her best at the Brewster Salmon Derby – smoke from the Wolverine Fire, emergency fishing closure for sockeye – but it wasn’t strong enough stuff to snuff out the 10th annual running of this North-central Washington favorite.

Matt Featherly claimed “King of the Pool” honors with a 19.68-pound summer Chinook good for $2,000. The category was created in the wake of 2014’s derby, when the youth division’s biggest salmon was larger than any caught by an adult.

Speaking of, this year’s adult and youth division winners were Bob Shelton and Amanda Davis. Their 19.06- and 14.7-pound kings were good for $1,500 and $750 apiece. Meanwhile, Trace LaDoux scored $100 for the piggybank with a 9.94-pounder that was tops among kids 8 years old and under. Many of those who attended the awards ceremony and raffles walked off with prizes too.

Derby organizers report all 275 tickets were sold, and that 128 Chinook were weighed in for the 100-plus boats on the water over the July 31-Aug. 2 event. For more, see brewstersalmonderby.com.

MORE RECENT RESULTS 4th Annual Wenatchee Salmon Derby, July 17-18, Upper Columbia River – 1st place: Don Talbot, 24 pounds (cleaned) 3rd Annual Puget Sound Speed Crabbing, Areas 8-1, 8-2, 9 – 1st place: Team Carpe Cancer, 10 crabs, 19.510 pounds; score: 22.510 2015 CCA Washington Summer Steelhead Challenge, July 31Aug. 2, Lower Columbia River – 1st place: Dale Von Valkenberg, 10.89 pounds (cleaned) 14th Annual South King County Chapter-Puget Sound Anglers Salmon Derby, Aug. 1, South Sound – 1st place: Cody Wright, 21.93 pounds Editor’s note: To have your derby listed or results posted here, email awalgamott@media-inc.com.

ne of the biggest fishing contests on the entire West Coast is on tap this month. The Everett Coho Derby is Sept. 19-20, and once again it features a $10,000 prize for the biggest silver.

It’s also where the drawing for a 21-foot Hewescraft, grand prize in the Northwest Salmon Derby Series, will be held.

This year is so off the charts, weather- and waterwise, who’s to say, but if 2015 follows on recent Septembers, the winning coho will come from the salt, and probably within sight of Whidbey Island. Only one of the past seven top silvers have come from freshwater (2008’s 18.16-pounder), while the rest have been caught in Areas 8-2, 9 and 10. Odds are that the big fish will bite a hoochie with or without a herring strip. Fishery managers say we’ll see another large return of coho like last year.

The derby also features $5,000, $2,500, $1,000 and $500 for second through fifth places, and $300 for biggest coho caught by a kid. There are tons of prizes for folks whose Gary Hamlin’s 11.96-pound coho was last year’s winner. silvers are a wee bit smaller, and the It bit a squid behind a purple mystery-weight contest features a haze flasher trolled in the shipping lanes off Mukilteo. four-wheel-drive Dodge Ram. (KAREN HAMLIN) Now in its 22nd year, the event is put on by the Snohomish Sportsmen’s Club and Everett Steelhead & Salmon Club. Proceeds benefit local fish projects, including the release of 80,000-plus coho fry annually.

Tickets ($30 for adults, free for kids 12 and under) are available at Outdoor Emporium, Sportco, Holiday Sports, Three Rivers Marine, Ted’s, Greg’s and John’s sporting goods shops, McDaniels Do-It Center and other locations.

For more information, see everettcohoderby.com and northwestsalmonderbyseries.com.

MORE UPCOMING DERBIES Sept. 5 Willapa Bay Salmon Derby out of Tokeland; info: dfdbones@aol.com Sept. 6 Columbia River Fall Salmon Derby on the Lower Columbia; info: swwa.org Sept. 12 2nd Annual CCA Oregon Salmon Roundup on entire Columbia system; info: ccaoregon.org Sept. 12 Edmonds Coho Derby on Central Puget Sound; info: fisharc.com/derbies/ 61-2014_Edmonds_Coho_Derby_Limited Sept. 15-Oct. 31 Westport Boat Basin Derby in the boat basin; info: westportgrayland-chamber.org nwsportsmanmag.com | SEPTEMBER 2015

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OUTDOOR

CALENDAR Sponsored by

SEPTEMBER Washington statewide cougar, deer (bow), mourning dove and grouse and Northeast A, Blue Mountains and Long Island bear openers; Grouse opener in Oregon; Parts of Catherine and Big Sheep Creeks, as well as Grande Ronde, Imnaha, John Day, Snake, Umatilla, Wallowa and Wenaha Rivers in Oregon open to fishing for fin-clipped steelhead (note: see dfw.state.or.us for current open hours or closures) 12 Washington statewide elk (bow) opener; CAST for Kids event on Lake Washington at Coulon Park; info: Jessica Kelly (jessica@castforkids.org) 12-13 Family Pheasant Hunting Workshops at EE Wilson, Sauvie Island WAs (registration required, $); info: odfwcalendar.com; Free Youth Pheasant Hunts at Fern Ridge WA, Klamath Falls; info: odfwcalendar.com 13 CAST for Kids event on Hagg Lake; info: Shelly Bolopue (pinkybasslass@msn.com) 15-25 High Buck Hunt in several Washington Cascades and Olympics wilderness areas, Lake Chelan NRA; Usual bandtail pigeon hunt opener in Oregon, Washington 17 2nd Annual Pierce Co. CCA Banquet & Auction; info: ccawashington.org/PierceCounty 19 Public Archery Instruction, EE Wilson WA; info: odfwcalendar.com; General fall turkey hunt opens in Northeast, Southeast Washington units 19-20 Washington youth pheasant, quail, partridge hunting weekend; Women’s and Mentored Youth Pheasant Hunting Workshops near Corvallis and at Sauvie Island WA (registration required, $); info: odfwcalendar.com; Free Youth Pheasant Hunts at numerous locations across Oregon; info: odfwcalendar.com 25 Family Pheasant Hunting Workshops at EE Wilson WA (registration required, $); info: odfwcalendar.com 25-27 2nd Annual Bass, Bands, BBQ & Brew festival at Black Beach Resort, Curlew Lake; info: bassbandsbbqbrews.com 26 43rd Annual National Hunting & Fishing Day; info: nhfday.org 26-27 4th Annual Salmon Tales Festival & Fishing Derby at Westport Maritime Museum and the boat basin; info: salmontales. info; Free Youth Pheasant Hunts at Fern Ridge WA, Klamath Falls; info: odfwcalendar.com 30 Last day of 2015 pikeminnow sport reward fishery; info: pikeminnow.org 1

RECORD NW GAME FISH CAUGHT THIS MONTH Date

Species

(WESTPORT WEIGHMASTER)

Pds. (-Oz.) Water

9-13-92 Atlantic salmon* 8.96 9-13-87 Chinook 42 9-17-80 Channel catfish 36.5 9-19-92 Coho* 6 9-22-99 Atlantic salmon** 14.38 9-22-05 Jack mackerel 4.99 9-28-14 Bluefin tuna*** 39.20 *Resident; ** Sea-run; *** Image

Goat L. (WA) L. Coeur d’Alene (ID) McKay Res. (OR) Cascade Res. (ID) Green R. (WA) Sekiu (WA) Westport (WA)

Angler

Gregory Lepping Jane Clifford Boone Haddock Ted Bowers Ron Howard Dee Duttrey Sam Ellinger

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Northwest Sportsman 49

An Ode To The Ol’

Half and Half A Yaquina salmon slayer is celebrated in a chapter of a local angler’s book.

By Eric Chambers Editor’s note: The following is excerpted with permission from the author from his book Tidal Grace: Fishing, Family, and Faith on Oregon’s Yaquina River, published by Frank Amato Publications and available at AmatoBooks.com.

I

t’s a sin in salmon fishing to give away much information about killer lures, or secret fishing holes, or signature techniques, unless one is giving that information to family or close friends, so telling this story will be a sin, though one that feels necessary to commit because the story needs to be told.

The Luhr Jensen Tee Spoon was patented sometime in the middle of the 20th century by the Hood River, Oregon,

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company that became famous by creating the Ford Fender, a Depression-era lure that had its prototype literally hammered out of metal from an old Model A Ford. The signature element of the Tee Spoon, in general, is that the body is comprised of fluted beads that look like the tops of golf tees and simulate the abdomen of some sort of sea creature, on which salmon seem to enjoy feeding. The lure also has a magnum “Indiana” style blade, which is actually used mostly in Midwestern musky fishing. Throughout the years the Tee Spoon line was modified and enhanced with new bead and blade colors and patterns, filling a good-sized shelf at outfitters and bait shops in its heyday.

When I was growing up on the Yaquina it seemed like everybody upriver fished with synthetic lures, and nobody fished with bait. I don’t know why for sure, but

FISHING other boats were doing exceptionally well on different rigging, it was a safe bet that Grandpa Bud’s boat would be fishing Tee Spoons.

I remember Dad telling him, mostly out of a devil’s advocacy, that we weren’t using enough lure variety, and that those other boats really knew how to rotate through them to find out what the fish were hitting. Grandpa immediately lodged his defense, making one of the most persuasive mathematical arguments I have ever heard about odds, fish caught per boat, and the supremacy of the Half and Half. He concluded his statement by suggesting that if Dad liked how the other boats fished, he could go join them. We all laughed, including Dad, who believed every bit as much in the Half and Half as Grandpa did, and was just finding a way to get the old guy worked up.

As a freight train chugs along the lower Yaquina River, anglers in two boats hope to tie into fall Chinook and coho. (ERIC CHAMBERS)

in the years since it seems like it’s just the opposite, with the vast majority of fishermen trolling herring or casting eggs from guide boats. We protested the change for several seasons, eventually accepting the inevitable and doing our share of herring fishing nowadays, but we haven’t completely abandoned the old lures, and as far as I can tell we are nearly the last boat on the river still trolling with Tee Spoons from time to time.

While Dad and Grandpa’s tackle boxes used to be fully populated with different Tee Spoons, our go-to design was always the hammered half and half, which had pink tee beads for the abdomen, and a dimpled “hammered” blade, which was half brass and half nickel. The Half and Half, as we called it, was the first lure we’d tie on in the morning, and the last lure we would fish with on a slow day. Unless

ON A KOKANEE TRIP to a lake in Central Oregon one summer, a few years before Grandpa’s death, he got to telling stories in the boat, how I imagined the old-timers used to tell them in the logging crummy headed up to the woods.

Grandpa’s go-to story on this trip was about how he could accomplish any task with nothing but a forked stick. We would think of obscure tasks, challenging his narrative, and he would meticulously explain how he would go about accomplishing said task with his forked stick.

Being a kid and all, I asked Grandpa how he would fight a bear with just a forked stick.

“Well, Sonny Boy, the trick to fighting a bear with a forked stick is taking advantage of the element of surprise. You see, you sneak up on the bear hole without the bear noticing, and you jab that stick into the hole with all of your goddammed might, and then you twist the stick like a son of a bitch until you have that goddammed bear so twisted up that he just cries uncle,” he replied, deadpanned, without even a hint that his forked stick assertion was ridiculous.

Dad and I were rolling pretty good at that point, when Dad ruled on the subject: “Bud, it’s settled, I’m going Renowned from the Skagit to the Yaquina, Luhr Jensen’s Tee Spoon has accounted for more than a few salmon over the decades. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

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Northwest Sportsman 51

FISHING had floating around in the tackle box. Deciding that we weren’t kidding, his only comment was, “Wow, that’s an to bury you with a forked stick and a Half and Half, and old-timers’ lure right there.” He tied it on, and we heard between the two of them, there won’t be anything you days later that he too had found himself well into the coho. can’t do in the afterlife.”

Coming off an exceptional coho season, and catching Grandpa’s only reply was a half smile as he looked a half dozen or so Chinook on the Half and Half as well, ahead through the windshield of the fishing boat, staring I went to stock up after the season. I was in disbelief out over the canyon walls, undoubtedly contemplating when I couldn’t find the Half and Half at the tackle shop, how he would use his forked stick to persuade Saint Peter and the merchandise guys told me that Luhr Jensen had to admit him through the pearly gates. discontinued the entire Tee Spoon line. I immediately And so when Grandpa’s heart finally did give out, Dad found a phone number for the manufacturer and asked set out to the woods behind our house and found the most if, in fact, it could be true. It turned out that Luhr Jensen suitable forked stick available, whittling away the bark and had been bought fashioning the prongs. out by Rapala, Once complete, he went a major tackle down to the garage, company, and that retrieved his tackle they had decided box, and produced in their infinite a brand-new Luhr wisdom to dump Jensen Half and Half, the Tee Spoon line. still in its packaging. I I asked if they knew don’t think anybody of anybody else thought he’d actually who made them, do it, but during the and the woman on private family viewing, the phone told me Dad brought both items only that they held with him and placed all of Luhr Jensen’s them in the casket as Author Eric Chambers and his father Jim Chambers hold Chinook caught on a half-and-halfpattern Tee Spoon while Eric’s grandfather and fishing mentor Bud Fine looks on. (ERIC CHAMBERS) patents, and that he paid Grandpa his Rapala never sells a patent to a competing manufacturer. final respects. If God grants us a reprieve from harps and I made a furious sweep of Portland-area sporting goods hymnals just long enough to see our own funerals, I have shops and bought every Half and Half I could find, putting not a single doubt in my mind that Grandpa was laughing away around 30 of them for future seasons. What we his ass off. would do after those were gone, I had no idea. In my panic, the thought of exhuming Grandpa briefly crossed LIKE I SAID, DAD and I still fish with the Half and Half today, my mind, knowing that at least one Half and Half was and other than a couple of buddies who we share our secrets accounted for in his casket. At the same time, his forkedwith, I think we’re the only ones. Years ago, as the coho stick hypothesis was finally disproved, as there is no way fishery was closed on the Yaquina due to dwindling runs, he would have been able to use the forked stick to produce we noticed that the Half and Half was particularly effective a Half and Half, unless of course it was a magic wand, on that species, and in total we probably released over 100 which is probably what he would have told us. coho hooked on the Half and Half during the prohibition.

When the strength of the coho fishery returned a few years back and they opened it up for a limited quota, we THE ADVENTURE CONTINUED IN earnest for another few immediately set out downriver to test out the Half and months as I sourced each individual component of the Half in the lower bay, seeing if we might get our share of lures from a half-dozen different companies. I found a the quota. Our suspicions were correct, and for just about place that would sell me the tee beads in bulk, another the full length of the shortened season every fisherman in that would sell me the wires, and still more for the our boat limited out quickly. swivels, treble hooks and blades. The blades were the only On one morning, after reaching our limit in under 30 complicated component, because they are musky blades, minutes, we bumped into a local county commissioner and it took a week of Internet searching to realize what out on the river. He demanded to know how we got the exactly I was looking for, and to get them in the correct coho so quickly, and we figured that currying a little favor size and dimple pattern. When I called in my order to the with the commissioner might not be such a bad idea. We woman in Wisconsin, she was in disbelief when I told brought our boat alongside his and tossed over a Half and her they were for salmon lures. “Oh, gosh, I don’t know Half. He gave it a long scrutinizing look, wondering if we how that will work, but if you want me to order them up, were serious or if we just tossed him the oldest lure we still youbetcha,” she said.

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Northwest Sportsman 53

FISHING I could only get them in all brass, which was contrary to the very essence of the Half and Half, so I needed to figure out a way to make half of the brass spinner blades shine like nickel. I tried metallic hobby paint.

Not shiny enough. I tried chrome stickers.

Not only did they fail to have the correct metallic gleam, but they covered up the dimple pattern. Desperate I began calling automotive platers to see if any of them would be willing to take on my project.

As I explained myself they all refused the work on account of it being too meticulous and too small. One of them suggested that I call an automotive plater in Vancouver, Washington, who was a fisherman himself, and might take pity on me. I called him up and he told me to bring the blades in.

As I arrived, we talked for 30 minutes or so about fishing, before he finally looked over my goods. He shook his head and said that the project would require building a plating rack, which would take one of his guys a few hours and end up costing me several hundred dollars.

As an alternative, he scratched out a rough design of what

he’d need, and told me where to buy the rectangular copper bar to build it.

