Northwest Sportsman Mag April 2020

FISHING • HUNTING • NEWS

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NWSPORTSMANMAG.COM

10 Northwest Sportsman

APRIL 2020 | nwsportsmanmag.com

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Sportsman Northwest

Your LOCAL Hunting & Fishing Resource

Volume 12 • Issue 7 PUBLISHER James R. Baker

Your Complete Hunting, Boating, Fishing and Repair Destination Since 1948.

ALUMAWELD STRYKER

EDITOR Andy Walgamott THIS ISSUE’S CONTRIBUTORS Scott Brenneman, Jason Brooks, Anthony Clements, Scott Haugen, MD Johnson, Randy King, Buzz Ramsey, Troy Rodakowski, Dave Workman, Mike Wright, Mark Yuasa EDITORIAL FIELD SUPPORT Jason Brooks GENERAL MANAGER John Rusnak SALES MANAGER Paul Yarnold ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Mamie Griffin, Jim Klark, Mike Smith DESIGNERS Lesley-Anne Slisko-Cooper PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS Kelly Baker OFFICE MANAGER Katie Aumann

FAMILY FUN FISH-N-SKI SPRING SPECIALS

INFORMATION SYSTEMS MANAGER Lois Sanborn WEBMASTER/DIGITAL STRATEGIST Jon Hines ADVERTISING INQUIRIES ads@nwsportsmanmag.com CORRESPONDENCE Email letters, articles/queries, photos, etc., to awalgamott@media-inc.com, or to the mailing address below.

ON THE COVER Wade Ramsey shows off a very nice broodstock rainbow he caught at the Columbia Gorge’s Rowland Lake last spring. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

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APRIL 2020 | nwsportsmanmag.com

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CONTENTS

VOLUME 12 • ISSUE 7

147

A NEW TURKEY HUNTER’S JOURNEY Trout once topped all in one Northwest sportsmen’s spring, but chasing gobblers fills the bill now, emblematic of how easy and fun it is to take up the hunt. Jason Brooks shares how he and his son became turkey hunters.

(JASON BROOKS)

ALSO INSIDE 55

WASHINGTON HALIBUT, PART III With halibut fishing kicking off April 30 out of Neah Bay, La Push, Westport and Ilwaco, Mark Yuasa taps offshore angler Tommy Donlin for tips on best spots to fish, top rigs and ocean safety as he wraps up his three-part series on Washington’s 2020 season.

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SERENITY NOW! COLVILLE LAKES OFFER SOLITUDE, GOOD FISHING There’s a plethora of species to be caught at the many and varied waters of the Colville Tribes’ massive and scenic Northcentral Washington reservation. Mike Wright outlines the best six lakes for rainbows, Lahontans, brookies and more species.

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FORE! A NOVEL RIG FOR THE JETTY The Columbia’s north breakwater and other rockbound Northwest river mouths on the coast are fishy but also snaggy. Tired of feeding the boulders his fishing gear, MD Johnson has come up with a rig he hopes bounces off the rocks and hooks more sea bass.

135 9 REASONS YOU’RE NOT KILLING TURKEYS Gobblers may not be all that smart, but the big wild birds have made more than one hunter look like an amateur. That would include our very own MD Johnson, who is personally responsible for the demise of more than 100 toms and still hasn’t completely figured them out. But he also has advice for fixing the many common mistakes spring hunters make.

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BANK ON COLUMBIA WALLEYE Most all Columbia Gorge ’eyes are caught from boats, but Anthony Clement has learned how to hook ’em from shore in spring. He details the best jigheads, grubs and tactics he’s found for catching these tasty fish off the rocks.

161 HOW TO GET TOUGH TOMS TO COMMIT To call or not to call? Should I move or stay put? What about buddy birds? Hunting blind? The loud mouth? Oh, the questions gobbler gunners face when their quarry is contrary.

Troy Rodakowski’s been there, done that and has answers for tricking taciturn thunderbirds.

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 $49.95 (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 © 2020 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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GUN DOG

Off-Season Tune Ups, Part II Last month, Scott H. looked at how to work with your hunting dog on pushing back on blind retrieves.

This month he chats up professional trainer Jesse Spradley down in Lakeview for a few more key offseason training tips, this time focusing on communication, conditioning and breaking habits.

167

(SCOTT HAUGEN)

COLUMNS 79

THE KAYAK GUYS True Confessions Of A Springer Junky The catching of a Lower Columbia Chinook on his first kayak fishing trip some 17 springs ago might’ve been sheer luck, but it inspired Scott B. to keep at it over the years. Even though his favorite water might be closed this season, he shares tips that kayak anglers eager to catch a springer might try out elsewhere.

83

BUZZ RAMSEY Catching Hungry Trout Northwest anglers will be heading out onto lakes across Washington, Oregon and Idaho this month in hopes of catching lots of stockers and holdovers, and our guru of all things rainbow has some great tips for plunking, casting spinners and trolling with plugs.

105 CHEF IN THE WILD On The Columbian And Californian Exchanges What do Christopher Columbus, earthworms, California hatcheries and a Boise-area trout pond have in common? Chef Randy not only explains but serves up a delicious recipe for grilled rainbow with a homemade Old Bay and shrimp sauce!

125 ON TARGET Coyotes Offer Offseason Challenge Coyote and predator management are hot topics in the Northwest, and sportsmen can do a little of their own now before deer and elk give birth later in spring. To that end, Dave breaks out and sets up his “.257 Bob” for ’yote hunting, as well as shares a warning for those who enjoy songdog competitions in Washington.

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(WASHDOT)

28

THE BIG PIC:

Lawmakers Asked To Fund Roadkill Prevention Project DEPARTMENTS

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23

THE EDITOR’S NOTE On recent events

37

PHOTOS FROM THE FIELD Steelhead, rainbows, walleye and more!

41

PHOTO CONTEST WINNERS Coast, Fishing monthly prizes

43

THE DISHONOR ROLL OlyPen man faces multiple poaching trials; 3 charged with baiting a bear; Jackass of the Month

45

DERBY WATCH Recent results; Upcoming derbies

47

OUTDOOR CALENDAR Upcoming openers, events, shows, deadlines

nwsportsmanmag.com | APRIL 2020

Northwest Sportsman 19

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This is a super opportunity for a familyowned business on Oregon’s beautiful north-central coast. Very busy sporting goods store, river shuttle service and exceptional deli. It’s a recently completely remodeled store and kitchen. Located in the heart of one of Oregon’s f ishing and hunting meccas at the intersections of (Valley Junction) Highway 22 and busy Oregon Coast Highway 101. Strategically located near eight rivers, three lakes, three bays and the ocean.

This area offers exceptional opportunity for outdoor recreation. High volume traffic, which invites f ishermen, hunters and tourists alike, including camping throughout the area and ATV riding at Sand Lake.

Year-round f ishing for salmon, steelhead, and trout in the rivers and lakes nearby. The location also offers access to great tidewater and bay fishing, crabbing and salmon and bottomfishing in the ocean from the beach in Pacific City, home of Oregon’s

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45600 S COLUMBIA DR N GRAND COULEE, WA 99133 An outdoor enthusiast’s dream. This is the whole package with spectacular fishing, hiking, and wildlife at your fingertips. The 15 acre property overlooks Lake Roosevelt with views of the Grand Coulee Dam and borders Spring Canyon national park. Tuscan style home boasts 3800 sq ft on one level with high end finishes. 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, office area, open vaulted great room with gas fireplace, stainless steel appliances and granite throughout. Master has huge walk-in closet, sauna and jetted tub. complete guest suite, travertine floors, and knotty alder finishes. Attached shop with boat parking.

For more pictures and info, see Grand Coulee Zillow listing.

FOR SALE BY OWNER PLEASE CALL RANDY 503-803-9652

THEEDITOR’SNOTE

I

t’s been hard to compose my thoughts here in mid-March as COVID-19 sickens and kills vulnerable Northwest residents and the response to limit the disease’s spread wreaks havoc on fishing and hunting events around the region, not to mention the economy as well as our sense of normalcy.

Long-planned sportsmen’s shows cancelled; club meetings and banquets postponed; derbies, fishing and hunting clinics and workshops scrubbed; a key tribal port closed; North of Falcon salmon season meetings switched to online/conference call only.

Things were changing so fast at my press deadline that not long after inputting Outdoor Calendar and Derby Watch listings, I found myself deleting Outdoor Calendar and Derby Watch listings as social distancing became the phrase of the times and officials took drastic measures to limit the size of gatherings.

In a sense, it felt like the human equivalent of The Blob and how 2013-15’s marine heatwave so altered our region and fish runs – and still is impacting them. How long will this last?

