LIZ HAMILTON, OUTDOORSWOMAN/ SPORTFISHING ADVOCATE PICTURE
L
iz Hamilton is first and foremost in love with the outdoor harvest experience BUZZ of fishing and – RAMSEY perhaps surprising to some – hunting, along with collecting other edible bounty available from the Northwest’s natural world. It all started for her as a young girl fishing for trout with her father. She remembers other fishing experiences while away at summer camp and of writing letters to her mother about the fish she caught – not something most girls did or do. Living in Oregon City during her early adult years, Liz became aware of the opportunity to catch spring Chinook from the Willamette River. To Liz, the idea of catching fish bigger than trout seemed almost too good to be true. As a young woman without a boat or tutor, Liz prowled the banks of the Willamette in the Oregon City area, where she would often cast and retrieve spinners in the waters downstream from the falls. Although it took weeks of trying, she finally hooked a couple of salmon but lost them, as she was unaware that a strong hookset demanded that she keep her thumb on the spool of her baitcasting reel when she reefed back. Advice from another bank angler on the importance of hooksets enabled Liz to land her first spring Chinook, which turned out to be
There may be no better representative of our longstanding Real Women of Northwest Fishing feature than Liz Hamilton. A hardcore angler – here she is with her biggest Chinook to date, a Buoy 10 fall king that bottomed out a 50-pound scale, and husband Art – she also has worked tirelessly for decades advocating for the fish and fisheries Northwesterners highly value. (LIZ HAMILTON)
nwsportsmanmag.com | DECEMBER 2022
Northwest Sportsman 37