The copper bar now sits in my garage along with the brass spinner blades and the rest of the supplies for the plating rack. By the time I am through with the first hundred of them, I’ll probably be close to $1,000 in to the project, which would probably buy me a divorce if I wasn’t married to the most forgiving woman on the planet, who understands that fishing hammered Half and Halfs and my heritage are inextricable.

IN THE YEARS SINCE, I’ve gotten mixed messages on whether Rapala did, in fact, kill the Tee Spoon. Many stores seem to have discontinued them, which has yielded a few good clearance deals, but I do still see them pop up on the shelves from time to time. Though it’s been a pain, a piece of me is kind of hopeful that the Tee Spoon line will actually disappear. People had largely quit fishing with them anyway, preferring the newest crazes on account of them not being the old ones. And to a certain extent, if they jump at every new fad on the water, they don’t deserve the trusty reliance of the hammered Half and Half.

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Northwest Sportsman 55

FISHING Late in the season last year there must have been 50 boats fishing the stretch of water between the dock and the Red Barn, all trolling herring with flashers, us included. Nobody was catching fish anywhere on the river, so we made the quick switch to the Half and Half, which produced three hook-ups in under an hour.

As the boaters noticed our streak of luck, they got inquisitive about what we were using, as fishermen often do. We used to lie when anybody other than the locals would ask, but on that day we told them the lure by its given name, the old Luhr Jensen hammered half and half Tee Spoon. I don’t think a single person even knew what we were talking about, which is why we went ahead and told them. A piece of history and culture on the river has been nearly lost, replaced no doubt by kids who will someday tell nostalgic stories about fishing plug-cut herring back when people used to do that sort of thing, before they all jumped ship to this technique or that technique. They’ll go on at length, just like I am here, about how people don’t respect the old techniques and that they’d still work, if people would use them.

And as far as that goes, it’s worth conceding that fishing with bait preceded the invention of synthetic lures, and for that matter, spears and nets preceded bait. All of which is to

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acknowledge that hardly anything is really new, or old, for that matter. Perhaps all I really know is that the Half and Half works for us, and that’s enough for me to be happy.

While I can respect the unavoidable nature of change, there is something worthwhile about being satisfied with a way of life that simply works. There is no lure or bait in the world that will guarantee fish, which is what makes fishing unpredictable, and fun. But I have to imagine that those people who switch their techniques every time they hear about a new fad probably bring about the same approach to most of their lives, twisting in the wind, groundless, standing for nothing, respecting nothing, and as a result, earning no respect themselves. There was a time when the whole river fished Tee Spoons. Now they don’t even make them.

I don’t want to raise children who are easily persuaded by style or pressure to abandon their ways because they feel old or familiar. I want them to hold on to treasures of life that have meaning, if for no other reason, because they brought satisfaction. Maybe that was the lesson in Grandpa’s ridiculous forked-stick story. Find a tool in life that is perfectly sufficient, respect it, and it won’t let you down. And somewhere in that trusty reliability is the kind of contentment that counts in life, and the kind of fulfillment that keeps you coming back. NS

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Brought To You By:

KNOW WHERE TO CAST™

COLUMN

Chasin’ Coho In The Boat Basin

A hooked silver swirls below an angler on the gangway to one of the floats in the Westport Boat Basin. (WESTPORT SALMON TALES FESTIVAL)

B

ack in 1975, the basketball coach of Ocosta High School, Del Dungey, had a great idea that would not only impact his students in the marine sciences program he taught, but also create a “new” fishery for Westport.

Not only would there be Chinook and coho to chase in the ocean off what was once WIESTSIDER known as the “Salmon Capital of the World,”

By Terry Wiest but now it would boast one of the best manmade silver runs right in the town’s own backyard, the boat basin.

Every year since, students have been raising up to some 200,000 coho fry received from the state of Washington. Reared in netpens until they become smolts, the fish are imprinted in the boat basin and released to join all the other salmon to travel in the ocean a few years before returning.

They start entering the basin in early September and continue through late October, swimming back and forth, in circles, and basically just cruising from float (dock) to float until finally determining there are no spawning grounds amongst all the boats, so they eventually head upstream. Nobody knows for sure,

but most theorize they eventually either end up in the Elk River or the Bingham Creek Hatchery on the Satsop.

To get people to visit the great town of Westport as salmon season otherwise begins to wane, the annual Boat Basin Derby is held. The rules are available online, but it’s pretty simple. All fish must be caught legally within the Westport Boat Basin boundaries using single barbless hooks. While it is a free event with no derby ticket required, you must of course have a state fishing license and catch card. All fish are weighed “in the whole” on Float 8, slip “G,” at the Seafood Connection between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. While most adult fish will be somewhere between 5 and 12 pounds, last year’s derby-winning fish weighed in at 15 pounds, 4 ounces!

THE FISHERY PEAKS IN conjunction with the Westport Salmon Tales Festival (salmontales.info). This year’s fourth annual event will be held Sept. 26-27 at the Maritime Museum in Westport. While the main basin derby will be in full swing, there is a separate derby (also free) for the weekend festival. Some excellent donated prizes will be awarded for the top three fish, and the weigh-in for this event will be at the gazebo. nwsportsmanmag.com | SEPTEMBER 2015

Northwest Sportsman 59

COLUMN

Brought To You By:

Each year the event becomes more popular, and it also hosts the Pacific Northwestâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Biggest Smoked Salmon Competition, with pro smokers competing for bragging rights! Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also a â&#x20AC;&#x153;Home Smokerâ&#x20AC;? smoked salmon contest with Smokehouse Products donating several excellent prizes.

For those wanting to just sit back and relax, a beer garden featuring Westport Brewing Company selections, along with live music, will be on tap both days. And this year there will be a trout pond for the kids if fishing in the basin isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a successful one for the youngsters. Salmon-related vendors and contests with prizes valued over $4,000 round out the event.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE fishing? You have the whole basin to fish â&#x20AC;&#x201C; all 21 numbered floats and the areas around them. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re fishing from the rocks, be careful as they are slippery. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re fishing from the elevated boardwalks, just make sure someone has a crab ring to use as a net when you hook a fish. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s always a good idea to have a net from the shore or the floats, as they really like to shoot under the docks â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a net will help. Also, for this same reason I use 30-pound PowerPro tied directly to my lure. With all the pilings and docks, sometimes you need to be more aggressive in directing where you let the fish swim. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fish early for the more-than-willing biters. The later it gets, the less likely they are to be feeding,â&#x20AC;? tips local expert Mike Coverdale.

KNOW WHERE TO CASTâ&#x201E;˘

You have to treat these fish as if theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re in a river. They will generally only be in the top 3 feet of the water, so methods that keep your presentation near the surface are most effective. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re thinking spinners, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be correct. The majority of coho are hooked on them. The Mepps Flying C in yellow or pink is what Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m told has consistently produced the most fish each year.

To fish these (or other lures), cast out ahead of schooling fish if you can see them (polarized glasses will help tremendously), let the spinner just start to sink and then slightly â&#x20AC;&#x153;popâ&#x20AC;? it to get the blade rotating. Retrieve at the slowest speed possible while maintaining a rotation from the blade. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll know when they hit â&#x20AC;&#x201C; hold on!

For some reason, Blue Fox spinners arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t quite as popular on the docks (they are in Grays Harborâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rivers â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d try a size 5 Vibrax in chartreuse or pink); what I believe might become a favorite is a Wicked spinner! You get the blade of a spinner with a hoochie, one of the most popular lures just outside in the ocean. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m betting it will work and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be trying this set-up this year, using the same colors for coho I would in the rivers â&#x20AC;&#x201C; black/purple and pinks.

Another method thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unproven in the boat basin but extremely popular in the rivers for coho is twitchinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. You can be assured I will be twitchinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; a hoochie jig to see if my favorite river technique will work for these boat basin fish as well. The jig will react a little differently because of the density of saltwater, but Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m betting I can make it work.

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Northwest Sportsman 61

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The limit in the boat basin is six coho, of which four can be adults. Now, if there are lots of jacks, and you don’t mind taking home six of them, use some Pautzke-cured eggs 2 to 3 feet under a float. The jacks go crazy over red or orange roe. Once in a while you’ll hook an adult as well, but this method mostly works for jacks.

If you like the idea of using a float, but want the larger adult coho most are seeking, live anchovies are for sale in Westport.

Simply hook one behind the head collar and gently lob it out where you’ve seen coho traveling. It’s a super relaxing way to fish – that is, until all hell breaks loose when a crazy silver takes exception to being hooked.

IF YOU ATTEND THE Westport Salmon Tales event and need

Success! Coho here typically run from 5 to 15 pounds. (WESTPORT SALMON TALES FESTIVAL)

some pointers, stop by and say hi. Steelhead University will have a booth there. If I’m not in the booth, I’ll be down fishing.

Others who are more than willing to help you out would be the Westport Chapter of Puget Sound Anglers and Mike Coverdale of Windermere Real Estate. The aforementioned will have booths set up, so don’t hesitate to ask. Kevin Lanier from KC Sportfishing Charters, who along with his wife Cyndi also runs Dockside Art, Gifts, and Tackle, will have all your tackle needs covered, along with some valuable information for the asking. Dockside is located just above float 10. NS

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FISHING

Back To The

Harbour!

Far-traveling Tri-Cities fishing fiends return to the north end of Vancouver Island in search of big limits, beautiful scenery and adventure.

By Jeff Holmes

CANADA EH!

F

or a motivated, caffeinated angler, it’s possible to travel by vehicle between any two points in the Pacific Northwest in less than a day. I’ve tested this theory a number of times and find such trips into remoteness an intoxicating pathway to the best outdoor times of my life.

As I grow older and push those driving-endurance limits further, the logic of multiple drivers or stopovers becomes clearer, but whatever the cost, such travels remain precious to me and to many Northwest sportsmen. Without selling

out the sensitive landscapes I love, I try to highlight remote locales for readers in search of adventure.

Yes, there’s natural beauty and fish and wildlife close to our homes, but those longer drives to the fringes of our region reveal wildness and beauty that simply can’t be found close to major population concentrations. The closer one gets to Seattle, Portland, Spokane, Tri-Cities or any large group of humanity, the more rigs one finds at trailheads and boat launches, and the more competition we find for our fish and time spent outside. Most of us can’t afford or don’t want to spend money on extravagant trips to Costa Rica, Chile, Christmas Island or Alaska, but we still want the wild fishing experiences. Luckily, there

Add an octopus to this line-up and you’d just about have the range of species to be caught out of Winter Harbour, on the Pacific near Vancouver Island’s northern tip. Erika Holmes and her and her husband Jeff’s guide Kade Pilton pose with a day’s haul. (JEFF HOLMES) nwsportsmanmag.com | SEPTEMBER 2015

Northwest Sportsman 65

FISHING are world-class fishing options available in the Northwest for anglers on all budgets, and the key to finding those options is to research and look for the “edges.”

The rewards available for those who go out of their way to get lost on the fringes of the region can often be measured in full coolers and game bags, but also in unforgettably wild experiences steeped in discovery.

Designated wilderness and other wild landscapes exist partly out of the foresight of conservationists setting aside untrammeled grounds for future generations, but also often as a function of remoteness. The American Pacific Northwest is home to vast, empty inland landscapes where fish and wildlife are abundant and where sportsmen can count on being mostly alone, especially in September. Competition on our coasts is typically pretty

stamp compared to the Great White North, and we have a single state, California, with a bigger population than Canada. It’s true that most of those Canucks live within two hours of the U.S. border, but most Canadians live back East. Ninety percent of British Columbia’s population is concentrated in Vancouver or Victoria, and the province’s nearby forests and coastlines reflect this. Northern Vancouver Island’s west coast is a different story. It’s one of those far-flung places in the Northwest where black bears outnumber year-round residents and where a long drive takes you to a place where wildness and the grandeur of the landscape defy description.

Northwest Vancouver Island is also home to the greatest remaining ocean fishing grounds within a day’s drive of the American Northwest. The entire west coast of the island is great, but nothing compares to the north Chinook returning to the Columbia, Puget Sound and Fraser feed their way through the rich foraging grounds off the west coast of Vancouver Island.

(JEFF HOLMES)

fierce, however, even in our smallest ocean ports. Millions of Northwesterners and visitors from across the country and the world come to the Washington and Oregon coasts to vie for the riches of the season and the beauty of our beaches and rocky headlands. Our U.S. fishing and coastal experiences are nonetheless awesome, but a different, wilder world exists across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the north, one where halibut, lingcod, salmon and even abundant yelloweye rockfish can be retained all summer long and into early autumn.

The coastlines of southern British Columbia and Vancouver Island draw hordes of visitors in summer, but not like the States. Put in perspective the size of the world’s second largest country, Canada, and then consider its population of 35 million. The United States is a postage 66 Northwest Sportsman

SEPTEMBER 2015 | nwsportsmanmag.com

coast, especially Winter Harbour at the exit of Quatsino Sound. This tiny port is a two-hour drive from the island’s northernmost town, Port Hardy, and used to be home to vast commercial fishing enterprises. Now, logging and wind farms dominate, and just a handful of private and charter boats fish out of Winter Harbour, even during the late July and early August peak of the season. By September, almost everyone leaves, just as arguably the season’s best fishery gets underway. Giant, late-arriving “northern” coho that challenge the 25-pound mark arrive, complementing late Chinook, halibut, lingcod and rockfish angling. It is my favorite place to harvest fish and to see marine wildlife. If you have the time and means, love ocean fishing and seeing ocean wildlife, prioritize to go here.

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Northwest Sportsman 67

Whether you visit Winter Harbour this September for 20-plus-pound northern coho and fall halibut, or whether you plan a trip for 2016 or beyond, Vancouver Island is a worldclass fishing destination that’s just a $200-round-trip ferry cost away. For a fraction of the cost and the travel of an Alaska trip, the island’s northwest coast is big, wild country featuring a class of angling I’ve never come close to experiencing at home. Great roads, an excellent ferry system and a very favorable currency exchange rate beckon travelers to make the trip. It was a pleasure to have $600 American converted into nearly $800 Canadian when Erika and I made the trip this July to stay and fish with friends at Qualicum Rivers Winter Harbour Lodge and Resort (qualicumrivers.com).

Qualicum Rivers’ Rob Knutson operates a welloiled machine of a lodge where many thousands of pounds of fish come across his docks weekly, all summer long, while providing truly excellent accommodations and food.

Our visit coincided with the filming of an Anglers’ West episode and a visit from Team Pro-Cure. The resort has been famous for many years for churning out huge bags of trophy-sized fish, and the folks at Pro-Cure return religiously to Winter Harbour, as do many other repeat customers from across the United States and Canada. Pro-Cure’s Steve Lynch says they visit twice: once early in the season for Chinook and bottomfish and once in September for coho and more bottomfish. During our early July stay, resident and early migratory coho ranged between 4 and 13 pounds, but that number changes as the season progresses.

The coho weren’t yet huge when we fished, but between Erika and I, we were allowed to keep eight, along with eight Chinook, four halibut, twelve lingcod and twelve rockfish, eight of which could be yelloweye.

Five large coolers – three of them huge – would barely contain our gutted, gilled catch for the ride home 68 Northwest Sportsman

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While Washington halibut seasons had wrapped up by then, Jeff Holmes was able to keep this maximum-sized flatsider during an early July trip. (JEFF HOLMES)

to Tri-Cities. Here’s the short blowby-blow of how we got to Winter Harbour and how we escorted lots of fishy friends home with us.

JULY 5 How badass of a traveling companion is your wife? If you were stuck in an I-90 traffic jam going over Snoqualmie Pass with a Vancouver, BC, ferry reservation to make, would she strip out of a sundress to be able to fit through the pass-through window and into the canopy, where she’d have to spider crawl over coolers and under salmon rods to get cold beverages and guacamole and chips?

Would she come with you on a fiveday Canadian fishing trip full of early mornings and 13-hour fishing days?

Mine will, and I love her for it and look forward every summer to our trip(s) to Vancouver Island’s west coast. This year she and I headed out from Tri-Cities the day after Fourth of July for a dinner and beer date in Vancouver, followed by a 9:30 ferry ride to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island’s Inside Passage. Rather than paying for a room, we planned to crash in the back of our truck on a logging road, which, on the island, are everywhere. We broke out of vacation traffic on Snoqualmie and breezed through Pugetropolis faster than normal, hitting the border with plenty of time to spare, I hoped. The Women’s World Cup final against Japan was taking place in downtown Vancouver that night. What we

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Big river accompanied with big runs of fish would only begin to describe this gem of a fishery. That and the catch and keep season lasts from September all the way thrRXJK April!