Tri-Cities dentist Jerry Han and his kids Austin and Lexi made lemonade out of lemons last month. With their office and school shut down to help contain COVID-19, they went fishing for walleye on the Mid-Columbia. (FISHING PHOTO CONTEST)

I RECALL THE comforting words that Andrew McKean, then with Fishing & Hunting News and now with Outdoor Life, wrote after the 9-11 attacks, about contemplating things along a fenceline while hunting somewhere in Montana and bumping into another sportsman.

With coronavirus, given that this is the social media era, some of us put on a brave face and shared memes about self-quarantining on the water or in the woods. And as grocery stores saw runs on supplies (March Me: Hey, April Me, has anybody figured out the whole TP and bottled water panics out yet?), others posted about freezers at home full of fish and game they’d harvested.

If anybody’s built for this, it’s us. That’s how I’d look at the stories in this issue: ideas for where to head afield and how to catch or kill dinner – or just do some self care. Being outdoors under the spring sun (even its showers) while waiting for fish to bite or Ol’ Tom to come into range not only is deeply satisfying to us, but is an anchor in these trying times. That said, where applicable, call ahead or check online before going. With the pace of events, overall uncertainty and magazine deadline, we were locked into running these stories.

To paraphrase the cool kids on Twitter, this note may not have aged so well by the time you read it this month, but I’m hopeful the strong measures taken here in mid-March quickly reduce the number of deaths and halt the spread of COVID-19, getting us back to near normal sooner than later. Take care and stay healthy. -Andy Walgamott nwsportsmanmag.com | APRIL 2020

Northwest Sportsman 23

Congratulations to the Port of Everett Port of Everett's $30 Million Central Marina Improvements Nears Completion The fourth and final phase of the Port of Everett’s multi-year, $30 million Central Marina Improvements is nearing the finish line. Here's a breakdown of the phased project and the benefits it has added to the marina.

CENTRAL MARINA IMPROVEMENTS – PHASE 1 | 2014 – 2015 TOTAL INVESTMENT: $10 MILLION •

Demolition and removal of aging marine infrastructure, including the old marine railway, 14th Street Travelift dock, Central L, M and N-Docks and hundreds of creosote pilings

•

Stormwater improvements

•

Removal and replacement of a segment of bulkhead

•

Dredging of more than 10,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment

•

Realignment of Central Marina docks

•

Public access enhancements

CENTRAL MARINA IMPROVEMENTS – PHASE 2 | 2015 – 2016 TOTAL INVESTMENT: $6.5 MILLION •

Demolition of Central I-Dock, O-Dock, and a portion of P-Dock

•

Construction of a new Central I-Dock and utility/service upgrades

•

Boathouse realignment with temporary and final relocations

•

East Marina bulkhead replacement - Segment C, approx.

450 linear feet of new bulkhead and adjacent interim public access path and railing system continuation

CENTRAL MARINA IMPROVEMENTS – PHASE 3 | 2018 – 2019 TOTAL INVESTMENT: $8.8 MILLION •

Construction of the new Central Guest Dock 5 and activity float at the base of the Fisherman’s Harbor project

•

Dredging the eastern portion of the Central Marina to its authorized depth

•

Construction of the new Central K-Dock for yacht-class vessels

•

Build Central L-Dock for the commercial fishing fleet

CENTRAL MARINA IMPROVEMENTS – PHASE 4 | 2019-2020 TOTAL INVESTMENT: $4.7 MILLION •

Demolition and reconstruction of Central G-dock

•

Demolition and removal of all Port-owned boathouses

•

Consolidation of all private boathouses to the east sides of Central G and I-Docks

•

Creation of 500-lineal feet of new side tie moorage on the west side of Central G-Dock

NOTE: Investment numbers include all project costs (i.e. permitting, engineering, construction, staffing, applicable fees/taxes, etc.)

Winner of the Marina of the Year award*

*by Marina Dock Age Magazine

LAWMAKERS ASKED TO FUND ROADKILL PREVENTION PROJECT

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PICTURE Volunteer work on a busy – and deadly – stretch of Highway 97 in Okanogan County shows promise, but state dollars are needed to really save deer and reduce vehicle collisions.

By Andy Walgamott

M

A two-point mule deer walks underneath the Janis Bridge – where Highway 97 crosses the Okanogan River south of Tonasket, Washington – last November after the crossing had been cleared out and fencing put up to direct wildlife towards it. (CONSERVATION NORTHWEST)

ule deer and other critters are taking to a recently renovated path underneath a busy North-central Washington highway, providing a glimpse of how more wildlife fencing and belowgrade crossings could protect wildlife and drivers in a high roadkill location.

As local lawmakers call on fellow legislators to provide $8.7 million next year for phase one of the Safe Passage 97 project, volunteers using donated funds are producing results right now at the Janis Bridge over the Okanogan River.

“They’re using it a lot,” attests Jay Kehne about the deer. “I was standing there when a DOT driver pulls up. It was the guy who picks up the carcasses and he came over and I said, ‘What do you think?’ And he said, ‘Best dang thing that ever happened. I’ve had hardly any.’”

After state funding for the first 4-mile stretch disappointingly fell through last year despite a budget surplus, crews from the Okanogan Chapter of the Mule Deer Foundation, Colville Confederated Tribes and Conservation Northwest still wanted to get started.

So after consulting with the state Department of Transportation, they used $260,000 from private sources to clear out brush and grade the passage underneath the south end of the bridge for wildlife, as well as build three-tenths of a mile of highwayside fence to guide animals to the safe crossing.

Kehne, a hunter who works for Conservation Northwest, is the former

Fish and Wildlife Commission member who helped lead the charge to OK salvaging roadkill in Washington, and this particular stretch of blacktop north of his home near Omak is one of the worst in the state for deer.

Nearly 1,500 bucks, does and fawns were killed in a 16-mile span between 2004 and 2013, according to WashDOT mapping.

Another estimate pegs the annual toll at 350-plus deer. But thrice as many – and possibly five to 10 times those figures, if new Utah research Kehne has read is accurate – are likely struck and limp into the surrounding hills before succumbing.

Between state and county law enforcement responding to crashes, WashDOT cleaning them up, medical bills, car repairs and the value of the deer themselves, the cost to the public adds up to about $2.5 million a year, it is estimated.

Kehne says that $2 million a mile is about how much the overall, multiphase 8.5-mile project that includes more fencing, cattle guards, gates, “deer escapes” and five more undercrossings is expected to cost and which would help prevent as many as 244 deer-vehicle crashes annually.

In Wyoming – among the states leading the way on wildlife crossings – the Department of Game and Fish estimates that a mix of underpasses and fencing as well as overpasses “can reduce crashes by 80-90 percent and ensure animals can safely cross roads to get to seasonal ranges.”

THE BASIC PROBLEM on Highway 97 in the Okanogan is that a key north-south

nwsportsmanmag.com | APRIL 2020

Northwest Sportsman 29

PICTURE transportation and community corridor intersects with a critical west-east mule deer migration route to winter range, the importance of which has only grown for the herd in recent years.

“That’s some of the last – since 2015, since our major fires – that’s some of the last winter feed left in there,” said Oren Jensen of Tanglewood Guides during a February appearance on Fish Hunt Northwest. “There is still greasewood, there is still sagebrush, stuff that’s going to stay out of the snow, be sustainable for those mule deer, and that’s why it draws a lot of them.”

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s 2019 Game Status and Trend

Report terms the loss of winter shrub forage due to the Okanogan Complex and North Star Fires “the major management concern in the northern three-fourths of the zone.”

Extra antlerless permits were issued and between that and two tougher winters, the size of the deer herd is now more in line with what the habitat can support, though unfortunately for hunters that means fewer bucks in the short term.

But it also highlights the importance of providing safer ways for deer to get from one side of Highway 97 to the other.

“Does, fawns, bucks, bobcats, skunks, coyotes, a cougar, tomcats,” says Kehne, reeling off the names of species that have been seen using the new Janis Bridge undercrossing.

Wildlife fencing installed along Highway 97 south of the Janis Bridge (left center) directs deer and other critters towards the underpass and away from a deadly road corridor. (CHASE GUNNELL)

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APRIL 2020 | nwsportsmanmag.com

“Just right offhand, it’s working great.

The cameras are showing that,” he says.

Another six-tenths of a mile of fencing is set to be strung this spring.

“But state funding is needed to complete the Safe Passage 97 project,” wrote two Northcentral Washington representatives in a letter to colleagues.

PHASES ONE AND two, which when complete would protect drivers and deer from Janis Bridge south to the town of Riverside, is estimated to cost $17.54 million. Finishing the work would also align with the state’s lofty goal of reducing highway deaths and injuries to zero by 2030.

So as this year’s short session of the legislature drew to a close, state House transportation committee leaders Reps.