Veteran steelhead guide Bonner Daniels of Bonnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fish on Guide Service operates out of a Wooldridge Alaskan XL powered by an Evinrude 200HO Etec. This outfit helps him to navigate thrRXJK the huge river and get his clients on the fish safely!

Gene Atkins Jr. holding a gorgeous Snake River hen caught with Bonner Daniels!

Bonner says the huge population of A-run steelhead will migrate into the river first followed by the world famous and world record sized B-run of steelhead shortly after. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In my opinion, all you need to catch these fish is your typical side drifting set-up which is one barrel swivel, one crane swivel, size four octopus style hooks, weight (lead or slinkies), 10 SRXQG high viz. mainline and an 8-10 SRXQG test leader. For bait; eggs, coon shrimp, prawns, beads or yarn flies will all work in conjunction with your side drift presentation. Bonner prefers Fetha Styx 940 ultra-light spinning rods for side drifting but if the weather gets cold and windy, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll switch to pulling diver and bait set-ups with a Fetha Styx 963 casting rod. Just make sure to have fresh coon shrimp for that. All in all, if you have the right gear, the fish typically come easy!â&#x20AC;?

Typical limits allow anglers to keep three hatchery fin-clipped steelhead per day. This is a multiple license fishery (WA, ID, OR) so be sure to know state boundaries before heading out. Idaho licenses will cover the entire Snake River however. Be sure to always check for changes and updates online.

To experience this incredible fishery firsthand, you can reach Bonner Daniels at 425 281 8772.

Also, go to his website at bonneroutdoorjournal .com. Be safe and have fun out there!

nwsportsmanmag.com | SEPTEMBER 2015

Northwest Sportsman 69

worried would result in traffic delays ended up being a small crowd of joyous American girls draped in flags and face paint walking back from our ass-beating of Japan to take back the Cup. For about 15 minutes, Erika and I swelled with extra American pride and were soccer fans. I tried to start a USA! USA! chant at a red light to bait Erika into censoring me, but it turned green and we were off for a quick couple of beers at a favorite bar, The Cambie. It wasn’t too long ago that it was hard to find IPAs in Canada, but in true Canadian fashion, they’re now brewing IPAs widely that meet the established national standard of excellence in all things beer.

Some 200-plus forest fires were burning in British Columbia, and visibility in downtown Vancouver was reduced to a couple hundred yards by thick, acrid smoke. Hailing from Eastern Washington, we first didn’t quite understand the media’s uproar about health effects, but then realized how serious the smoke was when it pervaded the ferry decks all the way to Nanaimo, which was even smokier. Apparently several major fires were also blazing on the island, one not known for wildfires. We drove much further north than we’d planned, drinking coffee into the night to outdrive the smoke. We gave out before the smoke, although it had significantly lessened by the time we reached a logging road spur north of Campbell River, where we slept in.

JULY 6 On a day when I wanted to be perfectly free to leisurely drive the beautiful, bear-studded roads to Winter Harbour, I had a 3 p.m. phone interview for an excellent job back home, so we timed our arrival in Port Hardy to coincide with my call. I sat in my truck in front of a windswept Hardy Bay and nailed a 45-minute phone interview and earned a second interview on the spot for a job I felt I would get and since have.

With opportunity over and that monkey off our backs, we grabbed 70 Northwest Sportsman

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a few essentials from the Canadian liquor store and headed out on the long dirt road out of town to the tiny logging area of Holberg, gateway to Winter Harbour and beautiful Cape Scott Provincial Park. Immediately a leggy black bear crossed the road in front of us as we left town, followed by a couple more before we reached Qualicum Rivers in time for 7 p.m. dinner and orientation with Knutson and our guide, former Canadian hockey player Kade Pilton, who is an excellent fisherman. Unlike some other remote lodges on the island and elsewhere in Canada and Alaska, Qualicum Rivers guides are all fishy, in constant communication and experienced at loading up boats with mixed bags of salmon and bottomfish. After a spectacular dinner from a trained chef, we enjoyed beverages and chatted with the other guests, all of whom were American.

The favorable exchange rate and halibut restrictions in the U.S. tend to draw lots of anglers from Seattle, Portland, Spokane and many other places. We agreed to meet Pilton at the dock at 4:30 to get each of our larger halibut, which can stretch up to 133 centimeters, or just over 52 inches, and which is anywhere from 70 to 90 pounds, depending on the shape and thickness of the fish. A possession limit of one large and one chicken-sized halibut is allowed for each angler, and we were hopeful for some serious fish poundage in the morning. By the time we went to bed, the entire complex was asleep, and we’d put a hurt on our stock of American IPAs and Okanagan Pear Cider, a Canadian delicacy.

JULY 7 Kill me. Those were the first words I uttered, and Erika responded with a groan. Nonetheless, within 30 minutes we were dressed, breakfasted, rain geared and armed with a thermos of coffee. The 10-minute run from lodge to open ocean woke us up, and we struggled to feel the previous night’s effects in the presence of dawn

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Northwest Sportsman 71

FISHING breaking over the island. The northern island is famous for its storms and rough water, but part of the beauty of Winter Harbour is the protected fishing areas available when or if it blows during a trip. This morning was flat calm, however, and would be for the remainder of our trip.

The many days prior, the ocean had been quite rough. Our stomachs roared and we made the questionable decision of eating sandwiches and cookies at 5 a.m.

As Pilton broke out of protected water and into the open ocean, he charted a course north to a 240-foot hump surrounded by gravel and sparse rock. He set the anchor and we set about baiting and dropping halibut rigs, hoping to call in some nice-sized specimens without hooking any too-nice fish. That day, two lodge guests would release halibut approaching or right at 200 pounds. Two years prior, it had been my pleasure to release a 140-pounder back to spawn. What we wanted were two 45- to 80-pounders for maximum poundage, coupled with good, legal eating.

Two pounds of lead on a spreader bar with fluttering strips of fresh coho soaked in Pro-Cure’s “Butt Juice” were on the menu, and a nice yelloweye rockfish must have bit mine on the way down. Moments later, another bit Erika, and then another bit me! Just as we were ready to pull the pick and move, Erika’s rod doubled over with either a halibut or a 40-plus-pound ling. An experienced halibut

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The author brought along a new Frabill Power Stow net, a folder with a 58-inch-deep bag, to test out on the large halibut and salmon in the area.

(JEFF HOLMES)

angler, she grabbed the rod from the holder and began bringing up her heavy gear and nice fish, which dove back to the bottom once it saw the boat. We worried it would be oversized and didn’t want to put a gaff in it. I had brought along my new 40-inch-by-44-inch Frabill Power Stow net for exactly this contingency, and we netted, hoisted and tackled a very nice halibut, while Erika put a tape to it

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FISHING three times: 127 cm each time – legal! If you see a red Thunderjet in the Northwest flying the biggest net you’ve ever seen, that could be me. Pilton – whose hockey fights are easy to find on the Internet – angrily dispatched the thrashing halibut and boxed it up front, while Erika and I got our rods redeployed. After a short wait, my heavy rod bowed and started peeling line immediately. This time we were certain we had an oversized one on, and the fish further confirmed our suspicions by making several returns to depth as I reeled it up. Alongside the boat, it appeared even larger than Erika’s but not much, and we debated measuring it in the water versus netting it. I didn’t want to risk possibly losing a perfect slot-limit fish, so we netted it and wrestled it down to measure, which we did 10 times – 133 cm on the dot, the maximum size! Pilton broke his new bonker in half dispatching the nice halibut.

We pulled the pick and trolled Scotty Downriggers with 11-inch Pro-Troll and Hot Spot rotating flashers trailed by hoochies. We caught a nice king, released a bunch of coho and small kings, kept a couple really nice coho, and trolled up four keeper lings. We called it for the day and headed in for another amazing dinner, this one a Greek feast of calamari, lamb shank, Greek salad, baklava and more. The next morning we’d salmon fish, followed by some ling jigging, so we wanted to get rested for another

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long day. At Qualicum Rivers, thanks to large comfy, quiet rooms and individual beds instead of a bunk situation, it’s possible to sleep the sleep of the dead. We did, until Hall and Oates’ “Private Eyes” woke us up at the arse crack.

Erika likes that song, and told me almost immediately not to wake her up with it ever again. I woke up immediately smiling about the 65.5- and 71.5-pound halibut in our fish tote already.

JULY 8 We enjoyed some special downrigger angling on our second full day on the ocean, but not even a full halibut limit, lots of kings to 25 pounds, or a big box of lingcod and rockfish could top some of the sights we saw. Seals and sea lions are abundant, but not like they are down here.

There’s more balance, including the presence of lots of orcas, which regularly slash into nearshore waters hunting marine mammals. Some orcas, of course, eat primarily salmon, and when a big pod of mature orcas swam close past us, obviously hunting through a huge pod of coho and pinks, we assumed they were hunting salmon. A short while later, another guide and guests watched those orcas attack and perhaps eat a sea lion. Another escaped and they saw it badly bloodied and unable to swim well.

Along with orcas, we saw many porpoises, seals and sea otters that day, including a raft of perhaps 40 otters in

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Northwest Sportsman 75

FISHING Winter Harbour. Once back to the dock after landing 20plus salmon and a bunch of bottomfish, we went for a drive and a walk to look for critters. All we saw was a lone blacktail buck in amongst buildings along the tiny waterfront. Deer are scarce here and afraid for their lives.

The entire island is home to wolf packs, many thousands of cougars and black bears, and even a few grizzlies that swam over from the mainland and may be establishing themselves. Every day on Vancouver Island’s west coast is wild, but some days, especially up north, defy description.

Ask the guy on the southern half of the island who recently filmed a cougar and wolf fighting, listening as the cougar crushed the wolf’s bones. It’s easy to google. We felt lucky to be witnessing so much natural beauty in person, while simultaneously filling up our commercial-sized fish tote back at the lodge with iced, gutted and gilled ocean fish.

JULY 9 It’s very rare that Qualicum River’s guests don’t go home with all of their possession limit, and it’s impossible not to leave without an overwhelming amount of fish. Standard procedure at the lodge is to check the “hit list” on day three to target the fish still remaining on the “menu” set by the possession limit. Our primary targets became nice coho, lings and a few remaining yelloweye. We love

rockfish, especially roasted whole, so we always keep a few different crab-eating species along with our eight yelloweye, arguably the most delicious fish on the coast.

This year we kept a vermillion we accidentally caught on trolling gear, along with a canary and two big quillback.

For lings, we made several runs to epic fishing grounds and did very well, but luck was not with us and we lost a few giants at the boat. Other guests caught lots of lings over 30 and four over 40, the biggest being 47. By the end of our fishing day, we were two Chinook, two coho and two lings away from our possession limit. Many other guests had already limited, and some of them were drinking in glee, while others tried to make an earlier ferry to rush home with several hundred pounds of fish.

One final boat came in for the day, captained by our friend Mick Carson, our guide from two years earlier. He had put his clients into a serious wob of fish – and octopus.

Giant Pacific octopus are everywhere at Winter Harbour, and many fish throw up tentacled arms or whole octopus when caught. Mick’s clients caught two, one of which ate bait, the other of which was landed in odd fashion. The 21-pound octopus had grabbed onto a giant yelloweye rockfish of about 20 pounds while it was being reeled up. Mick swifty brought them onboard and directly into a cooler to make the octopus settle down and let go. His clients were going to give them to Mick for bait, and we

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Northwest Sportsman 77

FISHING were ecstatic when he gave the big one to us, which we’ll eat in sushi, burger patties, stew and octopus salad.

JULY 10 With near limits already, I was sniffing home in hopes of cutting travel costs a little and getting our haul home to butcher and pack, but we fished anyway, boating our two Chinook, one of our coho (we released a bunch of little ones) and one of our lingcod. We easily could have rounded out our limit, but we asked to head in and get packed up. Pilton packed our fish in salted ice in our coolers as we packed the truck and showered. After goodbyes and tipping out the staff, I scrapped the plan to stay in Nanaimo and catch a morning ferry, and we barely squeaked onto a boat that evening bound for Vancouver, which we reached at 11 p.m. I keep swearing I’ll stop doing marathon drives, but the challenge to get home became very real. We flew through the border, past an agent who obviously likes to fish and told us to get our fish home, and we made it to North Bend before we had to pass out for two hours behind Arby’s to avoid dying. We arrived back home in Tri-Cities at 9 in the morning of the 11th, passed out for a while, and started butchering our haul, which has finally led to the inevitability of getting yet another freezer. NS

Yelloweye rockfish are off limits in Washington waters due to overfishing, but populations off Vancouver Island allow for the retention of “arguably the most delicious fish on the coast,” in the author’s opinion. (JEFF HOLMES)

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FISHING Fresh-caught albacore cool off before being stuck in ice for the ride back to port. (DEL STEPHENS)

7 Deadly Sins Of Albacore

By Del Stephens Editor’s note: The following has been adapted from the Portland-based author’s book, The Dark Side, One Man’s Journey To the 125 Line And Back, available through tunadogoffshore.com.

S

loth. Pride. Lust. Envy. Greed Gluttony. Wrath.

The history of this list most likely predates the bible, though the bible proscribes all seven. Nor is it Christian, as it transcends most religions in one form or another.

According to most philosophers and theologians, if one or more of these doesn’t seem like a big sin to you, you have already rationalized it.

Don’t despair, this article is about tuna fishing and not some

Del “Tuna Dog” Stephens’ path to redemption for those bitten by the Northwest’s fastest-growing offshore fishery.

sermon from the mount. But after researching topics and thinking about what I’ve learned these past 20 years I came to realize seven of the biggest transgressions made by offshore crews. We all have a few things in our past we’d like to bury and not revisit, but those things, when put in the proper perspective, are what builds character and makes us strong – experiences we’d all like to forget, but sometimes the lessons learned prove invaluable later in life.

I grew up second in the pecking order and Mom made sure we were properly dressed for Sunday church. And if that wasn’t enough, she had us in bible school during the summers. Did I mention we were little hellions? I’m sure she probably thought we needed all the help we

could get.

When I took time to reflect about some of the mistakes made in life they almost perfectly corresponded to one of the seven deadly sins.

While some of us avoid some of these sins when fishing offshore, every one of us – including my crew and myself – have been guilty of one of these offenses at one time or another.

SLOTH IS PROBABLY BETTER known as laziness, and is more accurately interpreted as apathy. When a person is apathetic, they no longer really care about their duty, causing them to ignore their well-being.

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FISHING the warm water forms and the first albacore show up. Laziness, probably more than anything else, leads to putting off or overlooking some of the items that factor into having a successful trip. This does not just include rods, reels and lures, but more importantly your boat and safety equipment.

There are no excuses for cutting corners on the maintenance of your

yourself running in the fog just as often as bright sunshine, so you better bring you’re A-game every time. Maintaining a meticulous boat with safety equipment that is up to date is a must when you’re fishing in waters where help is hours away.

Offseason is the time for major work on the boat, giving you ample time to test new equipment or learn new electronics. You need to be comfortable with the electronics

intact. Things tend to bounce loose from time to time, and running across a sporty ocean is not the best time to find something has come undone or is swinging dangerously back and forth.

Safety equipment is one of those things that often gets overlooked. It’s definitely not a sexy topic and guys tend to put it on the back burner for later. Life rafts are required to be repacked every couple years, and In his pride, it took Del awhile to realize that trolling for tuna was being eclipsed by better techniques.

Anglers are advised to keep an open mind and pay attention to new innovations. (DEL STEPHENS)

boat when it comes to seaworthiness and safety of your crew. You may get away with being lazy when you fish within a few miles of shore, but running back in real quick or having the Coast Guard respond within minutes of a distress call is not an option when 50 miles offshore.

Additionally, you’ll likely find 82 Northwest Sportsman

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long before you subject yourself to running 20 to 30 miles through the thick fog often found during the prime part of the season in August and September.

Then, before every trip, take a few minutes to make sure things are working properly. Even on back-toback trips make sure things are still

in many cases have to be sent out for this service, taking weeks and months. Waiting to the last minute to get this taken care of is apathy at its finest.