PICTURE

Jake Fey (D-Tacoma) and Andrew Barkis (R-Lacey) were asked to help fund Safe Passage 97 in 2021’s roads package.

“There is tremendous support for this project from a broad array of groups,” Reps.

Joel Kretz (R-Wauconda) and Jacquelin Maycumber (R-Republic) wrote them, “including the City of Omak, Okanogan County Commissioners, the Colville Confederated Tribes, Freight Mobility Strategic Investment Board, Central Washington Latino Community Fund, Okanogan Tourism Council, conservation groups, and dozens more.”

“Thank you kindly for considering this

Mule deer use the undercrossing below the Janis Bridge in early December. (WSDOT)

A Safe Passage 97 map shows the number of deer carcasses picked up along the highway as it cuts through central Okanogan County, as well as highlights potential wildlife underpasses. (SAFE PASSAGE 97)

Machinery clears brush underneath Janis Bridge, improving passage for wildlife. (JAY KEHNE) 32 Northwest Sportsman

APRIL 2020 | nwsportsmanmag.com

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Northwest Sportsman 33

A roadkilled deer lies near the Janis Bridge as a semitruck roars past.

Highway 97 is a key north-south transportation corridor from Central Washington into southern British Columbia that happens to cross a vital east-west wildlife migration route. (JAY KEHNE)

PICTURE

Project supporters envision that when complete, Highway 97 will have fencing and underpasses from Janis Bridge south to Riverside, near where this image was taken last summer. (ANDY WALGAMOTT)

important public safety project for rural Washington,” Kretz and Maycumber add.

The deer, other wildlife and hunters would appreciate it too. NS Editor’s note: To learn more, check out safepassage97.org.

Washington House of Representatives transportation leaders Jake Fey and Andrew Barkis (left, middle left) are being asked by fellow representatives Joel Kretz and Jacquelin Maycumber to help fund the Safe Passage 97 project in their district during next year’s legislative session. (WASHINGTON LEGISLATURE)

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READER PHOTOS Young North Idaho anglers Lucy and Noah show off a pair of rainbows they caught last fall while trolling on Twin Lakes near Couer d’Alene. “They were using Kokabow dodgers and home-tied hoochie/spinner rigs tipped with pink corn,” reports Francis Abernathey, who sent the pic.

Ivan Reyes (right) of Flatout Fishing and Eddie Plata beam over a toothsome walleye caught during an early February night on the Mid-Columbia.

(FISHING PHOTO CONTEST)

(FISHING PHOTO CONTEST)

On a charter fishing trip in the Hawaiian Islands this past winter that had other anglers seasick, Cooper Griffin of Redmond, Washington, stuck to it and caught this masked triggerfish.

Before Chehalis River tributaries closed over wild winter steelhead concerns, anglers were doing pretty well on hatchery fish, including Collin Edison, Shadd Kelly and Dylan Smith, who limited out early one morning ... (FISHING PHOTO CONTEST)

... and Aaron Swayze, who caught this one with reader Gary Lundquist on the Wynoochee.

(FISHING PHOTO CONTEST)

(FISHING PHOTO CONTEST)

For your shot at winning great fishing and hunting products from Northwest Sportsman and Coast, respectively, send your full-resolution, original images with all the pertinent details – who’s in the pic; when and where they were; what they caught their fish on/weapon they used to bag the game; and any other details you’d like to reveal (the more, the merrier!) – to awalgamott@media-inc.com or Northwest Sportsman, 14240 Interurban Ave S, Suite 190, Tukwila, WA 98168. By sending us photos, you affirm you have the right to distribute them for use in our print and Internet publications.

nwsportsmanmag.com | APRIL 2020

Northwest Sportsman 37

READER PHOTOS Corbin Han and his grandfather Frances Han enjoyed a great opener at Southeast Washington’s Tucannon Lakes, where a mix of salmon eggs, spinners and flies yielded limits of stocker rainbows for they and Corbin’s dad.

(FISHING PHOTO CONTEST)

Bet your bottom dollar that Sean and Liam Abernathey are looking forward to this year’s fall Chinook fishery in the Hanford Reach! (FISHING PHOTO CONTEST)

That @KayakFisherChick is legit!

Michelle Johnson shows off the bounty of a coastal bay, and says she has plans to fish four tourneys this year from her kayak. (FISHING PHOTO CONTEST) 38 Northwest Sportsman

APRIL 2020 | nwsportsmanmag.com

Mid-February’s five-hour lower Cowlitz River smelt opener yielded 35,000-plus pounds worth of smoked snacks and sturgeon bait for several thousand dippers, including our very own MD Johnson, here showing off part of his 10-pound limit to a fellow netter. Johnson termed it a “really really fun” time and enjoyed the social aspect of the day. (JULIA JOHNSON)

nwsportsmanmag.com | APRIL 2020

Northwest Sportsman 39

TWO GREAT LOCATIONS TO SERVE YOU

southhillrv.com

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1500 W Yelm Ave Yelm, WA 98597 360-960-8141

WA’s #1 RV Dealer

Q&A WITH SOUTH HILL RV’S TED TATUM How long has South Hill RV been in business?

This is our 20th year anniversary!

What brands do you sell?

We sell Rockwood trailers, fifth wheels, A-frames and tent campers; Coachmen Freedom Express, Catalina, Destination (park models), Trail Blazer, Blast, Summit and Expedition; and Salem, Salem Cruise Lites and Grand Villa (two-story park models).

What is the biggest trend now in RV sales?

For us the biggest trend has been the midsized lighter weight half-ton towable travel trailers, probably 80 percent of our sales.

You just opened another location — where is it? Why now?

We just opened a second location in Yelm, Washington, in Thurston County. The main reason is that we have been doing offsite RV shows all over the state – north, east and all the way to the ocean. A huge part of our business seems to come from the Thurston County area. There is a large population, and really no other dealers around. We felt the demand is here and we want to try and fill that void and save folks from driving hours to not only buy, but get any service locally!

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If someone wants to look at an RV, what would you recommend?

We are a bit different than most dealers.

When anyone is looking at an RV, the key for us is to listen to what their specific needs may be and help guide them in the right direction, versus selling them the unit we want to move. We genuinely believe customers still come first. Every RV is built and equipped differently and we believe we have something for about every scenario, at the best prices.

What do you do in time away from the shop?

Since starting this new lot I haven’t had a day off since Christmas, lol. But when I do take a day off, I am outdoors. My family is the most important thing in the world to me. We love the outdoors, camping and just plain family time/adventure! During the school year when they’re in school, I’m an avid hunter and fisherman. I also raise, train and hunt my golden retrievers; I just had a litter two nights ago.

What got you into the RV sales and ownership of a business?

I started in the RV business at around 12 years old, washing trailers for my dad after school.

He was a sales manager at another RV dealership. I did that for a few years, then moved

into the parts and service side. Did that a few years and wanted more, so I was able to start working a Tacoma Dome RV show after hours. I sold a few and the rest is history!

Within a few months I took the plunge into sales full-time and never looked back. After five or six years, my dad – who was still my boss/trainer/best friend – came to me and said he wanted to do something on our own!

He bought the lot we are on in Puyallup now and we started with one trailer. We sold that and bought two trailers and kept doing that until a bank took a chance on us. Since then we have consistently been a top volume dealer in the state. A few years after we opened, my dad was not feeling well on a busy sales weekend. After work I ran him to the doc for some tests. He found out he had pancreatic cancer. Within months we lost him. I was in my early 20s and initially we were not sure this was something we could do without him, as he has always been and still is our leader.

After some hard thought we decided we were going to give it our all, do exactly as he trained me/us to do and make him proud, as this was his dream! Twenty years later, here we are!

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Kyle Edwards wins our monthly Hunting Photo Contest, thanks to this pic of his daughter Allie and her first buck, taken last season. It wins him a knife and a light from Coast!

Sportsman Northwest

Your LOCAL Hunting & Fishing Resource

For your shot at winning a Coast knife and light, as well as fishing products from various manufacturers, send your photos and pertinent (who, what, when, where) details to awalgamott@media-inc.com or Northwest Sportsman, 14240 Interurban Ave S., Suite 190, Tukwila, WA 98168. By sending us photos, you affirm you have the right to distribute them for our print or Internet publications. nwsportsmanmag.com | APRIL 2020

Northwest Sportsman 41

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APRIL 2020 | nwsportsmanmag.com

MIXED BAG

OlyPen Man Faces Poaching Trials

A

ccused prolific north Olympic Peninsula poacher Jason Bradley Hutt, 29, was behind bars last month as he faced court dates in two different counties this spring.

Hutt, who is charged with multiple big game violations (Northwest Sportsman, October 2019), was arrested in midFebruary by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officers and Clallam County Sheriff’s office deputies after failing to show up for a January appearance – the third time he’s reportedly skipped court.