Now that you have the boat in order, it’s time to devote your attention to your gear. Many times I’ve seen guys so excited to hear of

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FISHING the first fish being caught that they can’t wait to get offshore into a hot bite. They run offshore with their rods, reels and lures in the same shape as when they ended the previous season. In some cases guys are too cheap to spring for new line, so they break off one fish after another.

Line is the weakest link you have the fortune to put your hook into.

longer produce catches rivaling the best in the fleet. In the early years off the Northwest Coast, the troll show was the only game in town. Trolling all day in hopes of hooking doubles, triples, quads or even more was what everyone prescribed to. Then, when you got into the late season and they were jumping but wouldn’t bite, you just hung it up for the season. Those willing to adapt soon learned how to

An albacore is about to come over the rail. The owner of a company that makes thermoplastic fluoropolymer coatings for architectural features, Del began his fishing career in Oregon’s Cascades, chasing Mackinaw and kokanee, but blue water is what he enjoys fishing the most. He helped build the Oregon Tuna Classic, and makes annual treks to North Carolina to battle giant bluefin tuna.

(DEL STEPHENS)

Wouldn’t it make sense to check it?

I check and replace fluorocarbon leaders on iron and live bait rods in some cases after every trip. Yes, it’s expensive, but not as much as the $600 worth of fuel it takes to run out to the tuna grounds only to break fish off and have little to show for your effort because you were being cheap. At the very least, pull 50 to 100 feet off the reel to check for nicks or frays.

PRIDE, SIMPLY PUT, IS excessive belief in your own abilities. It’s also about competition with others and failing to give them credit. According to scholars, if someone’s pride bothers you, that means you are guilty of pride. Failing to adapt to current methods that are producing best due to one’s own excessive pride has resulted in many an accomplished fisherman going down in flames and losing their reputation. The fact is, methods that once worked may no 86 Northwest Sportsman

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troll swimbaits while others learned the run-and-gun techniques. Those refusing to adapt mumbled about how great fishing used to be while they watched others unload great catches at the docks and later read about it in online chat forums. I was one of those guys who trolled around to no avail while a few others were loading their boats and fine-tuning their new techniques. I eventually swallowed my pride and learned some new tricks.

Then, during the mid-2000s Shimano reintroduced the butterfly jig system. My pride no longer a factor, I wasted no time in acquiring the gear and knowledge to make this new system work for me. If there’s one thing I have learned it’s that as much as we might like things to stay the same, they are constantly changing. One of the best things you can do is develop a network of buddies who are willing to share information and techniques, then be

willing to try something new.

The last couple seasons I have seen this plague many fishermen. While I sit dead in the water watching other boats troll constantly, my crew catches one fish after another for hours. I have given one seminar after another, but some people can’t swallow their pride enough to show up at the seminar. Some of the best fishermen I know are sometimes sitting in the seminar, which is one of the reasons they are good at adapting to something new. Truth be told, in some of those seminars I am not the best fisherman in the room, rather just someone willing to share what I’ve learned. Beginners filled with enthusiasm as well as seasoned veterans with many years under their belt all have experiences they are willing to share, and those who listen and keep an open mind will tend to be the ones smiling after a day on the water when things are tough.

Another area where pride rears its ugly head is when guys think women don’t know how to fish. The two ladies on my crew have grown used to hearing “Do you fish?” It doesn’t matter if they’re wearing one of our team tournament jerseys. I often donate trips to charity and in most cases those are filled by guys with little to no experience chasing tuna, so I take one or two of my lady crew members along to help. I have to say things get a little amusing for me at times when the guys don’t have a clue about whether the ladies know how to fish or how good they are until we get to the tuna grounds.

We have certain things we do to produce fish off my boat and the ladies are used to the routine and waste no time in giving instructions to the guys. On one of those charity trips we arrived at the tuna grounds and the sonar was showing the fish were down too deep to troll, leaving us with the only option of bringing them up to us. Before I could say anything, my wife Weddy grabbed a jig rod and went to work with the iron, hooking fish, and with a

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FISHING little help proceeded to get the bite wide open. She continued working the iron, putting on a clinic for the guys. Her ability to bring fish up was instrumental in putting over 50 on the deck on that stop in just three hours and garnered a lot of kudos by the novice crew, acknowledging her efforts so they could enjoy a great day of fishing.

As a guy I believe you haven’t arrived yet as a fisherman until you are willing to acknowledge that women can be good fisherladies, and, more importantly, understand why. The reason is simple: Guys have too much pride to admit they don’t know how to do something. Women ask questions, absorbing information like a sponge, and in most cases don’t have any bad fishing habits they have to overcome. The drive and determination of a woman to learn is fueled by her desire to show she can hold her own, and that effort typically teaches them the techniques and skills to make them exceptional anglers and a worthy crewmember of anyone’s boat. In most cases, ladies aren’t trying to show up us guys, but want to be treated as an equal when onboard, and they will go the extra mile to learn what they need to do.

LUST IS THE SELF-DESTRUCTIVE drive for pleasure out of proportion to its worth. When the tuna are biting good, I’ve seen guys strap 5-gallon metal jerry cans to the front of openbow river sleds just so they have enough fuel to run 50 miles out to the tuna grounds, stopping periodically to reattach a bungee cord to their self-made bomb that only needs one good swell to terminate their adventure and lives.

When you don’t have enough fuel capacity, you might also want to reconsider if your boat is seaworthy for that far offshore. If you’re having to strap gas cans on the front, chances are you don’t have room for a life raft, which then begs the question, what else are you cutting corners 88 Northwest Sportsman

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on, and do you have the right safety equipment for running that far?

Weather is one of the biggest issues here, and small boats should not head out in rough seas hoping it will lay down, or attempt to squeeze the trip in before a forecasted front or storm arrives. Anyone who would put the safety of their crew and themselves at risk to satisfy their lust for chasing tuna is a complete idiot, period.

Instead, hitch a ride with a friend on a more capable boat, or just

While we were at the dock another boat came in and mentioned the seas were huge, leaving us shaking our heads. We had only been in the harbor a mere 30 minutes and the ocean had changed dramatically.

We ran up one side of the swell and raced down the other side, gaining speed before plowing into the bottom of the trough and sending a wall of water over the top of the canopy.

This happened a couple of times before I realized I needed to back

Del says women like his wife Weddy make great anglers. “Women ask questions, absorbing information like a sponge, and in most cases don’t have any bad fishing habits they have to overcome.” (DEL STEPHENS)

charter one. I know it’s exciting, exhilarating and some level of personal accomplishment to guide your own boat far offshore and outfish the fleet, but is your lust for this accomplishment worth your life?

Even good forecasts go bad. I was fishing a shark tournament in Southern California many years ago when I was still new to the offshore scene and got caught in a bad situation. We left the harbor with greasy-flat seas, which remained that way most of the day, and we were still many miles offshore when the competition ended for the day. Tired and wanting to pick up a little fuel for the long run back, we pulled into Avalon Harbor on Catalina Island only to have an air lock in the fuel line and be unable to add much fuel.

off the throttle when approaching the top of the swell, then give it a more gas to lift the nose of the boat as we entered the trough to prevent us from broaching. My boat was too small and my level of seamanship skills were not what they needed to be for the size of seas we encountered running 20 miles on an ocean we had no right to be on. The forecast was for little to no wind and flat seas; the National Weather Service missed it badly.

ENVY MEANS RESENTING THE good others receive or even might receive. It is an unacceptable desire to possess what others possess. Through envying others, we both fail to be happy for them and make the effort to improve ourselves. It’s human nature to

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FISHING want what others have, especially when we consider ourselves better qualified and more deserving. Does this scenario sound familiar?

You devote a fair amount of time making what you consider to be a good plan, then run offshore to the tuna grounds, and right out of the gate you start catching fish. One here, one there – you’re not lighting it up, but you’re catching a few trying to get the bite wide open. Then the radio crackles with a report of a boat on a wide-open bite and hammering them. What happens next? If you’re like most, you spend the next few minutes beating yourself up for not being in on that bite. You debate trying to figure out where they are and running to that location, and discount what you’ve been doing.

You’ve been chumming and working your location but have now decided to run to their spot. Typically, you

show up just as the bite has died, leaving you frustrated that you wasted the time to pick up and leave what was producing fish, just not at a blistering pace yet. Leaving fish to go find more fish is generally counterproductive in the end.

Be honest, how many times has this happened to you? And why? It’s tough sticking to your game plan when others are complaining they have no more room in their holds for fish.

Envying the catch and accomplishments of others will do nothing to improve your lot in life.

Sure, if you are not catching, marking, or seeing any good signs, by all means make a move.

Tred Barta, a titan of tuna, says, “Be smart and do the work the right way.”

On a recent trip, there were plenty of fishing reports to indicate the bite wasn’t very good until after lunch, which prompted me to delay our departure the next morning. We

went for breakfast, then left the dock around 10 a.m., running 35 miles offshore to find a fleet of unhappy and disappointed fishermen working the area with not much to show for their time and efforts.

I had informed my crew not to expect too much till afternoon. We arrived on the tuna grounds about 11 a.m. and were picking off a fish periodically, but by 3:30 p.m. we only had six fish and my crew was starting to wonder if it was going to happen for us. Most of the fleet had left the dock early that morning and was now thoroughly frustrated, with some of them only catching one or two fish. By 3 p.m. they had left, leaving only a couple of us to work the area. Then it happened – the bite came on, and in the next two hours we put 35 fish on the deck. The other two boats around us got in on the action and were still hammering them when we left for home.

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FISHING GREED, MR. GECKO TELLS us, â&#x20AC;&#x153;is good!â&#x20AC;?

And it is good when it motivates us to improve ourselves and our lot in life. But when greed turns into the desire for material or monetary gain above all else, it becomes destructive rather than motivational.

Similar to â&#x20AC;&#x153;chasing radio ďŹ sh,â&#x20AC;? another big sin by ďŹ shermen is leaving ďŹ sh they are already catching to go ďŹ nd a greater amount or greater quality to put in the boat. One of the exceptions to this would be during a tournament when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re trying to catch the ďŹ ve heaviest ďŹ sh for the tournament.

Running to the blue water is another big sin. I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t count how

many times Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve seen and heard of guys running to the blue water to ďŹ nd tuna only to run right past birds, warm-water breaks and other signs indicating potential ďŹ sh miles way inside of where the reports of ďŹ sh have been coming from. I have been guilty of this.

The lesson is simple: If you ďŹ nd telltale signs of tuna, stop and check them out. Too many people hear or read reports all week long of ďŹ sh being caught in one area or another and put blinders on when they head offshore, running right over productive grounds and past blatant signs of life.

They fail to realize ďŹ sh havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t read those reports, that they possess tails and there are no

pens holding them in one spot. If you ďŹ nd the ďŹ sh, you are 50 percent there; now you only have to worry about hooking and landing them.

GLUTTONY INCLUDES TRYING TO consume more of anything than you actually need. This not only includes food, but also the ďŹ ner things in life. You can probably guess where Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going here. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no need to kill every tuna within range of the gaff, and it bafďŹ&#x201A;es me why guys do this just to put up big numbers.

Catching ďŹ sh to sell commercially so you can pay for your addiction?

No problem. But there are those who donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a clue what theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to do with all those ďŹ sh and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to stop because the bite is so good. It happens quite often with tuna newbies who are still learning, and now the adrenaline is pumping because the bite is red hot and stopping is the farthest thing from

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FISHING their mind.

Take the time to have a discussion prior to departure about how many fish everyone wants, and if you get into a wide open bite, keep track of how many you’ve boated and try to stop when you have landed that last fish. We’ve had the fish chomping hot and heavy only to promptly stop when we had what we wanted, leaving them still boiling around the boat. If you still have chum left, dump that overboard and watch the feeding frenzy that ensues – it’s quite a sight.

People who have never fished tuna in the Northwest or have been involved in a wide open bite are probably wondering what the heck I’m talking about. Picture 20 to 30 fish per hour coming over the rail in just two to three hours for five or six anglers. If you’re not paying attention, you can easily boat more

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fish than you have storage for, or worse, not enough ice. Tuna not properly bled or iced isn’t worth bringing home. Tuna should not be put on ice until they are completely bled out. A tuna’s body temperature can climb 35 degrees during the heat of battle, and once they’re landed, they could be 85 degrees.

Putting them in the fish box with ice while they are still thrashing and not totally bled out will cause your ice to melt too soon. I use a 35-gallon heavy-duty garbage can for a bleed bucket; when they are gaffed and come over the rail, they get cut in the gills on each side before being placed head down to bleed out for 10 to 15 minutes before going into the fish box, where a slurry will then cool them down. During a wide-open bite the can could quickly fill up with 10 to 12 fish before you get a chance to move any to the fish boxes.

WRATH INVOLVES REJECTING THE love and patience we are supposed to feel for others, opting instead for more hateful interactions. There are no bigger mistakes in life than those caused by anger. The biggest mistake a crew can make is not this sin, but it usually leads to this sin. That mistake is fishing in a crowd. With thousands of dollars spent on fuel, bait, motels and tackle, as well as devoting endless hours in pursuit of these great game fish in one of the toughest venues on Earth to fish, tensions can run high at times.

When crews are struggling to put fish in the boat, that tension mounts exponentially the tighter and tighter the fleet gets. Whether it begins with boats trolling over the top of each other, or trolling too close to a boat with a bite going, when the bite is slow, it doesn’t take too long until the expletives start flying on the radio. But if you really don’t mind

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FISHING

As the sport is still relatively new to the Northwest, the temptation to make a huge haul of albacore is strong, but Del councils, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no need to kill every tuna within range of the gaff.â&#x20AC;? He suggests everyone aboard agree beforehand on how many they want to keep, and then studiously caring for the catch with bleed buckets and an ice slurry. (DEL STEPHENS)

elevated blood pressure and poor catch rates, go ahead and ďŹ ght it out in the crowd. The biggest reason that ďŹ shing in a crowd is such a sin is that very few boats actually catch

very many ďŹ sh when in a big crowd.

Generally you have a handful of people who do OK while the others troll endlessly in vain. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not sure why ďŹ shing in a crowd reduces the

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catch rate, nor do I care. Maybe itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s that all the prop noise going through the water pushes them down, or simply too many boats ďŹ ghting over the same ďŹ sh.

Weekends offer more people the opportunity to get out there, and at times Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve seen well over 100 boats working a small area with little results yielded. Later in the day, when the ďŹ&#x201A;eet thins out and most of the frustrated anglers head for home leaving only a few boats, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve seen the ďŹ sh come up and the bite kick in, going wide open, and the remaining boats come home plugged.

You want to talk about anger.

Imagine being one of the guys who had been trolling around and finally going home frustrated only to log onto a local chat forum Monday afternoon to read about guys who plugged their boats fishing in the very same spot they trolled all day. NS

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FISHING There might have been a horde of boats here just hours before, but not when Andy Schneider trolled up this big upriver bright last September. (ANDY SCHNEIDER)

INCOMING

EQUALITY Rather than head back to the ramp, here’s how to fish flood tide for Columbia upriver brights.

By Andy Schneider

A

nchoring for upriver brights is some of the best fishing that the Northwest offers. Good weather, relatively easy fishing, big Chinook that put up forearm-aching fights, and all done pretty close to home – doesn’t get better than that.

The biggest drawback to URB fishing is that you are competing

with lots of anglers trying to anchor along the Columbia’s channel while staying out of the shipping lane and the way of commercial traffic.

Hogline after hogline stretch almost continuously from Troutdale down to Rainier, making quite the display of boatmanship from an aerial perspective.

And then there are the tides.

Anglers have been pursuing these fish

pretty much unchanged for the last 50 years, anchoring and running metal wobblers on an outgoing tide. And no doubt, there will be anglers another half century from now pursuing URBs pretty similar to how we are doing it today.

But that dependence on the tides also sets off mad rushes to the anchoring grounds for the high and back to the boat ramp just after low.

What else can anglers do during an incoming tide? A few more are beginning to realize that the incoming tide doesn’t mean you are done fishing and destined to wait hours at the ramp.

No, some anglers have discovered that the best fishing is yet to come – with the incoming tide.