Hauled before Clallam County Superior Court Judge Lauren Erickson, Hutt pleaded

Jason Bradley Hutt. (COURTESY IMAGE)

for leniency and when that wasn’t granted, he told the judge, “You disgust me,” according to the Peninsula Daily News.

He blamed court staff for missing one date, as well as gave Erickson a litany of excuses, which per the paper included: “I’ve been through everything.”

“I live on top of a mountain and have to walk 11 miles to catch a bus.”

“I’ve done as much as I can to try and be there on everything I’ve done.”

“All my stuff is [expletive deleted] gone.”

“I lost my car, my other house, and I have nothing now, thank you.”

“My dogs are going to the pound. I can’t even get them; they’re probably gonna die.”

Hutt was scheduled to go on trial in Clallam County March 30 on 16 counts that include “hunting/possessing deer without a license, failing to tag deer, unlawfully carrying a loaded pistol in a vehicle in open view, possessing a loaded shotgun, and a rifle in a motor vehicle, and unlawfully possessing bobcat, river otter, and a harlequin duck,” according to WDFW. And in mid-April he’s due in Jefferson County court for a hearing in regards to the alleged poaching of a pair of bull elk near Brinnon on Hood Canal – including one next to a school – in summer 2018.

Hutt’s accomplice Wyatt J. Beck was sentenced to 240 hours of community service and to pay $8,000 in Clallam County after pleading guilty in January to four counts of unlawful hunting in the

3 Charged With Baiting A Bear

T

wo Central Washington men were scheduled to have court appearances last month after they were accused of unlawfully baiting and killing a black bear near Wenatchee.

Jon L. Markel, 60, allegedly put more than 50 pounds worth of donuts and bread into a barrel last summer west of town and then guided Erin N. McCabe, 40, to it shortly after fall bruin season began in August, according to NCWLife.com.

McCabe reportedly admitted to shooting the bear over the bait in Number 2 Canyon. Bear baiting is a gross misdemeanor and was banned by voter initiative in 1996.

According to the local news source, Markel has been in trouble for violating game regulations in the past, including a 2012 guilty plea to poaching a deer.

A third man, Logan M. Franklin, 34, was also charged with baiting.

second degree, according to the Peninsula Daily News.

State game wardens credited the public for helping on the cases.

“We were able to follow up on a public report of a poached black bear, and we found that Beck and Hutt allegedly unlawfully killed three black bears,” said lead investigating officer Bryan Davidson.

JACKASS OF THE MONTH

G

iven this issue’s story on fishing the jetty (see page 65), we thought we’d highlight the breakwater angler who not only apparently didn’t know what state he was in but what year it was.

In January Oregon fish and wildlife troopers found the Washington resident in possession of a pair of fish he’d caught off Tillamook Bay’s north jetty. After the Beaver State game wardens asked for his license, the man handed over his Evergreen State fishing permit.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Yes, it gets odder.

“The subject stated that he thought that the Washington license would work – even though it was a 2018 license – because he was on a north jetty, and had fished off the north jetty of the Columbia River before – in Washington – using that license,” troopers wrote.

They seized his catch and slapped him upside the head with the fish.

Actually, the troopers slapped him with a citation for fishing without a nonresident license.

nwsportsmanmag.com | APRIL 2020

Northwest Sportsman 43

44 Northwest Sportsman

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Mighty Leeper Wins OlyPen Derby

B

randon Leeper held on to win midMarch’s Olympic Peninsula Salmon Derby, collecting the $10,000 top

prize.

The Bellingham angler caught his 15.7-pound Chinook on day one of the three-day event held on the eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca, Admiralty Inlet and the San Juan Islands, and edged out a flurry of final-day fish that stirred up the standings as Fraser outflow winds also made for cold conditions on the water.

Randall Huppen of Belfair went from second with his 12.25-pounder to fifth in the matter of an hour or so on late Sunday morning, March 15, as Jason Holbrook of La Conner weighed in a 13.60-pounder, good for $2,000, Douglas Holleman brought in a 13.50, enough to score $1,000, and Raymond Lampers of Granite Falls posted a 12.8. Lampers and Huppen won a boat seat and a sonar/GPS unit, respectively.

The event is organized by the Gardiner Salmon Derby Association, which reported that 820 tickets were sold and that 144 fish were landed. Average weight was 8.23 pounds.

The derby occurred as efforts to halt the spread of COVID-19 were really ramping

By Andy Walgamott

NORTHWEST FISHING DERBY SERIES EVENTS

Brandon Leeper holds the 15.7-pound Chinook that won him $10,000 at mid-March’s Olympic Peninsula Salmon Derby. (NORTHWEST FISHING DERBY SERIES) up. At press time, another blackmouth competition later in March had its postfishing awards ceremony scrubbed.

However, the new For the Love of Cod Derbies in Charleston and Brookings in late March and the Something Catch Kokanee Derby on Lake Chelan in mid-April were completely cancelled in response.

 April 18-19: Something Catchy Kokanee Derby, Lake Chelan – CANCELLED  May 23: Lake Stevens Kokanee Derby  June 20-21: Father’s Day Big Bass Classic, Oregon  July 10-12: Bellingham Salmon Derby  July 10-12: Slam’n Salmon Ocean Derby, Brookings  July 29-Aug 2: The Big One Salmon Derby, Lake Couer d’Alene  July 31-Aug 2: Brewster Salmon Derby  July 31-Aug 2: South King County Puget Sound Anglers Salmon Derby  Aug 8: Gig Harbor Puget Sound Anglers Salmon Derby  Aug 22-23: Vancouver, BC, Chinook Classic  Sept 12: Edmonds Coho Derby  Sept 26-27: Everett Coho Derby  Nov 7-8: Bayside Marine Blackmouth Derby, Everett For more, see nwfishingderbyseries.com.

MORE UPCOMING EVENTS*

RECENT RESULTS

 April 4-5: Banks Lake Frostbite Tourney, bankslakebassclub.com  April 25: 28th: Annual Spring Fishing Classic, Willamette River; nsiafishing.org  April 25-26: Eighth Annual Banks Lake Triple Fish Challenge, Coulee Playland

 Final 74th Tengu Blackmouth

Resort; grandcouleedam.org  May 2: Mt. St. Helens Bass Masters 2020 Memorial Open Tournament; hmshbm.org  May 17-20: Pikeminnow Fishing Derby 2020, Wanapum Pool; quincyvalley.org  June 7: Jack & Jill Open, Owyhee Reservoir; snakeriverbassmasters.org * Confirm events before attending; some derbies are cancelling due to COVID-19.

Derby standings, Elliott Bay; First place: Doug Hanada, 9 pounds, 7 ounces; second: Steve Nitta, 5 pounds, 13 ounces  3rd Annual Grigg's/CRWAA Winter Shoot Out, Mid-Columbia, Feb. 22; First place: Chad Halverson, Dan Graham, Sam Grant, 35.30 pounds, $3,152

nwsportsmanmag.com | APRIL 2020

Northwest Sportsman 45

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APRIL 2020 | nwsportsmanmag.com

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C

Spring provides a plethora of youth opportunities, from April’s early turkey seasons to the trout opener to special fishing events. (ANDY WALGAMOTT)

OUTDOOR

CALENDAR* APRIL 1

New Washington fishing, hunting licenses required; Opening day for special permit bear hunts in select Idaho, Oregon and Washington units 3-13 Tentative razor clam openers at several Washington Coast beaches 4-5 Washington youth turkey hunting weekend 4-10 Final North of Falcon meeting (Pacific Fishery Management Council) setting 2020 salmon fisheries, webinar only – info: pcouncil.org 8-14 Idaho youth turkey hunting weekend 9-11 Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting, Olympia – info: wdfw.wa.gov/ 11-12 Oregon youth turkey hunting weekend 15 General spring turkey season opener in Idaho, Oregon and Washington; More Idaho, Oregon and Washington special permit bear hunts open 16 Tentative Washington Marine Areas 6-10 halibut opener (Thurs.-Sat. through May 16); Area 4 (east of Bonilla-Tatoosh line) lingcod opener 17 Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting, Reedsport – info: dfw.state.or.us/agency/commission 18 WDFW Youth fishing events, Lacey, Kennewick, Spokane, Yakima (registration, fee at some) – info: wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/contests/youth 22 Fishing or bait opener on select Oregon waters 22-29 Tentative razor clam openers at several Washington Coast beaches 25 Opening day of lowland fishing season at numerous Washington lakes; WDFW Youth fishing events, Graham, Longview (registration, free and fee) – info: see above 30 Tentative Columbia River Subarea/Area 1, Area 2 halibut opener (Thurs., Sun. through May 21); Tentative Areas 3-5 halibut opener (Thurs.-Sat through May 16) * Check ahead. Some events may not take place due to coronavirus distancing concerns. continued on page 48

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Northwest Sportsman 47

Outdoor Calendar, continued from page 47

MAY 1

Northern pikeminnow reward fishery begins on Columbia and Snake

LIRPARivers – info: pikeminnow.org; Proposed Southern Oregon

Subarea halibut opener; Areas 5-11, 13 lingcod opener; WDFW Special Needs Kids and Adults Fishing Event (registration) at Klineline Pond, Vancouver – info: see above 2 WDFW Youth Fishing Events (registration), Kapowsin, Longview, Olympia, Spokane – info: see above 8 Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting, Salem; ODFW Adult LIRPABeginner Fly Fishing Clinic ($, register), Camp Sherman – info: odfwcalendar.com 9 Streeter’s Resort (Silver Lake, Cowlitz Co.) Kids Derby (registration) – info: streeters-resort.com 14-16 Proposed Oregon Central Coast all-depth halibut fishing weekend – info: dfw.state.or.us/MRP/finfish/halibut/management.asp 15 Oregon fall controlled big game permit purchase application deadline 16 WDFW Youth Fishing Events (registration), Lakewood (Pierce Co.) – info: see above 16-17 Silver Lake Resort (Cowlitz Co.) Classic – info: facebook.com/pg/ silverlakeresortWA 21-23 Proposed Oregon Central Coast all-depth halibut fishing weekend 22 Usual Washington big game special permit application deadline 23 Fishing opens on select Washington streams 25 Last day to hunt turkeys in Idaho 28-30 Proposed Oregon Central Coast all-depth halibut fishing weekend 31 Last day of Oregon, Washington spring turkey season, some Washington spring bear hunts

JUNE 6 6-7 11-13 12

13

15 18-20

Fishing Kids event at Gene Coulon Park, Lake Washington, Renton – info: castforkids.org/event/lakewashingtonfk Free Fishing Weekend in Oregon, Washington Proposed Oregon Central Coast all-depth halibut weekend – info: see above; Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting, Yakima Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting, Burns Free Fishing Day in Idaho; Fishing Kids event, Poulsbo – info: castforkids .org/event/islandlakefk Final day for spring bear permit season in remaining Washington units Proposed Oregon Central Coast all-depth halibut fishing weekend

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APRIL 2020 | nwsportsmanmag.com

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Northwest Sportsman 49

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Northwest Sportsman 51

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nwsportsmanmag.com | MARCH 2019

Northwest Sportsman 53

FISHING

Halibut Opening Early On Coast April 30 kicks off the season out of Neah Bay, La Push, Westport and Ilwaco, and here are tips on where to fish, best rigs and ocean safety.

By Mark Yuasa

I

f Washington has a place where halibut anglers flock to each spring, it would be the coast, but that doesn’t mean catching these prized white-fleshed fish is a slam dunk.

Weather, tides, locating baitfish, dangerous bar crossings, gear and, of course, a finely tuned, seaworthy boat are among vital factors that’ll determine whether your day on the ocean is successful and fun-filled or a downright terrible trip.

“The problem with early spring openers for many is that it’s their first fishing trip of the year and you don’t want to find out your boat is having problems while bobbing 25 miles out in the ocean,” says Tommy Donlin, a Defiance Boat and Raymarine pro staffer who has been fishing coastal waters since 2006.

“I’d run your boat on a blackmouth fishing trip in Puget Sound to make sure everything is running smoothly,” Donlin advises. “Then you really need to observe the weather, as more often than not it can change very quickly for the worse.”

Donlin suggests that anglers keep close tabs on tidal flows and be observant of swells and sneaker

Washington halibut anglers are chomping at the bit to get on the ocean for what promises to be a good season. Gary Lundquist and Brad Mosier show off an above-average pair of flatties that they caught off Westport. (FISHING PHOTO CONTEST) nwsportsmanmag.com | APRIL 2020

Northwest Sportsman 55

FISHING waves when crossing bars just outside of the ports.

“In spring many times you’ll have a big ground swell of 15-footers right in front of Neah Bay,” Donlin says. “Make sure you understand how much water volume is being pushed in and out on a given tide. Being careful will make your day on the water much better.”

TO AVOID A circuslike and dangerous atmosphere on the initial openers, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has structured seasons differently this year.

“When we have higher catch quotas, folks don’t feel pressured to go on the opener, especially when the weather could be iffy and conditions are dangerous,” says Heather Hall, WDFW coastal fish policy manager. “This (the liberal quotas) enabled

Rods with strong backbones and heavily weighted setups are the rules for fishing for halibut, which generally hug the bottom in depths from 200 to 600 feet off the Washington Coast. (FISHING PHOTO CONTEST)

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APRIL 2020 | nwsportsmanmag.com

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Northwest Sportsman 57

FISHING us to give people more opportunity by starting earlier and having more options as we head into May and June. We’re hoping for a similar good fishing pattern to recent years.”

On the northern coast, Neah Bay and La Push (Marine Areas 3 and 4) will be open Thursdays and Saturdays only from April 30 to May 16 and May 28 to June 27. Fishing is open May 22, 23 and 24 on Memorial Day weekend only. Fishing is closed on May 21.

On the southern coast, Westport and Ilwaco (Areas 1 and 2) will be open Thursdays and Sundays only from April 30 to May 17 and May 28 to June 28; and May 21.

Fishing could close sooner than dates noted and/or additional dates may be added to an area if quotas aren’t achieved.

NOW THAT WE’VE got safety and dates under our belt, let’s take a closer look at locations to help you decide where

58 Northwest Sportsman

APRIL 2020 | nwsportsmanmag.com

you might want to go when open dates roll around.

“I expect Westport to be much better than Neah Bay on the opener,” Donlin forecasts. “The run from Westport is 30 miles straight out to Grays Canyon and the better fishing tends to be at the Quinault Canyon (due west of Point Grenville), but it’s a long run (about 45 miles) from Westport.”

Both canyons are deep-water fisheries covering hundreds of square miles. You will need to pack a lot of fishing line on your reels and bring some heavy lead sinkers or jigs, since reaching bottom will take you to depths of 600 to 700 feet or more.

There’s some fishing opportunity on inshore humps to the north and south of Westport, but they tend to be less productive, with halibut an incidental catch while targeting black rockfish and lingcod.

The northern coast off La Push and Neah Bay yields the best annual

catch rates.

Offshore locations like Swiftsure Bank, Blue Dot, Tabletop, the Prairie, Umatilla Reef or 72 Squared are top choices and 20- to 45-mile runs from port.

Small boaters should use caution and be prepared for-ever present wind and strong tidal movement, as well as hauling halibut up from depths of 200 to 400 feet.

Often overlooked are nearshore Neah Bay locations like Koitlah Point (known affectionately as the Garbage Dump), Waadah Island near the green buoy, Duncan Rock, off Bowman Creek and Tatoosh Island.

It may not be an immediate hook-up like you’d find offshore, but there are giants caught in these areas.

On the southern coast, Ilwaco seems less defined and not as productive with smaller-sized fish, although there are days when it can be lights out.

nwsportsmanmag.com | APRIL 2020

Northwest Sportsman 59

FISHING Offshore angler Dave Anderson makes his own footlong lead copper-pipe jigs for deepdwelling halibut as well as lingcod. Other favored baits for flatties include extra-large B2 Squids, whole mackerel or Atlantic salmon, horse herring, octopus, squid or cod and pollock strips on wire spreaders or sliding sinker setups. (FISHING PHOTO CONTEST)

60 Northwest Sportsman

APRIL 2020 | nwsportsmanmag.com

AS FOR CATCHING halibut, they are one of the largest Northwest sport fish species. The state record is a 288-pounder and while most run 15 to 50 pounds, it’s not unusual to hear of a 100- to 200-plus-pounder caught each year.

Halibut usually stay on the bottom, so continually bouncing the ground with your bait or jig is key to catching them. They’re attracted to areas where baitfish and other sea life congregate, especially shelves and plateaus that rise up out of deeper water.

“I like to run six rods on my boat and depending on the spot, I’ll use pipe jigs a lot and have two guys running large 14-inch B2 Squids or a super-big bait up toward the pilot house,” Donlin says. “The pipe jigs will make the noise hitting bottom and the halibut will key in on the scent from the big baits.”

“In terms of bait, it has to be fresh – nothing freezer burned – and food-

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table quality, like something you’re willing to eat,” Donlin says. “I’ll use an entire mackerel or a whole Atlantic salmon.”

Other preferred bait are horse-sized herring, octopus, squid or cod and pollock strips. Baits are hooked up to a wire spreader or sliding-sinker rig.

Jigging is another effective method and there’s an array of choices from metal to soft plastic styles.