URBs are on a long journey to their spawning grounds in the Hanford Reach. And it’s just our plain good luck that these fish are excellent biters throughout their entire journey. From Buoy 10 up past Rainier, St. Helens, Bonneville Dam, off the mouths of the Klickitat and Deschutes, and even right where they dig their redds, these fall Chinook are snapping and biting at anything that triggers those primal instincts. While this year’s journey may be a little more challenging for the fish, what with warmer water temperatures and lower flows, rest assured there will be plenty of URBs caught to keep barbecues sizzling to anglers’ delight.

WORKING THE INCOMING TIDE Driving into the boat launch during the last hour of an outgoing tide seems almost sacrilegious. Some of the best wobbler fishing is taking place right as you are casually unbuckling your transom straps and seating your bilge plug. As you back your boat down the ramp and find ample dock space to tie up, you realize that there is not another angler or boater in sight. The only other person you see is the creel checker pulling into the lot, getting ready for the rush of anglers that will return with the end of the tide.

Undoubtedly there will be a parking spot available from a lucky angler who

nwsportsmanmag.com | SEPTEMBER 2015

Northwest Sportsman 101

FISHING limited early and headed home. What’s not to like about this fishing trip so far?

As the last of the ebbing tide turns to slack water and then slowly starts flooding in, this is the perfect time to start your first pass. When the tide switches completely over to the incoming, the last of the anglers on anchor will have to pull the hook and either start to troll or call it a day, giving you lots of room. Trolling for URBs isn’t all that different than trolling for spring Chinook in the Columbia. Blue- or green-label herring, either fresh from the package or brined, is one of the most productive baits, with a spinner being a close second.

Target waters 30 to 50 feet deep, preferably where a productive hogline has just vacated. URBs, as well as midriver brights and coho, all move off the bottom during the incoming and suspend throughout the water column.

If you don’t have a quality fish finder,

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you will have to stagger your baits until you can find what depth the fish are moving at. But if you have a piece of fishing electronics made in the last decade, you should have no problem locating schools of suspended salmon.

That said, there is no “fixed” depth that the fish will suspend at during the incoming, making it an exercise of paying attention to your electronics and matching the depth of your bait to the depth of the fish you’re marking.

Don’t expect to find large schools of salmon, but more than likely lots of single fish spread out. Pursuing every one of those fish you mark is worth the effort.

As you troll the incoming tide, you will more than likely catch more jacks and midriver brights than you will URBs. But don’t doubt yourself that you are doing something wrong. These fish are just slightly more aggressive than URBs on an incoming tide and are outpursuing them. Be prepared

with lots of bait and a measuring tape and stay ready for when the target species finds your bait.

RIGGING AND LOCATIONS Start your herring rigging as you would for trolling Chinook and coho at Buoy 10. Begin with a plastic weight slider, two 8mm beads on your mainline tied to a 6-bead chain swivel.

From the chain swivel, run 16 inches of 40-pound monofilament to your flasher. Behind your flasher, run 48 to 60 inches of 30-pound monofilament or fluorocarbon line to two 4/0 barbless hooks. A 12- to 14-inch lead dropper of 20-pound monofilament and an 8-ounce cannonball sinker should keep you at your desired depth.

If you are running a spinner, use 48 inches of 40-pound mono behind your flasher to a large duolock snap.

No. 5, 6 and 7 hoochie-skirted spinners are the most productive. Red/white, lightbulb (chartreuse blade with a

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Northwest Sportsman 103

FISHING green dot), rainbow, and brass blades with green, red, orange or blue tips are all productive colors. Add scent to your spinner to make it smell like licorice or a scrumptious Italian dinner, or wash it and fish it unscented, as salmon preference can change.

Brined herring tend to hold up better in the Columbia’s warmer water temperatures of September. Whether you utilize an all-in-one cure or your own homebrew, letting your herring brine a little longer will help keep it spinning longer once you’re on the water.

For some reason, trolling the incoming tides seems slightly more productive close to tributary mouths.

Off the Cowlitz, Kalama, Lewis, Sandy and Washougal are all very productive places to start. But the waters across from PDX and those along, and across from, Sauvie Island can also be productive, even though there are no

104 Northwest Sportsman

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One day last September, when the tide turned to incoming and all the anchor boats pulled the pick and raced to the ramps, the author and crew stayed and trolled cutplug herring and spinners. The results speak for themselves. (ANDY SCHNEIDER)

tributaries nearby. Where there are wing dams and pile dikes, work the sheltered inside waters between these structures.

The constant yo-yoing of your bait, the rapt attention you have to pay to your electronics and fishing away from the crowds may be some of the reasons

trolling the incoming tide isn’t pursued by more anglers. It will take constant attention to consistently put salmon in the boat during an incoming tide.

But the rewards of successfully doing something different than 98 percent of the anglers on the water is a wellearned satisfaction. NS

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106 Northwest Sportsman

SEPTEMBER 2015 | nwsportsmanmag.com

1648923-01

FISHING

Guide Advice

Sometimes it just pays to jump in a guide’s boat, as the author found out upriver bright fishing last season.

Meanwhile, activity around the campground cleaning station indicated a different catch rate for a select group of anglers. As an example, Jim was on one 10-fish boat.

“The problem is your guide,” he said, after I reported getting skunked for the second consecutive day.

“All fine and good,” I replied. “But what did you do that was so special?”

“I’m telling you, it was the guide,” he said.

What Jim failed to grasp was that I wanted to know more about a specific technique or locale that would help me catch salmon on my own; that I didn’t want to rely on always going out with a guide to catch a fish. On the eve of my last day of camp, with only a brief hook-up to my credit, I was desperate. The one smart thing I did, however, was to reserve the fourth and last seat on a boat operated by guide Austin Moser of Austin’s Northwest Adventures (austinsnorthwestadventuresllc.com).

The waters off the Klickitat and Deschutes are known as some of the strongholds of hover fishing, but using a wider array of tactics, including controlled-depth trolling, can yield good results, as Dennis Dauble and guide Austin Moser display here. (DENNNIS DAUBLE)

By Dennis Dauble

S

ome lessons in life come easy and others require a sharp thump on top of your noggin. In my case, a tutorial on the art of salmon fishing came at a gathering of professional guides and fellow anglers on the Middle Columbia. The realization – what could be termed an epiphany – was how much different the approach of a seasoned guide is when compared to the average recreational angler. You might learn from this chance encounter.

THE FIRST THREE DAYS of my mid-

September experience were spent hover fishing off the Deschutes River with two guys who knew how to catch salmon. In fact, one had filled his punch card the year before using the technique. But 2014 was different. Three days on the water yielded but one jack salmon for my fellow boatmates and I. And it wasn’t due to lack of fish.

Counts over The Dalles Dam just downstream were averaging over 20,000 Chinook a day. Fish were stacked up like cordwood, although apparently with “lockjaw” due to seasonable high-water temperatures.

WE LEFT CAMP BEFORE first light – no bacon and eggs for the serious salmon angler. Having a 20-foot open sled powered by a 150-horsepower Yamaha engine allowed for efficient travel to the mouth of the Klickitat.

More telling than an early start and a change in location, however, was technique. Moser planned to troll Brad’s Super Bait Cut Plugs behind ProTroll Echip Flashers. While the technique was not novel, the approach was fine-tuned in a manner I had not seen before.

My position at the bottom of the pecking order allowed ample time to learn from the situation. First and foremost, the three electric downriggers were integrated in a

nwsportsmanmag.com | SEPTEMBER 2015

Northwest Sportsman 107

FISHING manner I couldn’t help but compare to my hand-crank Scotty’s. What’s unique about Cannon’s Digi-Troll system is a bottom-tracking mode that allows each downrigger to be independently maintained at a different depth. For instance, we could fish one rig 4 feet off the bottom, another at 6 feet and the third at 8 feet until an optimum depth was found. As Moser explained, “The ‘master’ controls the two ‘slaves.’

When I hit the master switch, they all return to the desired depth.”

Contrast this careful bottomtracking approach to the weekend warrior who trolls in midwater to avoid hang-ups when challenged by variable depths. Having Cannon technology resulted in a smooth operation that allowed us to efficiently hunt for biters on a day when most fish held near the bottom in midchannel. I recalled a solo attempt where I trolled two poles

108 Northwest Sportsman

SEPTEMBER 2015 | nwsportsmanmag.com

While other Middle Columbia salmon anglers near the mouths of cooling tribs long-line their lures and hope not to snag up, the author says that bottom-tracking downriggers, like the one on his guide boat, can better target different depths until biting Chinook are found. (DENNIS DAUBLE)

with manual downriggers. The task was daunting, to say the least, yet Moser effectively managed three poles with a smile while we relaxed in padded swivel chairs.

ANOTHER INTERESTING CONCEPT IN play was “positive ion control,” a feature based on the theory that applying a low-voltage positive electrical field

into the water from your downrigger cables will attract fish. The idea is negative fields created by the grounded electrical system of your boat can repel fish. While I often wondered how fish responded to random noise vibration, such as that created by loose gear or downrigger cables under tension, electromagnetic rejection/attraction or optimum “harmonics,” was a new

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Northwest Sportsman 109

FISHING concept. When I asked Moser about his approach, he said, “I put a charge down the cables at 0.4 for sockeye and 0.5 for Chinook.”

And the last but not least of my observations on how to increase your success rate for finicky fall Chinook was

bait. Along with scent-infused tuna, our system included a “tuna bomb” placed above the flasher, a device that releases up to four times more attractive scent in the vicinity of your Super Bait.

Like most guides, Moser wore plastic surgeon’s gloves to prevent transfer of scent from his hands to the bait. This approach appears to be a generational thing as near as I can tell. I don’t recall ever seeing an old-timer put on gloves to thread a nightcrawler on his hook.

JIGGING, PLUGPLUGPULLING AND AND HOVER fishing resulted in modest catches in traditional Middle Columbia hot spots last September, but

110 Northwest Sportsman

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catches may have been more consistent for guides trolling the faux cutplugs. One theory why the technique works is because it puts both attractive action and scent in the face of salmon, which don’t have energy to spare when water temperatures approach 70 degrees.

I’d like to think the highlight of my last day was catching a mintbright 18-pound Chinook that took 15 minutes to get to the net. But if I did, I would be lying. More important was the lessons learned. A day on the water with a guide should yield more than a pile of fish. It should also be about learning to get a fish on your own. And as much as I hate to admit it, Jim was right. When it comes to catching upriver brights during the dog days of summer, it is often the guide.

Unfortunately, I had to suffer through three fishless days before receiving the harsh lesson in humility. NS

nwsportsmanmag.com | SEPTEMBER 2015

Northwest Sportsman 111

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FISHING

Shotgun Your Plug And Bait Trailing eggs or shrimp behind a diving lure can be the hot ticket for kings, coho, steelies.

This steelhead not only snarfed down the author’s coon shrimp, but grabbed his shotgun rig’s plug as well. (BRIAN ROBERTSON)

By Brian Robertson

M

orning light is just starting to break. A thin sliver of grey to the east slowly drowns out stars as I beach my sled onto the rocks at the Cowlitz River’s Blue Creek launch. The big motor falls silent and there’s a calming and exciting silence: There’s nothing but the gentle sounds of the river.

My thoughts race. What will the day bring? Will the fish cooperate? Bait or plugs? Which bait? Which plugs?

Last fall’s salmon fishery had a phenomenal egg bite. By the close of season, I had burned through over 60 pounds of eggs. My boat looked like it had been blasted by a paint ball gun, and the rods and reels had a crust that I thought was going to be permanent. It was worth it: I boated

a lot of Chinook on divers with SpinN-Glo and eggs.

It was fantastic, but I found myself wondering, how many plug fish was I missing? Moreover, how many more hatchery fish can I bonk? Most plug fish are so aggressive they hit any intruder to water they occupy. But does this same plug-crazed salmon turn up his nose at bait?

The same goes for steelhead,

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Northwest Sportsman 113

for that matter. Divers and coon shrimp are the ticket on the Cowlitz, but some days they are a bunch of crackheads over a plug. So there is the quandary: How do you fish plugs and bait at the same time without giving up the effectiveness of either?

Some anglers have tried tying the bait leaders to the belly of their favorite plug and leaving the trailer hook. In my mind it works, but the added pressure from that bait leader will ultimately decrease the action of the plug. This may decrease the predatory or territorial reaction bites.

In heavy currents, a belly leader can cause your plug to roll over and ski up to the surface.

Over the last two seasons I have been fishing with a better mouse trap. I am running plugs the same way I would run a Jet Diver. It’s that simple. So simple I am mad that I had not figured it out years ago.

THIS ISN’T NEW, BY any means, but my variation is one that works best for me.

I know several professionals who have their own versions that work – Cody Herman of Day One Outdoors, Dan Houfek of D&H Guide Service and TJ Hester of Hester’s Sportfishing have their own twists to the shotgun rig.

The idea is that the fish get a look at both bait and plug all in one shot, and it really works! So well, in fact, I have for the most part gone away from using divers all together.

I have had several occasions where steelhead have eaten both the plug and the coon shrimp. Who needs barbs when they have a bait hook stuffed down their throat and a plug anchored in their jaw?

I am no mathematician, but doesn’t this set-up kind of double your odds?

I mean, why wouldn’t you use two presentations at once? The sky is the limit on this rig. I have been able to run Spin-N-Glo and eggs, herring, prawn spinners, coon shrimp – the list goes on. And it can be run in all of the plug and/or diver-and-bait water you have fished in the past.

It has also worked on every 114 Northwest Sportsman

SEPTEMBER 2015 | nwsportsmanmag.com

Springers are just one of several kinds of fish that have bit Brian’s style of the shotgun rig – he says others include coho, walleye, summer and fall Chinook, and shad. (BRIAN ROBERTSON)

species I have tried it on. Walleye with a worm harness. Chinook with prawn spinners, choked herring, and Spin-N-Glo and eggs. Steelhead with prawns, pink worms and Spin-N-Glo with egg. Coho with prawn spinners.

Even running a plug for summer Chinook paired with a Triple Teazer or Dick Nite for shad in June.

It’s no secret I have a love for Mag Lips that goes a bit beyond platonic.

They just work the best for me, but they are not the only fish killer on the block. If you have a favorite brand, I am sure this technique will work for you. I know shad anglers who use a metallic blue Brad’s Magnum Wiggler for a diver for their Dick Nites, and other anglers who run a Kwikfish. It is whatever floats your boat.

I base my plug selection on depth, water speed and fish location. Pick a plug that puts the set-up where the fish are. Keep in mind the added weight of the bait will affect the diving depth of your plug. Just tinker with diving depth until you get to that ideal sweet spot you’re looking for.

For steelhead, I use a Mag Lip 3.5 as the diver. I prefer to run single 1/0s attached with a crane swivel. It’s my opinion that they stick better with the barbless rule. The swivel allows for full rotation during the fish’s outof-water acrobatics. I tried double split rings, but had some failures due to binding. Nothing triggers a man’s thought process faster than gear failure resulting in a lost fish. NS Editor’s notes: See Rig of The Month for details on this set-up. The author operates Rod Rage Guide Service on the Columbia and Cowlitz. Reach him at (509) 307-3040.

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Here’s the rest of the set-up: rod: Lamiglas Certified Pro Kwik XCC 904 or 934 GH; reel: Shimano Tekota 300LC; main line: 40-pound Shimano PowerPro; leaders: 25- to 40-pound Maxima Ultragreen to the bait, 20-pound to the Mag Lip 4.5 or 5.0; hook: Double 3/0 or 4/0 Eagle Claw TroKar. –Brian Robertson

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Northwest Sportsman 117

118 Northwest Sportsman

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Guide Ready

COLUMN

To ‘Bomb’ Vernita F

ish checkers at Vernita Bridge know what works from early September through the end of the Middle Columbia’s upriver bright run. Over half the early boats show up with downriggers, Scent Bombs and Super Baits to get the bite BASIN BEACON going before the bait-wrapped Mag Lip and

By Don Talbot FlatFish program is in full force.

We are talking here about all the trolling water that excludes egg fishing. What’s the difference between egg and trolling water? That is a good question. Egg fishermen fish in swift, shallow water, in front of and behind major deepwater trolling holes. For instance, the water above the King Hole is considered egg water, until it hits 25 feet deep. Trollers pick slower moving water with holes over 25 feet in depth. Never shall the twain ever meet.