Many will use a Crippled Herring, Point Wilson Dart, Deep Stinger or homemade pipe-style jigs. The key with metal jigs is to bounce them up and down with quick upward sweeps and drops of the rod tip. Keeping contact with the bottom is a necessity, so the size and weight of jig plays a role here.

Halibut will grab the jig while it’s falling or as it flutters right at the bottom.

Soft plastic lead-head jigs or grubs are also popular. Twin-tail and curltail plastic bodies in 6- to 10-inch sizes fished on large lead heads get their share of fish, as do the more widely

used 9- to 14-inch B-2 Bomber Squids. Colors of choice are the “Triple-Glo” or a pearl white, green, blue or white, and be sure to carry a variety of sizes – from 4 to 20 ounces – as depth and current will play a factor in what you use.

Rod and reel depend on what depth you’re fishing and for the rod, don’t think heavier is better. The most important factors are a decent bend and backbone in a length of 6 to 8 feet.

Electric reels that are factory made or an aftermarket add-on have gained in popularity. Try the Daiwa Tanacom SB500FE, Penn GT 345 or 340, Senators and Electra-Mate 415HS. The better all-around hand-crank “old school” reels are made by Penn, Okuma and Shimano.

Avoid a stretchy monofilament line and stick with a super braid in 40- to 60-pound test for shallow areas and 80- to 120-pound test for deeper water.

Check WDFW’s site (wdfw.wa.gov) for more details, rules and dates. NS

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FISHING

Fore! A Novel Rig For The Jetty The Columbia’s north breakwater and other rockbound Northwest river mouths on the coast are fishy but also snaggy; here’s how one angler aims to lose less gear and catch more sea bass, etc.

By MD Johnson

S

o here’s the problem with fishing the North Jetty at the mouth of the Columbia. No, it’s not the crowds. Or the weather. Or the traumatic injury potential of the structure. It’s not even the raccoons that live for nothing more than to steal your Franz fruit pies.

I, for the record, love the raccoons that inhabit the jetty. Entertaining critters. Love past-pull-date oatmeal ’n raisin cookies; hate pepperoni sticks, though. Who would have thought raccoons would have such discriminating palates? But I digress.

No, the biggest problem with fishing the North Jetty for bottomfish now are the rocks. I understand that without the rocks, the jetty wouldn’t exist.

The Washington and Oregon Coasts have numerous jetties and while they are for vessels to safely navigate in and out of harbors, they can be fished from. (JULIA JOHNSON)

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FISHING

Fed up with feeding his gear to the rocks, author MD Johnson will be trying out a new jetty rig featuring a Titleist. “The ball has a tendency to bounce off of the rocks rather than slip in between them.” (JULIA JOHNSON)

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Nor would the raccoons or the jetty sparrows or the baby river otters. And without the jetty, the fish structure, aka habitat, that we and the black sea bass, lingcod, kelp greenling and a long list of other species depend on, well, it obviously wouldn’t exist, either.

So, while the rocks are indeed a good thing on several different levels, they also suck. Why? Because they are perhaps the planet’s most ravenous consumers of tackle. Jigs. Grubs.

Sinkers. Leader material. You name it.

You throw it, and the jetty will eat it.

Thus, the challenge, at least as I see it, to fishing the jetty for bottomfish successfully is not to catch fish, but to rather 1) make more than a single cast with any one item of terminal tackle, and then – and only then – 2) catch a fish. Or multiple fish.

Some days, and it’s true, I’d save time if I simply walked down to that huge boulder at the water’s edge, opened my tackle box, dumped everything into the river and retreated

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Northwest Sportsman 67

FISHING The Columbia’s North Jetty reopened to public access as of January, and with bottomfishing beginning as of mid-March, Johnson’s eager to get out after black rockfish. (JULIA JOHNSON)

back to Johnson’s One Stop in Naselle to nurse my wounds via a large raspberry/cherry Slushie and a maple bar. Yeah, some days are that rough.

But this spring, I’m going to try something on the jetty that might just make a difference in how much tackle I lose. Or don’t lose, as the case might hopefully be.

THE PAR 3 RIG I’d love to take complete credit for this one, but I can’t. This rig is actually an unintentional collaboration between a guy we met and talked with at the Georgetown Chevron in Tokeland, Washington, and a random YouTube video I happened to watch one morning when I should have been working.

First, a little background. As I mentioned, the problem with fishing the jetty for bottomfish are the rocks; rather, getting hung up in the rocks.

You try a straight leadhead/grub combination, and you get one or two throws. A drop-shot rig, or something

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Northwest Sportsman 69

FISHING resembling a drop-shot rig with the weight at the bottom and an inline hook/grub above, and you might get a few more casts in before losing the entire thing to the bottom. Thus, the trick becomes getting the grub down to the fish without it getting immediately wedged between two boulders, right?

Right.

So what this nameless gentleman suggested – or rather, what he said he used and had great success with – was a golf ball. That’s right, an ordinary golf ball. Instead of a traditional lead weight, e.g. a 1-ounce bank sinker or pancake weight, this fellow uses a golf ball.

He drills a small hole approximately one-third of the way through a golf ball, inserts a small screw eye, and lets that serve as a substitute for a lead weight.

“The ball,” he explained, “has a tendency to bounce off of the rocks rather than slip in between them.”

Do you still get hung up, I asked him. Occasionally, he said, but nothing like when was using a regular lead weight.

I pondered this notion. And pondered. And pondered it some more, and finally realized this guy might really be on to something. I could see where a bouncy golf ball may have less of a tendency to slip between the cracks.

I also thought that the pretty colors – orange, yellow, and white – could, possibly, serve as a visual attractant to any bottom-dwellers in the vicinity of my throw.

And finally, a regulation golf ball weighs precisely 1.6 ounces; I know because I googled it, then weighed one myself. Typically, I’ve used a 1to 1½-ounce leadhead for fishing the jetty, so with a golf ball we’re about par for the course. See what I did there?

ABOUT THE RIGGING …

No need to cast clear to the South Jetty or even Buoy 10, says the author, the fish are closer to shore in the rocks. His wife Julie shows off a nice lingcod. (JULIA JOHNSON) 70 Northwest Sportsman

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So that’s the weight; what about the rig itself? Enter YouTube. I figured I’d want a snap swivel at the terminal end of the rig proper – wait, let me back up. What I wanted was a drop-shot rig, but several, say, 18-inch dropshot rigs that I could pretie at home so

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FISHING that I’d have plenty available should the inevitable happen – I get snagged and lose all my gear.

To achieve this most anal-retentive pretrip prep, I started with a 24-inch piece of 40-pound monofilament, and tied a snap swivel to one end.

This I would attach to my golf ball weight. Next, I used a knot learned via YouTube (youtube.com/watch?v=4Gautx-iXA) known as a drop-shot knot to securely attach a size 4/0 (a 3/0 works) hook inline at the center point of the leader so that the hook stands out from the line. Above that, a crane swivel, which I would use at an attachment point for the mainline.

Once at the jetty, I would tie my leader to the mainline, attach the golf ball, thread on a 4- or 6-inch Sassy Shad or twistertail grub, and heave ho.

Will it work? Will I no longer have to buy 1-ounce leadheads and rubber grubs by the metric ton? Can I spend an afternoon on the jetty in search of sea bass and lingcod, and not raise my blood pressure to 160/100? I. Don’t. Know.

But I think so. I feel good about this, though because I’m writing this ahead of deadline – well, somewhat ahead of deadline – and prior to the March 14 bottomfish opener in Marine Area 1, I haven’t had a chance to actually put the Par 3 Rig to the test. But, and that said, y’all will

get an update on the morn of March 15. My biggest concern, preflight, is whether the golf ball, I reckon due to its size and shape, will drift with the ebb or flood to the extent as to make the whole of the rig ineffective.

Rather, will the ball drift either to Japan or to Ilwaco before she hits the bottom where the fish live? We’ll see.

WHAT, OH WHAT, GRUB? Guys who fish the jetty religiously can be extremely tight-lipped about what they’re using in terms of plastics. Size, shape, color; we’ll find out who the second shooter on the Grassy Knoll was before we discover these pieces of information.

In the past, I’ve watched guys disassemble their rig before leaving the jetty, just in case they met with competition. I’ve had guys try to hide their rig one way or another as we stood and chatted atop the jetty. Yes, OK, I admit I was trying to subtly see what they had at the end of their string.

To each his or her own, I reckon.

I’m just not that concerned about someone else catching a fish, which is why I’m going to list my favorite jetty grubs and colors for all to see. Some days, they work; some days, they don’t.

It pays to experiment, and always, always, always have chartreuse, motor oil, pumpkinseed and some shade of pink in the box. That all said, my tackle

BAIT, BOBBERS ’N (SEA) BASS

I

’ll be brief on this one. After several experiences over the years accidentally catching sea bass on anchovies drifted under a bobber while fishing for September silvers, the proverbial light bulb clicked into the “on” position. Whereas we’d been running our live bait roughly 8 feet below the bobber and under a 1- to 1½-ounce chain sinker for coho, fishing intentionally for sea bass – and lingcod – with the same rig meant changing things up just slightly.

First, we had to estimate the water depth we were working with, so as to set our bobber stopper correctly. Using the “1 ounce = 1 second = 1 foot” approximation method, we found, and typically now, we were working with from 25 to 35 feet of water; more if we ventured out further, less if we stayed in closer. Water depth known, we set our stopper accordingly, increased our sinker weight to a 2-ouncer, simply to get our bait down quicker, and shortened our leader to 18 inches max. The short leader lessened the chances of our bait flailing around under the sinker, and getting hung up in the rocks. Finally, we put a fresh anchovy on a size 3/0-4/0 mooching rig, and work the rig with any current available. –MDJ

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pack will always include the following: • 4-inch Sassy Shads in white; black/white; blue/white; blue flake/ white; and yellow/black; • 6-inch Twistertails in white; yellow; chartreuse; chartreuse flake; green flake; pink; motor oil; pumpkinseed; and green; • PowerBait 6-inch Eel in greeny; • Gulp! 3-inch natural squid; • And a selection of 1- and 1½-ounce Strike King Squadron Swimbait leadheads.

My brother-in-law and I also pour our own 1- and 1½-ounce leadheads for use on the jetty. Golf ball rigs aside, you can never take too many leadheads to the jetty.

Never.

A final note on grubs: I do tend to experiment quite a bit with colors out on the jetty. Not so much profile, but color. Size selection, as evidenced above, will run from 4 to 6 inches pretty much 100 percent of the time, but color? It does seem to make a difference. If, you ask, I were limited to one color choice, what might that be?

Chartreuse seems to be a producer day in and day out, for reasons I’m sure are known only to the fish themselves.

FISHING TIPS A couple points of order here. First, it’s not necessary to cast to Oregon’s South Jetty to be successful. Understand how a jetty was constructed; that is, the boulders on top slope down into the water and taper, eventually ending at a sand/rock line X number of yards from where you’re standing. You can feel this transition easily by working a leadhead along the bottom. Cast out, let your jig sink, and at first it’s smooth sand. A few cranks, though, and you’re into the rocks, which, as you’ll discover, aren’t out as far as Buoy 10.

You want to work the rocks; thus, start close and work out, or start out further at that transition and work in.

Often, you’ll be surprised at just how close to where you’re standing you’ll find fish. True, they’re often smaller, but bass nonetheless. NS

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FISHING

Bank On Walleye Most Columbia Gorge ’eyes are caught from boats, but one angler shares how he’s learned to hook ’em from shore in spring.

By Anthony Clements

J

igging for walleye off the bank in the Columbia Gorge pools can be very rewarding and very frustrating all at the same time, I feel. You can be fishing the same gear as someone else, even in the same area, and you can’t buy a bite some days. My good friend Larry showed me a lot about walleye fishing and there are still many days I can’t outfish the guy!

I remember the very first time I went out on a guided walleye trip, with Fly By Nyte out of The Dalles, and I told owner/operator Touché Clark that I had never actually had walleye before. To this day I remember my brother and I laughing because Clark asked me, “Well, have you ever had cocaine?” Walleye, being a prized and good-eating fish, pulled my interest very quickly.

WALLEYE WILL HEAD toward the shore when temperatures warm up coming out of winter. Usually, prespawn fish start showing up on the bank edges when the water is heading to the 40-degree mark.

I check online frequently to see how warm or cold flows out of the dams are reading. Generally, the water in the Mid-Columbia starts reaching the right water temps in February.

Walleye are ambush predators and very opportunistic feeders. Generally, they will be found in areas out of the main flow of the river in the early season. Look for large points, islands and inside bends and anything that may have natural structures.

Although you could debate jigging rod selection for centuries, for walleye off the bank all you really need is

Some days are slow, some are fast, says Columbia Gorge walleye angler Anthony Clements, who is hooked on fishing for the species off the bank.

(ANTHONY CLEMENTS)

something with enough backbone to keep the jig bouncing off the river bottom as you reel it in slowly. Lately I have been using a Buzz Ramsey IM7 steelhead rod, although that may change in the near future so I can get more of a sensitive tip. Keep in mind that when jigging walleye from the

bank weight may be a factor tiring out your wrists, since you will be jigging all day. Walleye tend to have great sight, so if the river turns to mud like it did this February, it’s in your best interest to wait for the water to clear.

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Northwest Sportsman 75

FISHING same spot there are no walleye to be found. They tend to move around a lot looking for food.

The prespawn is likely the time you will catch more trophy-sized fish. With the big females, I always encourage to get some pictures and a weight and to release them unharmed if possible because like any species, they are the large breeders that produce the bigger fish, as well as tend to not be as good on the table.

An array of good curltail jigs and jigheads for walleye would include this selection – just bring a large supply of them because the river bottom where the fish hold is snaggy. (ANTHONY CLEMENTS)

methods of jigging without success, the fish may simply not be there. I have noticed while boat angling for walleye that one day one spot will yield fish and a few days later in the

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NOW TO THE debate among walleye fishermen about the jigs of choice. I personally think the jig that is getting bit that day is the jig of choice. My go-to colors range from chartreuse hologram green to rainbow trout to smoked hologram. Some days I’ll run jigheads with an attached spinner blade on the head of the jig to give the bait a little more of a flash, even though losing them tends to hurt the pocket book a hair bit more than

standard jigheads.

Kalin’s rubber jigs tend to be a favored brand, but of course there are many others that are effective as well.

I tend to try and always match the current to jighead weight if possible.

After casting upriver, the jig will be going downriver with the flow as you make your retrieve. I run from ½-ounce weighted jigheads all the way to a 1-ounce jighead, depending on the day. Three- to 5-inch grubs are a preferred plastic for walleye.

When jigging it’s very important that you stay on the bottom of the river. Feeling bottom is key. Don’t worry about losing jigs because it will happen; as they say, you are not fishing unless you lose a setup from time to time.

The best time to fish for walleye is generally right at daylight through the morning and again in the evenings, though many willing biters are taken throughout the day. NS

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COLUMN

True Confessions Of A Springer Junky

The catching of a Lower Columbia Chinook on his first kayak fishing trip some 17 springs ago might’ve been sheer luck, but it inspired author Scott Brenneman to keep at it over the years. (SCOTT BRENNEMAN)

M

y most memorable experience fishing for spring Chinook happened 17 THE KAYAK GUYS years ago. I had just

By Scott Brenneman purchased my first kayak on clearance from REI. After ripping the plastic wrap from my new ride, I installed a basic fish finder and a single rod holder in the center front of the kayak.

My shiny new kayak was ready to get its bottom scratched up, but the question was, where should I go for its maiden voyage?

IT’S EARLY SPRING in 2003 and reports for springers are nothing to write home about.

This does not discourage me because my expectations for success are low. I have never fished out of a kayak before. In fact, I have never even paddled a kayak. So, since my prospects of bringing a spring Chinook

home are grim, I may as well give a new spot a try.

With an adventuring spirit I welcome the challenge of exploring new areas. I choose Aldrich Point, mainly because it is the most remote boat launch on the Oregon side of the Lower Columbia.

Turning off of Highway 30, a windy, narrow road leads me to the river. I catch up to a truck trailering a boat. In the distance is a sign stating that the road is closed ahead. The traffic in front of me barrels right past the sign. I cautiously follow. Crossing railroad tracks I reach the boat ramp. It is about half full. I wonder if the sign is a “locals only” deterrent.

There is a nice little beach just to the west of the launch that I use to prepare to head out. Armed with a box of spinners and some cannonball weights, I paddle off in awkward fashion. Tracking west of Aldrich Point there is a nice stretch of

water 20 feet deep. I experiment by using different paddling strokes and varying my speed while I drag a spinner behind the kayak. I have been trolling for about an hour and feel like I am starting to get the hang of it. I decide to change course and troll upriver, back toward Aldrich Point.

[Editor’s note: This year, this portion of the Columbia was closed by state managers to protect very low expected returns of Cowlitz and Lewis springers from harvest.]

The depth shallows and I continue along, making pass after pass in 5 to 15 feet of water. Each pass I try a different spinner and change depths.

The winds have been light all morning.

The surface of the water is covered with light ripples interspersed with stretches that are glass-smooth. Boats are scattered, a good indication nobody is catching anything. But this area gives me good vibes.

The morning outgoing tide gives way.

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COLUMN I will fish the slack and when the incoming current starts to push in, I will call it a day.