If you’ve been watching the news, you know what kind of conditions salmon anglers will see this month: low flows due to lack of snowpack, and egg fishermen are going to suffer because of the lack of fast water in their favorite holes. That means it will be a trolling year, and Scent Bombers could do well.

What is a Scent Bomb? It’s a device that holds a quarter of a can of oil-packed tuna fish, similar to a Brad’s Super Bait. The Scent Bomb was developed by accident in a 2010 tournament when the bite was off. Frustrated that we were not getting any bites, I put a scented device above a flasher just to see what would happen. Less than an hour later, we had landed seven fish. It worked! You can actually make fish that normally don’t bite, bite by stimulating a feeding frenzy with more scent. Why do guides use really large egg clusters soaked in their favorite scent? To get a feeding frenzy started.

FOR MY VERNITA FISHING program, I use Cannon Digi Troll 10 downriggers to hug 4 feet off the bottom in all the major holes. Yes, this ’rigger is expensive and an investment that not everyone who works this fishery can afford, but I just happen to have four of them, and they make my trolling way less risky.

I hugged bottom with Scotty downriggers for years and was successful 90 percent of the time. The problem comes when you get sidetracked and a downrigger ball gets stuck on the bottom in a major trolling hole. I have seen it hundreds of times. Sporting goods shops have a heyday selling balls to downrigger anglers who make that mistake, but with my Cannons I haven’t lost one in five years, and that has paid for the extra cost of owning the bottom-tracking devices. All you have to do is follow me to the Lava Rock Hole just below Priest Rapids Dam and watch me bottom-track to see why one in 10 lose a downrigger ball. The King Hole also eats them if you get too close to the bottom. The Pipe Hole below Vernita Bridge and the half of a mile of river above the first reactor is a beautiful spot to snag a ball or two if you don’t know what you are doing. The same thing can happen below Coyote Rapids; a nasty snag is right under the wires in the middle of the river. The Punch Bowl has eaten many downrigger balls if you go into water over 40 feet deep. The Deep Hole has a jagged bottom.

The only hole that rarely eats any is the Hatchery Hole, about 2 miles down from Priest Rapids Dam below the Lava Rocks. It is only about 25 feet deep and sometimes it is red hot with lots of successful downrigger anglers, and sometimes the current is too swift to troll forward. If my boat is trolling backwards at the Hatchery Hole, then it is time to put on the eggs and find some egg water. Again, I doubt that we will see too many egg days this fall. At press time, we don’t have any water to move.

I can go to any trolling hole during the day and do quite well if the boat can make ground going forward. I have my favorites to play with early in the morning: Lava Hole; the entire Hatchery Hole on both sides of the river; the top of the King Hole and its 35-foot depths, as well as the bottom end’s 40-foot water; and the Punch Bowl. I like to start 30 feet down in 35 to 40 feet of water early in the day.

It is a good idea to keep in touch with other fishermen in a variety of holes to see where the bite is hot. It will vary as fish move upriver daily. I will not leave a hole until the bite turns off. The lower King Hole bite usually lasts for a couple of hours and goes dead until about noon. I’ll come back to it later after exploring other water up- or downriver.

A happy Vernita angler shows off a very nice early-morning Columbia fall Chinook, caught a couple Septembers ago on a Super Bait, flasher and Scent Bomb. (DONSFISHINGGUIDESERVICE.COM)

THIS WILL BE A Super Bait year unless the rain comes early this fall.

Brad’s has come out with some amazing colors lately, including

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COLUMN the Twisted Sister, which last year had fishermen traveling to the Tri-Cities from up to 300 miles away just to pick up a few. I even made the trip to buy the pattern, as well as the Christine Special, out of Desert Aire. But Ranch and Home (ranch-home. com) no longer has a monopoly on the new colors for 2015.

Hooked On Toys (hookedontoys.com) in Wenatchee picked up about 10 new ones this season to give a try, and many of us are already custom painting them.

Meanwhile, guide Jerrod Gibbons of Innovative Outdoor Products is putting an after-market wing on many of the original Super Baits to get a faster spin. Yes, these baits are expensive,

Super Baits nestle in tuna. Trolling the faux cutplugs in deeper, slow-moving pools below Priest Rapids Dam and in the Hanford Reach is favored by the downrigger set, while eggs are preferred in faster, shallower water.

With this year’s river conditions, the former technique could perform well.

Scent Bombs are rigged in front of the flasher. (DONSFISHINGGUIDESERVICE.COM) but who cares if the trip is already costing you $200 to make anyway? What is another $12 if it helps you catch more fish? I will run two Spin Series on my bottom-tracking outside rods.

The middle two suspended downriggers will get the original and mini cutplug. I am catching almost half my fish on the latter on the center rod. I love to put on the mini Blue Hawaiian and crush fish out the back.

I rig all my baits with a single siwash 4/0 Gamakatsu and 30-pound Big Game Leader. I don’t like to handle kings with trebles, no matter how much the hooks have sewn their mouth shut. The tie-up is similar for a cutplug as an original. The only difference is the amount of leader protection to the hook. The typical leader length at Vernita is 5 feet for all Super Baits, but I have seen guides play around with super-short leaders – in the 2- to 3-foot range – at the Hatchery Hole from time to time when the water flow is super slow. Pay attention to those around you who are catching fish and check out their leader length.

(DONSFISHINGGUIDESERVICE.COM)

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Northwest Sportsman 121

COLUMN I like to use a full-size Pro Troll flasher with the agitator fin so that I can get the maximum roll at the slowest trolling speed.

My favorite is chrome and my second favorite is glow green.

WHAT COLOR BOMB WORKS the best? I really don’t know. I like glo white, but all the colors work great. The devices come either wired or unwired. I prefer to use them on a wire, and the night before I’ll put three times as many as I need in to soak in tuna oil. The scent is the added edge that is usually top secret on many guide boats. I prefer to use Super Dipping Sauce Salmon, Krill and Garlic on three-quarters of my rods being fished. I will also use Pro Cure Sardine in the guide bottle as my big-fish attractor from time to time as needed. If you talk to 10 guides who fish Vernita, you will get a variety of answers on the scent being used. Many products mix well with the tuna fish base to get what you need to make a more powerful smell.

How important is scent? All you have to do is fish next to me without the extra power tuna fish provides and see what happens. Also ask the fish checkers. They know when the Super Bait/Scent Bomb teams are on the water. The catch rate per boat generally goes way up if the water is low and slow!

How often do I switch out my bombs? For my guide service, I set up 12 cans of tuna in three containers every day. I will change out the filling every half-hour during a strong bite, and

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every hour in between bites. I am constantly putting in fresh bait with more scent power. Watch the rods very closely after they get fresh bait – the action can heat up instantly.

I am headed down to Vernita early this season and staying until the end of the run to find some great fishing in the Columbia’s slow, low trolling holes. I believe that we will be able to find some great catch numbers early this year as the fish get trapped in the deeper water.

If you have any questions about this subject, contact me at Don Talbot’s Fishing (509-679 8641; donsfishingguideservice.com). NS

Guide-daughter day at White Bluffs! Jerrod and Katlynn Gibbons display her first upriver bright, caught in September 2013. (DONSFISHINGGUIDESERVICE.COM)

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FISHING

CLEARWATER KICKS IN NOW Hard-fighting steelies and resurgent fall kings provide great C&R fishing on the Idaho river this month.

By Jeff Holmes

F

or most Clearwater River steelheaders, opening day comes Oct. 15. That’s when it becomes legal to bonk the river’s numerous hatchery A- and B-run steelhead. Oct. 15 is surely a big day on the river, especially between Orofino and Lewiston, but the river is full of fish beginning three months prior. In September especially, the Clearwater is one of the most awesome steelhead fisheries in the Northwest. The huge crowds of retention season have yet to show, and typically just a handful of jet boats and drifters share the river with lots of spey and a few hardware guys.

I fished the catch-and-release season for the first time last September on an invite from Toby Wyatt of Reel Time Fishing (reeltimefishing.com). He extended the offer to fish during a Grande Ronde River smallmouth trip, guaranteeing me we would catch double digits each of fall Chinook and steelhead if we side-drifted the river in mid-September.

Anglers begin catching and releasing Clearwater steelhead in July, and on Aug 1, the river’s first retention opportunity happens from Lewiston’s Memorial Bridge downstream to the Snake confluence. Above this small kill zone, one of the West’s great catch-and-release fisheries stretches all the way upstream to Orofino. Steelhead, fall Chinook and big rainbow trout hold in the cooling influence from water stored behind a 717-foot-tall dam.

October may be the month to hit the Clearwater, what with its steelhead retention opener, but with cool flows, energetic fish – this estimated 18-plus-pound B-run cleared the water four times before tossing the hook – and low fishing pressure, September’s a fine time to fish the Idaho river. (JEFF HOLMES)

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Northwest Sportsman 125

FISHING Thanks to releases from the bottom of Dworshak Dam on the North Fork Clearwater intended to cool the Clearwater and Snake system and aid downstream smolt migration, steelhead from throughout the Snake Basin tuck into the lower Clearwater every summer beginning in July. Stocks from the Grande Ronde, Salmon, Tucannon, Imnaha and many other streams hold in the Dworshakinfluenced water of the Clearwater. Most of those fish back out and head to their natal streams as waters naturally cool, or when the faucet gets shut off at Dworshak in late September. The cool water, of course, entices many Clearwater-bound steelhead to enter the river and never leave, and September is probably the month of greatest abundance due to the presence of other stocks. The river is full of A-run fish with a few B-run steelies entering too.

B-RUN’S A SUBJECTIVE TERM amongst management agencies, and for practical purposes, it could stand for “big-ass” steelhead. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and state co-managers Washington and Oregon define it as steelhead that pass Bonneville Dam after August 25, which are generally but not always two-salt or older steelhead stretching over 28.5 inches. Meanwhile, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game defines B-run

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Fall Chinook returns to the Clearwater have really built up in recent years, thanks to restoration work led by the Nez Perce Tribe. A record 60,687 were counted at Lower Granite Dam last year, and anglers have been able to retain kings in the Snake and lower 2 miles of the Clearwater in recent years. Above the Memorial Bridge, where the author’s wife Erika caught this one, they must be released, but still provide a happy bonus for catch-and-release steelheaders. (JEFF HOLMES)

fish as exclusively those taping 28.5 inches or longer.

IDFG managers expect about 129,000 steelhead back to the Gem State in 2015, and about 29,000 are expected to be B-run fish bound primarily for the Clearwater, a few for the Salmon. By September, many of those fish

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Northwest Sportsman 127

FISHING of wintering fish throughout the season.

The A-run, which could stand for “average-sized,” is abundant and in full effect during September. They are anything but average in terms of their fight and condition this early in the season. These are summer steelhead that have only just entered freshwater within the past month or two, and they’re packed with fat and are still chrome.

They’ll spend another six to eight months in the river before spawning, and September may be the best time to catch big numbers of the season’s hardest-charging chromers.

Along with a decent number of B-runs, the Clearwater now receives heavy runs of fall Chinook, and managers predict another banner year in 2015. The river is packed with big salmonids waiting to be caught and carefully released, with bonuses of big rainbow trout as a bycatch.

The draws and forested tables above the Clearwater River also present a good opportunity to make it a cast-and-blast trip. Here the author poses with a ruffed grouse he bagged with a little help from his pooch. (JEFF HOLMES)

are beginning to nose into the Clearwater, but the river receives B-runs throughout the fall and winter and even early spring because the big bruisers hold up throughout the Snake system during winter, moving upstream during temperature and flow changes. The river gets fresh shots

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FISHING beautiful in the West. The Clearwater drains millions of acres of Idaho’s Bitterroot Mountains, and it has cut a broad path from floods. Flows this month are influenced

by Dworshak until sometime around Sept. 20, and flows were still “up” and clearly influenced by the dam. We hurried down to say hi and jump in Wyatt’s big custom jet boat, which is perfectly set up for side-drifting, our prime tactic for the day.

Toby Wyatt is the most established Clearwater River guide and very arguably the best; he’s inarguably the biggest baller. As I’ve written about before, Wyatt is a master-class guide who has been doing it his whole life, who possesses great instincts and know how, and who can keep the atmosphere light and cheerful on just about any trip. Erika and I are motor-mouth goofballs, so conversation flowed easily as we motored a short distance downstream to a perfect glide for a variety of steelhead techniques, including side-drifting. On our first pass, Erika and Wyatt both missed fish, but on our second that changed, with Erika hitting the first steely of the day, followed by Wyatt.

The 6-pounders both jumped and thrashed hard but were soon brought boatside and released. We continued to fish that glide for another steelhead and a decent Chinook before we went further downstream. Wyatt gave way

to several spey fishermen, waving politely and driving around their fishing zones, until we settled on another run that immediately produced a fish for me and for Erika.

The river was clearly full of salmonids as Wyatt predicted, and we continued hopping downstream until we’d landed seven steelhead and three Chinook. Yarn balls dipped in pure anise significantly outfished good eggs on this day. With the sun barely above the canyon rim, we ran upstream above our put-in and drifted and banged three more steelhead in short succession. That got us to double digits, and I could see Wyatt’s focus on backing up his double digits on salmon and steelhead claims. We switched our emphasis to drifting eggs for salmon, nailing fish to the high teens, along with several fat mountain whitefish and an almost 22-inch resident rainbow.

When he had 10 fall Chinook released to our credit, we moved back into steelhead water and resumed sidedrifting for our preferred target. After a couple fruitless passes through a prime run, a third pass yielded a pick-up for Erika. She set the hook, and all hell broke loose. A large B-run erupted from the river and did a full cartwheel 40 yards behind the boat. Erika kept tension on the fish as it jumped and stripped line – again, and again – each time coming totally clear of the water. Wyatt called it at 18 to 20 pounds as the fish screamed across the river

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Northwest Sportsman 131

FISHING freshwater fighters in the Northwest.

WE HOOKED AND RELEASED another nice steelhead pushing

It’s hard to call big rainbows “bycatch,” but they’re certainly possible in the Clearwater. Unlike most rivers in the Northwest, it has been running cool through summer thanks to mandated releases from the bottom of 700-plusfoot-tall Dworshak Dam, helping smolt outmigration and drawing returning adult salmon and steelhead into its plume in the Snake River. (JEFF HOLMES)

toward slack water, where it jumped spectacularly again, sling-shotting Erika’s rig back toward the boat. We were all slack-jawed after seeing that. B-runs fight hard all the way into spring, but in ideal temperatures in September, a Clearwater B-run is a candidate for baddest-of-the-bad

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10 pounds shortly after the loss of Erika’s giant, but we had lost our enthusiasm and were hungry. Before heading in, though, I asked Wyatt if he would drift me down a broken-water run to see how the fish would respond to hardware, a tactic guides rarely employ due to the extreme cost of losing spinners and spoons to neophyte clients. Spinner and spoon bites are especially savage, and I happened to have one Seattle-based rvrfshr Rvrwhirler spinner tied to a rod I’d thrown in the boat on a whim.

On my first cast, a nice fall king lit it up. I fought that fish to the side of the boat on 12-pound test, and Wyatt’s deckhand assumed it was heavier and broke off my fish.

I didn’t so much care about the loss of a fish I was gonna release, nor the loss of one spinner, but all I had was one and I had to see if the bite would continue. Wyatt understood and politely teased the excellent deckhand enough to make me feel better. I’ll just head back to the Clearwater this month to fish nothing but hardware on a drift trip with friends to get my fix. Wyatt proved, once again, that he could get me extra excited about fishing, boat a ton of fish, and show me a great time in one of my favorite places in the Northwest. NS

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Northwest Sportsman 133

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FISHING

A Little ‘Tip’ for Humpies

By Andy Walgamott

A

few years ago now, Buzz Ramsey wrote about “tipping” his set-ups at Buoy 10 for coho. He’d affix a thick, 4-inch-or-so pink worm like you’d use for winter steelheading to one of the hooks of his big-bladed spinner and go to town. The idea stuck with me and so I tried the basic concept on pink salmon in the rivers during the last run. It worked pretty well, and I’ll be using it again this season on Pugetropolis’s odd-year fish.

Now, I’m not saying that tipping for pinks has never been done before, or that it is the be-all-end-all bait. By my count, it is approximately the 1,499th way that’s been discovered for getting a humpy to jumpy on your line. Back when friends and I had the leisure time to spend much of our waking moments in late summer on the Snohomish River system, we found that the salmon basically bit everything in the boat, down to, and including, the bottle opener.

Dick Nites are particularly effective, whether back-trolled behind a diver, drift-fished, trolled, hung under a float or merely waved within 500 feet of a river. A cured skrimp below a bobber is über-deadly as well; so too marabou and beaded jigs. In cloudier, glacial-runoff-affected rivers, Corkies with or without yarn do the trick. In tidewaters, pink Buzz Bombs are bodacious, as are hoochies cast out on just a jighead. Really, when your river is thick with these salmon, you almost can’t go wrong. These fish can be so snappy that if you hit it right, you’ll find yourself crowing, “I’m the Bill Herzog of pink salmon!”

BUT LET’S JUST SAY that I’m not so worried about the sheer lazitude that led to me running out of my old go-to humpy lures as the fish flooded into the rivers two years ago. Pink or pink-and-white crappie jigs on an 1/8- or even 1/16-ounce jighead under a float have been money for me over the years. After I lost my last one and then a larger pink worm on one trip, I dipped into the little jug of stank that had ridden in the top pocket of my backpack everywhere from Seattle’s Green Lake to the Kalama River to Oregon’s South Coast that summer.

Following Buzz’s example, I tipped a ¼-ounce roundhead jig with a 2-inch Fat Floating Trout Worm in bubblegum pink, and soaked in some by then seriously odious Gulp Alive sauce. When I say tipped, I mean sliding the point of the hook into just the top ¼ inch of the worm – not up the shank of the hook to the leadhead, à la bass fishing.

It sat about 3 feet under a swivel, and above the swivel was a ½-ounce egg sinker, float, Corky, bead and bobber stopper knot. From top to bottom the set-up was about 6 feet long. Frankly, I don’t really bother to adjust for

The editor may actually be a little tipsy thinking he’s discovered the hot new way to catch pink salmon in rivers with this set-up, but taking a tip from a Buzz Ramsey coho rig, tipping a jig with a small worm has proven effective on the odd-year fish. (ANDY WALGAMOTT)

bottom with pinks. I fish with a 9-foot baitcasting reel strung with 30-pound braid, more than a match for the 3- to 10-pound salmon. Cast out in the line the fish are running upriver (which can be narrow and surprisingly close to shore, despite the splashes you see further out), make sure your set-up is vertical, watch the bobber, set the hook, fight, repeat.

If there’s a drawback to this bait, it’s that each hookup tends to result in a lost worm. Worrying that I might run out, I started pinching them in two. But even with a smaller profile, the halvsies actually seemed to work better than the wholesies.

As usual with jigs under a float and pinks, hook-ups were right in the inside tip of the fish’s upper jaw, which makes it real easy to pull out when fishing barbless, like I was (I release all river pinks). This year I may go even more minimal – the Lake Washington sockeye route: a pink-headed jig and pink-painted hook alone under a float. But I wonder if the waggle of the worm, skirt, etc., isn’t the deal for these fish, which feed heavily on squid at sea.

AS OF EARLY AUGUST’S press deadline, state managers had closed or limited fishing hours on some humpy streams. This year is so out of the realm of ordinary that it’s impossible to know what conditions will be like in September, but as the days shorten and sun angle lessens, things generally start to cool. Before you go, check wdfw.wa.gov for rule updates.

Monitor river temps, and biologists suggest landing fish quickly and keeping them in the water while making sure they’re fully revived before release. Again, I prefer to let pinks in freshwater go, but if you do keep them, this year that could actually be helpful due to competition with other, less numerous salmon species for limited spawning grounds.

Bleed them out and put them on ice as quickly as possible.

Good luck, and don’t forget to tip your waiter, er, jighead. NS nwsportsmanmag.com | SEPTEMBER 2015

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COLUMN

Saving Salmon The Ramsey Way

By Buzz Ramsey

N

othing makes me happier than the thought of a fishing adventure that includes not only the catching of a big, beautiful salmon or steelhead, but its proper cleaning, filleting and cooking. To me, and perhaps you, enjoying a meal consisting of fresh fish is the perfect culmination to any fishing adventure.

After the high-fives and photos are complete, the first thing you need to do is bleed your catch. You can do this by breaking loose one or more gill rakers, either with your finger or a knife blade.

If you intend to eat your fish fresh, it’s best to clean and/or fillet your prize as soon as possible. Realize, though, that fresh fish will only keep in the refrigerator for about five days.

Freezing is what most anglers do to preserve their catch longer. But unlike venison, fish will not stay fresh-tasting after freezing for more than a few weeks, unless you vacuum pack it, freeze it in barbecue sauce, or freeze the entire fish whole.

Freezing your fish in barbecue sauce will keep it fresh-tasting for up to six months. This is a quick and inexpensive way to keep fish tasty for an extended period, providing that you like the taste of barbecue sauce.

What works is to place two fillets meat-to-meat (with the skin facing outward) into a zip-top freezer bag. Add enough barbecue sauce between the fillets, two to three cups, to cover all exposed meat, fold the bag over, expel all air and zip shut.

After thawing, rinse the barbecue sauce away with cold Buzz Ramsey has two main ways to freeze salmon for eating at a later date – whole, like this springer, or by filleting them, placing the chunks meat-to-meat and covering in barbecue sauce. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

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Northwest Sportsman 137

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STEPS TO SCRUMPTIOUSNESS

Slabs of frozen salmon await thawing before going into Buzz Ramsey’s Little Smoker. To help keep the fish fresh-tasting for up to half a year, he freezes the chunks in barbecue sauce. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

P

COLUMN

repare your fish for brining and smoking by cutting your fillets into stripes about an inch wide, making sure to leave the skin on, then thoroughly rinse in cold water and immerse into your brine solution.

The brine recipe we use is a simple one that includes ½ cup salt, 1 cup sugar and 2 quarts water – this is the right amount for 10 to 20 pounds of fish.

Premix these ingredients in a stainless steel or plastic container (not aluminum) and immerse your fillets into the mixture. Then place your filled container into the refrigerator (or cooler with ice), for a minimum of six hours, stirring at least once during the process.

After six to twelve hours, or overnight, remove the fillets from your brine solution and rinse thoroughly in cold water.

Remove excess moisture with paper towels and place your fillets on the smoker grills, skin side down, which helps make it easier to remove the chunks after the smoking is complete.

It’s important to allow your fish to air dry for at least one hour before placing in your smokehouse. Doing this will enhance the color, texture and flavor of your fish, and is the secret of many smoking enthusiasts.

One way to wow yourself and friends is to add additional flavorings to your fish at the end of the smoking process. For example, you can coat your fillets with liquid brown sugar (just paint it on) and then sprinkle with favorite spices, which might

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COLUMN water. You can then cook any number of ways, including on the barbecue – with fresh barbecue sauce, of course.

Most anglers are surprised when hearing that my favorite way to store fish for an extended time period is to freeze them whole, without gutting or filleting. Just bleed them, hold them on ice during transport, and freeze.

Since she doesn’t like the fish looking up at her when opening the freezer, my wife Maggie has me put my freezerbound salmon in a plastic bag – a tall kitchen-size bag works for most salmon.

This quick and easy method will keep fish fresh-tasting for as long as nine to ten months. As an example, I’ve got a whole spring Chinook in my freezer now waiting for the Christmas holiday. We do this every year; there is just something special about enjoying fresh springer in December.

During preparation, it’s important to thaw slowly by placing your frozen salmon in a water-filled cooler the night before.

Once thawed, scrape or brush all the slime away (this eliminates any freezer taste that might accumulate on the outsize of your fish) and fillet as though your salmon were fresh – trust me, it will taste like fresh-caught.

Surprisingly to some, fresh frozen fish lends itself particularly well to the smoking process; you see, freezing causes cell tissue to burst, so fish that have been frozen take on the flavor of the brine ingredients and wood smoke better. NS

include ground onion, garlic and/or black pepper.

While we’ve tried others, we like our Little Chief-brand electric smokehouse the best. Oh, we’ll use our Big Chief smoker, which runs a little hotter, when we have a large load of fish or during cold periods, but mostly just use our Little Chief.

The reason is that it doesn’t dry our fish out too quickly, so we can obtain just the right amount of doneness.

With this electric smoker, the smoking and curing process will take 8 to 12 hours, depending on the outside temperature, thickness of meat and quantity. What we do is time things such that we can burn a couple pans of smoker wood chips during the evening and then let the smoker do its job of drying the fish overnight, while we’re sleeping. We just unplug our fish smoker in the morning when our fish has reached the right amount of doneness.

When it comes to wood chips, hickory is our favorite, but we have many friends who like the milder taste of apple, cherry or alder wood chips. Mesquite wood imparts a distinct flavor that we like for venison jerky or adding smoke flavor to ribs or steaks, but to us is a little strong-tasting for fish.

After the smoking process is complete, we allow our fillets to cool and then store in a brown paper bag with several paper towels folded at the bottom. Handled this way smoked fish will keep in the refrigerator for up to three weeks.

But normally, it disappears much sooner! –BR

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COLUMN

How To Stay Clean In

‘The Ditch’

Eggs under a float is among the most productive of options for Samish River fall Chinook, but Jacob Ostrom and his father Karl Ostrom conked these kings on jigs tipped with cured shrimp. (DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST)

NORTH SOUND

By Doug Huddle

F

or now, the Samish’s renowned – some argue infamous – lower river fall Chinook salmon fishery is going on as planned.

The 2015 installment of this season opened Saturday, Aug. 1, in the reach from the Bayview Edison Road bridge upstream to Interstate 5 for two salmon a day.

Timing and terminal tackle restrictions append the permanent reg.

By Doug Huddle

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s primary management objectives this year are two-fold.

First, enable enough mature adult fall kings to swim the 10½ miles upstream to the state’s hatchery trap to make the facility’s 5-plus-million egg-take goal.

And, co-equally, managers want to maintain a lawful and sanitary recreational fishery, says Brett Barkdull, the district fisheries biologist.

If, as this fishery plays out in August, this month and October, the stream’s condition and/or angler decorum goes

sideways, WDFW officials are prepared to quickly shut it down, Barkdull says.

He says that scant late-summer flow volumes in 2005 that repeated in 2006 threatened the program, though the hook-and-line fishery was not suspended.

When there wasn’t enough water available in the channel for pumping to the trap pond, several thousand big Chinook being kept in 2006 in the holding pond died.

In lowland streams, rising daily water temperatures become problematic as flow volumes drop, compounding the fishes’

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Northwest Sportsman 143

COLUMN physiological stress, which in turn prompts parasitic and bacterial disease outbreaks.

Once these fish make their break from salt, return is not an option, so a bottleneck created by anglers pinching the low-tide channel at the mouth causes yet more stress.

Failure to make egg-take results in a reduction of the following spring’s juvenile release that subsequently most likely will lower adult returns three, four and even five years out.

For the high-profile Samish program, just as important in the grand scheme of things is having all the angling participants behave themselves.

Unfortunately, what with this fishery’s historic tendency to degenerate into a snag-fest, anglers allegedly defecating on the stream bank thereby fouling Samish Bay’s shellfish production, and the disdain demonstrated by some Chinook seekers for private property ownership, this annual opportunity now owns a sullied reputation not that far up the infamy ladder from despicable.

Exasperated agency officials came very close to actually shutting it down two years ago, and the sentiment for ending this borderline fiasco is always close to the surface in conversations.

Indeed, perhaps there’s more than one reason the fishery is called “The Ditch.”

Some 4½ million fall Chinook juveniles are released from the small stream’s salmon production facility to produce runs sustaining commercial (treaty and nontreaty) and personal-use fisheries in saltwater, as well as the in-river option for bank anglers.

More than 38,500 Samish-bound Chinook are forecast to be returning this year, down some from past years, and while significant numbers of these fall kings are caught in all terminal-area net fisheries, returns to the river can number from around 9,000 to upwards of 18,000.

At the height of the freshwater phase of the fishery, these fall kings, which range anywhere from 2- to 4-pound jacks up to 25-pound five-year-olds, attract hundreds of fishers to the 8-mile stretch of stream.

144 Northwest Sportsman

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DOING IT RIGHT The dilemma-fraught circumstance faced by fishery managers is that there are a lot of really big hatchery fish coming back to a stream with scant fall flows, and which are sought by a large number of anglers on a very small amount of largely privately owned real estate.

Anglers, on the face of it, are highly challenged to do this right.

First, shoulder parking space along local roads is limited. Skagit County Sheriff’s Office deputies routinely patrol for fog-line straddlers, who irritate and endanger passing motorists.

Secondly, public land along the Chinook reach is scarce, to get legitimate access can cost extra money and inadvertent or deliberate trespass on private property is a real risk.

Accidental foul-hooking of these fish and the temptation to do it is the third test of Samish River salmon anglers’ skill and judgment.

In the tight channel crowded with kings, it’s inevitable some will take hook points through the skin.

But that’s not a drop-dead absolute cinch. Though it’s avoidable, snagging is so prevalent the department took the unusual step of explicitly reminding anglers of the basic tenet of sportsmanship in the regulations.

For those whose actions are governed by conscience, it’s eminently possible to rig, operate and fair hook these fish inside the mouth so that they can be kept.

To make clear what’s expected of Samish fishers and how to do it, Barkdull and fellow state biologist Danny Garrett in 2013 shot a video on the correct approach to lower Samish salmon fishing. It’s viewable at youtube.com/ watch?v=xopiBcC-JLQ. To gear up for a September Samish fish foray, do get single hooks and bobbers, along with cured skein egg clusters.

Successful, law-abiding fishers will tell you they’re the best strike inducers.

Also, the egg-gob rig is easy to “short line” cast in tight quarters.

Samish kings will strike a wide array of other terminal tackle, but for these lures,

anglers will need to find the combination of both elbow/back-cast room and water depth that are necessary to make them work.

Just up from the end of the bay, the lower river’s channel depth at this time of year is governed by nearby marine waters’ tide state. A tide guide is essential for

BLUE GROUSE MORE ABUNDANT THIS YEAR With the atypically dry late winter/spring that was punctuated only by a midApril snowstorm, upper elevation blue grouse production, from my admittedly unscientific observations, appears to have been excellent.

But ruffed grouse in lower elevations are doing less well due to colder, wetter conditions in April.

My tally of blue grouse road encounters this spring and early summer is close to a personal record. I’ve found them both along forest roads and in backcountry locales on meadows in subalpine areas.

Where you can get to higher elevation roads, especially abandoned spurs, boot hunts are going to be very productive this year.

Lower down, instead of daylong, earlyseason “road” hunts for ruffeds, shorter dawn and dusk forays are likely to be more successful.

The key exception to this rule is a rainy day just after the showers stop.

Regardless of the hour on the clock, both blue and ruffed grouse that have gotten wet emerge from cover to dry out, forage or take grit from road shoulders. –DH

planning trips, which are best timed to the middle of an incoming or outgoing tide.

It’s possible to dry-foot this fishery on a high bank, but at the very least, hip boots, if not chest waders, will maximize angling prerogatives.

It’s generally accepted that if you can legally get to a point below the ordinary high-water mark and are able to walk the river bottom, you may move up and

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Northwest Sportsman 145

COLUMN

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down this watercourse without running afoul of trespass law.

You do run the risk of incurring the wrath of nonwading fishers on most stretches, though.

For that reason it’s even more advisable not to float these reaches on personal watercraft. Though it’s doable, you’re also inviting a heap of trouble from multiple, irate fellow anglers.

Slack ebb periods are preferred by some anglers since there’s the least amount of water in the channel. But low tide both limits gear selection and increases the frequency of fish snagging.

Fishery managers are forecasting twice as many coho back to the Samish than 2014, when Morgan Ostrom hooked this one. Wild silvers must be released this year. (DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST)

GETTING IN, FROM BOTTOM TO TOP The Samish River’s mainstem lower entry point is Bayview-Edison Road bridge, where the right bank pay-for-use private land is.

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COLUMN property access is Samish River Services, LLC, P.O. Box 277, Bow, WA 98323.

Across from the fee access on the left, or west, bank above the bridge is WFDW’s land.

The key impediment here is the remnant piling wing-wall running between anglers and the fish.

The Farm-to-Market Road bridge 2 miles south of Edison is the second possible entry point; however, all high levees on both sides up and down from the bridge are privately owned.

Vehicle parking is tolerated on the nearby Boe Road (a block south of the bridge), and one of the landowners there occasionally allows access down his fence-line to the dike.

The next upstream angler crossroads for the lower Samish is the Thomas Road bridge about a mile and half west of Allen.

The landholders downstream of that bridge have in the past allowed anglers

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to walk the dike and fish. Upstream owners there often post their property against entry.

From this point upstream to the Interstate 5 bridges access is much more difficult and parking is limited.

The Chuckanut Drive (State Route 11) bridge at Allen arches over the narrow stream, making it difficult to get down to the channel, which also is iffy to walk.

The furthest upstream potential point of entry for the salmon fishery – Interstate 5 – is similarly problematic.

Would-be anglers get tickets for freeway shoulder parking.

In the last few years, Burlington Northern Santa Fe complained when anglers hoofed north on its track from Dahlstedt and Sam Bell Roads to the river.

The rail company now demands that its right-of-way trespass ban be vigorously enforced, perhaps with citations into federal court.

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Coupled with a previously cooperating landowner on Sam Bell Road who has revoked his blanket permission, legal access is all but impossible upstream of Highway 11.

GREATER B’HAM BAY FALL KINGS Want to avoid all that? In September, Samish-Nooksack-bound fall Chinook can be intercepted in a number of Marine Area 7 near-terminal locales such as Bellingham and Guemes Channels, at William Point on Samish Island and southern Samish Bay proper but outside the east-west Fish Point line.

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MORE RESIDENT HONKERS FOR SEPTEMBER’S SHORT SEASON This year’s crop of stay-at-home honkers is more robust than usual and they’re spread across a variety of domains not often associated with later hunts for migratory webfoots.

Besides more open-water haunts on the flatter farmlands of western Whatcom County, such as Lake Terrell, Custer, Lynden and Everson, these big birds have again dropped into unusually small waterbodies in the Cascade foothills.

In midupper valley locales flocks ranging from single families up to gaggles of 30 to 40 of these sedentary Canadas have added visits to lower reaches of the Nooksack’s forks to their daily routines.

During part of the day they’ll feed in the upper valleys’ smaller pastures around Kendall and near Saxon.

Besides the beaver pond and lake clans, several of the large reservoirs including Baker Lake and Lake Shannon in Whatcom you don’t get an answer.

In Bellingham Channel the shelf just south of the Indian Village on Guemes’ west shore directly opposite Cypress Head is a favorite jigging locale, especially on an outgoing tide.

On the opposite side of Guemes,

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and Skagit Counties have seasonal emergent grass forage that supports these birds.

Hunting Canadas in mountain valleys in the five-day-long September resident honker stint is quite different from farmland forays for them.

The resident birds in these upvalley areas must be stalked or occasionally pushed to get them into gun range. Stalking is often facilitated by cover in these areas, but to prosecute a hunt to a shot requires a hunting party which can position shooters along a swimming pathway while one hunter makes an overt approach that pushes the birds into range.

A second tactic involves setting decoys on grass-covered haulout locations, especially points.

Hunters may take advantage of close-by natural cover or build a makeshift blind, which you should be in before daylight. –DH

within sight of the March Point refineries, hardware trollers hook these late kings rounding Southeast Point. Close in to shore between the 10- and 20-fathom lines, the troll runs from Cooke’s Cove around the corner to Long Bay. Samish-bound Chinook taking the

south route through Guemes Channel will converge at William Point.

From there in, gill-net boats set throughout Samish Bay, but purse seiners and kings meet most frequently in the 30-plus-fathom waters off the isthmus island’s northwest tip.

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in September with seven seasons, including the early deer and elk bow stanzas, the High Buck Hunt, plus options for small game and bird hunts for forest grouse, mourning doves and resident Canada geese.

Locating water to which deer and elk will be gravitating, normally a must east of the Cascades, is going to be the challenge for hunters here this late summer and fall.

With the lack of snowpack and hot weather earlier this summer, I’ve seen much more deer sign in old growth above 4,000 feet at spring sites.

With Game Management Units 418 and 426 open for the early deer, bowhunters have a wide selection of North Cascade basins and ridgelines on the Mount Baker Ranger District that hold amazingly large numbers of blacktails.

In forested areas finding and setting up on tracks to and from creeks or ponds will be critical, and this advice is likely to be obligatory at and above timberline as well.

On the north end of the district such

The final saltchuck option for anglers before these kings make the river is off the north shore of the main island where the submerged river channel forms on the bay bottom.

There are two tactical positions for jiggers.

The first is at the bay’s 3-fathom shelf line where the delineated channel falls away.

The second is on the underwater defile further east in water that’s charted to be 6 feet deep or less.

For many decades this was the Buzz Bomb zone, and the pink and blue 2.5 jigs still work. The retrieval here is nearly horizontal, so a variety of other cast-andhaul-back lures will be effective too.

The trick is finding the channel’s deepest line and anchoring to fish in a position where you don’t spook the salmon.

SEPTEMBER HUNT OPTIONS The hunting menu for Northwest Washington broadens markedly

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summer deer digs can be found in the upper reaches of Canyon, Dobbs, Barometer, Grouse and Anderson Creek basins.

These locale types are less numerous in the Baker Lake basin but can be found in the Marten and Shuksan Lake areas, as well as the midreach section of Rocky Creek on the northeast side of Loomis Mountain.

When High Buck rolls around in midSeptember, those same locales will serve modern firearms deer stalkers in the Mt. Baker Wilderness, which was folded into the special early rifle season for the first time last year.

NEXT ISSUE Nooksack, Samish and Skagit coho and general deer season options. NS

Editor’s note: Doug Huddle lives in Bellingham, is retired from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and has written about hunting and fishing in the Northwest for more than 32 years.

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154 Northwest Sportsman

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On Shotgun Barrel Length, And Top 5 Deer Calibers

Dave Workman takes a look at shotgun barrel length and comes to the conclusion that 26- and 28-inch tubes have their advantages and disadvantages. Make your own choice! (DAVE WORKMAN)

H

unting opportunities come in with a bang for wingshooters this month – mourning dove and grouse seasons – and like legions of Northwest Sportsman readers, I’ll be out there putting birds in the bag, or at least trying to!

Sept. 1 falls on a Tuesday this year, which ON TARGET

By Dave Workman will make a lot of upland bird hunters a little testy if they can’t get the day off. Labor Day weekend will give them a chance to hit the brush hard, or find some doves still hanging around the hot spots, weather permitting.

What’s the best shotgun for this game? I’ve got both 12- and

20-gauge guns, and even a .410 double, but what’s the best barrel length, 26 or 28 inches? Those are the two most common measurements for smoothbores, and I’ve hunted with both.

My most recent acquisition is a 20-gauge Franchi Instinct O/U with 28-inch tubes. I probably would have been better off with 26-inch barrels, but so far this gun has put some fat blues in the bag, so who’s complaining?

Which barrel length will work better for you depends upon the hunting you do most, and preference. When working heavy cover for grouse, it’s hard to beat a 26-inch barrel. It is less likely to get hung up on a branch when swinging in tight cover, and it’s a tad lighter.

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Northwest Sportsman 155

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Now, for pheasants, quail and chukar, the 28-incher might be the better choice because the shots can be a little farther, and with the right loads and choke setup, the longer bores will get the job done.

The longer gun is an easier carry across stubble or scabrock where you don’t necessarily have to swing fast.

Let’s analyze this a bit more. One of my pals hunts with an O/U 20-gauge wearing 26-inch barrels, and he uses 3-inch magnums. The choke setup is an improved cylinder first and a modified for the backup.

In my gun with the longer barrels, I stick with 2¾-inch high-base shells, and depending upon the cover, go with an I/C-M choke setup, or the modified/ full combo.

With the magnum load, one gets a slightly larger payload and a bit more velocity and range, but the trade-off is a little more recoil. Does one balance out the other, or is there an edge?

That’s going to be a subjective conclusion when talking shotshells, since there are plausible arguments on both sides. It is up to the individual hunter to decide which load works best for the endeavor at hand. One wouldn’t use light dove loads for waterfowl, and going after chukar or grouse with No. 2, BB or BBB loads would be ridiculous.

So far as barrel length is concerned,

The author’s Model 99 in .300 Savage is a classic, and the cartridge is one of five he believes are underappreciated, and maybe even underrated.

His Winchester Model 94 (below) in .32 Special is a dandy, underrated brush gun.

(DAVE WORKMAN)

the prevailing wisdom is that the longer tube(s) contribute to better shooting because of a slightly longer sight plane, and the additional weight is forward, which some folks contend makes them a little easier to shoot. I’m not convinced of that, but I am certain that if you get used to the gun you’re using, you’re going to get fairly consistent over time.

Now, for doves, I’d stick with No. 7½ or 8 shot, while I have hunted blue grouse for years with No. 6, and it’s never let me down. Many will opt for No. 7½ for fool hens, and that’s their choice. Nobody argues with birds in the cooler!

FIVE SOMETIMES UNDERRATED CALIBERS Yeah, I know there are lists and more lists. When it comes to rifle calibers for deer-sized game, everybody has a favorite and several people have dislikes.

Here are five cartridges that have been around a long time, have proven track records, and it’s a bit too early to be shoveling dirt on their graves.

No. 1: The .250 Savage (also known as the .250/3000) has fascinated me for decades.

Originally chambered in the Model 99 Savage lever-action – a remarkable rifle with a design years ahead of its time – it is a superb deer, sheep, pronghorn and mountain goat load. It’s a flat-shooting little number with lighter bullets through a typical 1:14-inch rifling twist. Stick with

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Northwest Sportsman 157

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100-grainers and this little round will deliver.

No. 2: One of my favorites is the .257 Roberts, and it is the cartridge that I used to conk a nice four-point whitetail many years ago in Northeast Washington during a late buck season. A single 100-grain bullet through the ticker anchored that buck.

Necked down from a 7x57mm Mauser, the “Bob” can launch a 100-grain Nosler Ballistic Tip bullet at better than 3,000 feet per second with the right powder charge, but approach such loads with caution.

I learned about the .257 as a kid, when I watched a guy, over the course of several weeks, build a bolt-action rifle chambered in .257, on a Mauser 98 action in a custom stock he cut from scratch.

My own .257 is also built on a Mauser 98 action with a Douglas barrel, 1:10 twist.

It’s a superb mule deer cartridge, but it’s got stiff competition from the .243 Winchester and 6mm Remington.

No. 3: The .25-06 Remington is a sizzler that will do anything the .270 Winchester will do with comparable loads; after all, just how many degrees of dead are there?

With bullets in the 100- to 120-grain range, there is not a deer on the planet that is safe from this cartridge, so long as the hunter does his/her part. Sure, the .270 can push slightly heavier bullets, and has a superb track record, but if a .25-06 suddenly appeared on my porch, it would get a good home!

No. 4: Some years ago, some guy writing in a national magazine suggested that the .300 Savage was among the “worst” deer cartridges. I have a couple of notched tags that say otherwise. My Model 99 was my grandfather’s rifle, given to me upon high school graduation. He took quite a few deer with it before I ever got my grubby hands on it. It’s got a Schnabel forend, full buckhorn rear sight and I just installed a newly reconditioned lever, having committed a stupid sin in my foolish youth, trying to widen the original lever.

I found a replacement from a guy at a gun show, and worked on that for many hours, with light sandpaper, emery paper and fine steel wool. I gave it several applications of cold blue and it looks like it came right off the new gun rack.

I’ve loaded 150-grain Noslers and

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NEW REMINGTON KNIFE

Speer boattails in this cartridge for years.

It’s a very accurate round and while it has been overshadowed by the .308 Winchester, As I wrote this column, I received the details on Remington Cutlery Model 700 series the .300 Savage is no slouch and I may even hunting knives. Designed with premium American walnut handles, this line’s newest hunt with it again this fall, for old time’s sake. entry in the Heritage line is a dandy little folder with a 2¾-inch drop-point blade made No. 5: Wrapping up, here’s one that will from 440 high-carbon stainless steel. It’s made in the U.S. by Bear & Son Cutlery. –DW give some people fits. The .32 Winchester Special is a better brush-country round than people realize. It’s ballistically similar to the .30-30 Winchester, with the advantage of a slightly larger frontal mass.

My dad’s Model 94 was chambered in .32 Special, and when I was a little boy, he seemed to always come home on opening The problem with this caliber is that the barrels are rifled with day with a buck to hang in the garage. a slow 1:16-inch twist. This is because the round was introduced Years later, I bought a Model 94 Wrangler, with top ejection, a in 1895 with smokeless powder, but also so it could be reloaded 16-inch barrel and a loop lever in that caliber, perhaps in tribute with black powder. The slower twist was used to prevent fouling, to the old man. This was before Winchester changed to the “angle presumably. eject” action of more recent times. I never could get used to that!

In brush country, the .32 Special can do what the .30-30 can I use handloads with 170-grain flat-point bullets over a healthy do, which is bring home the venison. In my opinion, after the tag charge of IMR 4895, and out of that little 16-inch barrel with iron is notched and the freezer is filled, everything else is academic. sights, I can still hit a deer-sized target at 200 yards. I’ve shot a We’ll talk more about deer and birds in the next installment. NS couple of deer with that gun, and they never got up to argue.

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HUNTING

Be A Ghostbuster Nobody says hunting the Northwest’s true forest ghost is easy. That makes it all the more of an accomplishment to bag a blacktail.

By Carl Lewallen

Westside blacktail country stretches out above the fog. (CARL LEWALLEN)

Trail cams are a great way to monitor deer movement. The author’s caught these two nice blacktail bucks. (CARL LEWALLEN)

By the book, deer season runs from late summer into early winter, but for the author, it stretches year-round and includes shed-hunting, to better determine the ranges of bucks. (CARL LEWALLEN)

B

lacktail deer are by far some of the toughest animals out there to hunt, in my opinion, and are especially difficult when going after them on public land with archery equipment. They’ve also provided the most satisfying hunting experience I have ever had, and those of you who have chased them, either with a bow or rifle, know and can attest to what I am talking about.

I’m not saying whitetail and mule deer are easy. But ask anyone who’s hunted all three species and I’ll bet they say blacktail is the hardest.

The true ghost deer of the Northwest are unpredictable, shy, sly animals that haunt brush piles, thorny thickets of blackberry bushes, poison oak and grease wood, thick stands of rain-soaked reprod and head-high cover that all but sends hunters crying home to their mommy. For those who stick to it, the rewards are great. As my good friend and hunting buddy Ron Gardner says, you can’t kill anything sitting on the couch.

To take a trophy blacktail, you are going to have to put in lots of blood, sweat and tears.

Also, many hours.

Many, many.

I can’t stress this enough, but the more time you put in out there hunting, the better your odds of success. By no means is this an easy task, but it will be worth it. Yes, there will be disappointment – countless hours of scouting, setting up trail cameras, stands and blinds only to find out that the big bucks you had coming through in the preseason have disappeared from your woods radar, or if they’re still around, they’ve gone nocturnal. It’s a struggle for me at

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Northwest Sportsman 165

HUNTING

It may take him from the dry days before school starts through the glorious colors of autumn into the monsoon season before he tags a public-land blacktail, but for Carl, it all provides “the most satisfying hunting experience I have ever had.” (CARL LEWALLEN)

on Shoo t ny

ID

, Inc. ing

Little C a

times to sit day in and day out in my stand or ground blind knowing that these deer are so unpredictable and difficult to pattern, or even call in during the rut in November. So, at times I talk myself into roaming around the area in hopes of spotting one before it sees me. As many of you already know, to spot and stalk a big mature blacktail on his home turf is almost impossible. Don’t get me wrong, it can be done when the conditions are right, but I have had more failed attempts at stalking than success.

The key with blacktail is to stick with it, from late summer’s archery openers through the fall rut into early winter. Use the full span of the season. It can also pay dividends to contact your local wildlife biologists for information on herd health and any tips they might be willing to offer.

Big blacktail are out there and out there on public land for all to hunt. This year, cook up some venison backstrap instead of paper tag soup. NS

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