AFTER LONG-LINING A Blue Fox in 8 feet of water into the current, I switch directions and troll with the tide. I trade the spinner for a size 6 rainbow-colored Indiana blade.

I add 2 ounces of weight above my leader to help the setup stay deeper as I troll at a depth of 13 feet.

As my path aligns with a cluster of woody debris exposed by the low tide, my rod explodes. I experience disbelief, along with an instant shot of adrenaline.

I was definitely not expecting to catch anything today.

The fish takes off on a long run; I reel in frantically, making some ground. I get the springer close enough to be able to see it before it takes off again. At this point I have drifted into shallower water that is dead-flat calm. Now I can see the Chinook just below the surface as its fin makes a V-shaped wake, accelerating away from me. It makes two more nice runs before

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I can manage to get it within netting distance of the kayak.

I botch the first attempt to net him and he goes under the kayak and comes up on the other side. I point the rod tip to the front of the kayak, which helps turn the bow of the kayak towards the fish. I eventually bring him to the surface and into the net.

As I look at the fish in the net, I notice my hands are shaking from the excitement as well. What a rush! Anyone who fishes for springers has an appreciation for the amount of rod hours needed to land these fish. So when one is on the end of your line, it definitely elevates your heart rate compared to any other salmon.

I KNOW I was blessed with a large dose of beginner’s luck. I happened to find a travel lane on my first outing. And with such an inefficient paddle stroke, I unknowingly found the slow trolling speed that spring Chinook like.

Landing a powerful fish for the first

time on a kayak really got me addicted to fishing from the nimble watercraft. I continued to return to Aldrich Point for the rest of the season. Even as the parking lot at the launch overflowed with fellow fishermen, the fishing season that year did not disappoint. I bought up a good supply of rainbow spinners and hit the water every chance I could get.

The reality of springer fishing did catch up with me. I had many days of being skunked while others around me caught fish, but the thrill of my first catch carried me through to the next day. With persistence and lots of time on the water I managed to make a big dent on my punch card that year. I cut my teeth kayak fishing for springers at Aldrich Point and even during the leaner years, I still found a way to make a trip or three to troll over the spot where I first became hooked on kayak fishing.

I can’t wait to do it again in the future, when the spring Chinook runs cycle back up and these waters reopen. They mean something special to me. NS

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COLUMN

Catching Hungry Trout W

hen it comes to trout, like the ones the state releases in lakes and reservoirs near your home, they come BUZZ in many different RAMSEY types and sizes.

These days, fish and wildlife agencies are stocking, on average, much larger rainbow, cutthroat and brown trout than in the past. Don’t get me wrong, you might still catch a 10-incher, but fishery managers are making a real effort to raise larger ones for anglers, like you, to catch.

These larger fish, often referred to as trophy trout, can measure 12 to 20 inches.

Add to this a sprinkling of broodstockers – fish held at the hatchery for multiple years for spawning purposes – that can weigh 3 to 10 pounds or more, and I hope you are beginning to see how much rod and reel fun there is to be had.

IF YOUR FISHING adventure is to be from shore, one method that works is to plunk (also known as still-fishing) PowerBait. For this you will need a 5- to 7-foot light-action spinning rod, spinning reel filled with 6-pound-test monofilament, a few size 12 or 14 Corky single egg imitation lures, some oval egg sinkers (ranging in size from ¼ to ½ ounce), several size 7 or 10 swivels, 4mm plastic beads, 4-pound-test leader material, a handful of size 12 and/or 14 treble hooks and a few jars of PowerBait.

Other handy-to-have items include a landing net (especially useful if you are fishing from a boat), needle nose pliers, hook remover and a stringer.

Rigging is easy: Thread your main line through your egg sinker, add a plastic bead

Northwest anglers will be heading out onto lakes across Washington, Oregon and Idaho this spring in hopes of catching trout like this one that Wade Ramsey landed at Rowland Lake in the Columbia Gorge. While most fish will be more modest sized, broodstockers as well as trophy-sized rainbows add to the excitement. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

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COLUMN

Trout can be caught from shore and boat alike, and one of the best tactics from the former location is plunking, says author Buzz Ramsey. Here’s an array of gear for fishing from the bank with dough bait. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

and connect to your swivel. Although the most productive leader length may vary, depending on conditions, you should start off with one measuring 20 to 30 inches. It’s then that you thread a Lil’ Corky onto your leader and add a small treble hook.

PowerBait is prepared bait that comes in jars and has the consistency of cookie dough. With your fingers, scoop out a dimesized chunk and form it into a ball around your hook. The idea is to use enough bait, combined with the buoyancy of your Lil’ Corky, such that the terminal end of your setup will float up off the bottom so that cruising trout can quickly find it – this is key to success. For this reason it’s a good idea, before casting out the first time, to check and make your lure and bait combination will float!

Now, cast your baited outfit into the lake, let it settle to the bottom and wait for a bite.

It’s important to leave some slack in your line so that trout can swim off with your bait and swallow it before feeling line resistance, which is why for this particular method you want to use a sinker that slides freely up and down your line rather than a pinched-on one. One last thing, you will need to set the hook when you notice your line tightening 84 Northwest Sportsman

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up or rod tip dipping towards the water!

ANOTHER METHOD – AND this one works from shore or boat – is to cast and retrieve spinners. Trout are attracted to spinners like Rooster Tails and others due to their size, color, flash and vibration. While the above factors play a role in attracting hungry trout, vibration is often credited as the key to spin-

ner appeal.

In lakes, most anglers searching for trout cast and retrieve spinners while working their way around the perimeter, which can be done from shore or a boat. By changing locations, you are constantly covering new water where hungry fish may be lurking.

And while you may retrieve your spinner a little faster when searching for trout, once Along with spoons and myriad other spinners, one of the best lures for casting is a Rooster Tail, the vibration of which is more important than color, size and flash for attracting hungry trout. Tipping the hook, as with the lower pair of lures, ups your odds too. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

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Northwest Sportsman 85

COLUMN

There are too many trolling options to list, but the author’s favorite is to run either a FlatFish or Mag Lip, depending on what depth the trout are holding at, very slowly. Ramsey will also tip them with a scent-filled worm or half a PowerBait maggot.

(BUZZ RAMSEY)

you locate them slow down your retrieve and work what may be many fish over by retrieving at different depths.

This is a time when trying different spinner sizes and colors might up your success, as trout can be finicky about what they will respond to. Some of the more popular spinner colors include yellow, chartreuse, white, brown, black and green. The most productive sizes are generally in the 1/16- to ¼-ounce range.

One thing that has upped our success when using spinners is to tip them with a short section pinched from a scent-filled worm, like the 3-inch PowerBait Trout Worm. And while different worm colors can work, what often adds to our spinner success is to hang a ½-inch section of a dark red- or black-colored worm from one prong of the treble hook built into our spinner – just let it hang straight back.

hind our boat. Here, we connect our main line to a size F-4 or 5 FlatFish and troll it on a flat line – meaning we’re rigging this small plug with no additional weight. What always works best for us is to troll slowly; we are talking really slow when using trout-size FlatFish – half a mile per hour or so should be your average speed with these small wiggling plugs.

If the sun is bright, which can cause trout to run deeper in the water column, we will sometimes add a split shot a few feet up the

WHEN IT COMES to trolling for trout, there exists a whole host of fishing strategies and lures that work. One of our favorites, especially early in the season when many trout can be found near the lake surface, is to troll a small FlatFish plug 40 to 60 feet be86 Northwest Sportsman

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To round out your trout-catching kit, be sure to pick up a quality rubber net, which is softer on the scales of any fish you might release, a hook sharpener, needle nose pliers, bait former and stringer. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

line from our FlatFish, or troll a deeper diving plug like a 2.0 or 2.5 size Mag Lip. A Mag Lip is unique because while it wiggles and dives, it also produces a skip-beat action, randomly darting to the side.

This get-away action produced by the Mag Lip is famous for producing vicious strikes. You should also know that you can go faster with a Mag Lip too. And while the small sizes will handle speeds up to 2 mph, you might find better success in the 1 to 1½ mph range. A faster trolling speed might add to your success, especially as the water warms with the season, as you can cover more water in a shorter amount of time.

Our favorite plug colors include gold, silver, frog, perch scale, fluorescent red and black glitter. Just as with casting spinners, you can add a short section pinched from a scent-filled worm or half a PowerBait maggot to your plug. In our experience, the white color maggot seems to produce best when combined with plugs of the size you might use for trout. NS Editor’s note: The author is a brand manager and part of the management team at Yakima Bait. Like Buzz on Facebook.

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Northwest Sportsman 87

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FISHING

Serenity Now! Colville Lakes Offer Solitude, Good Fishing There’s a plethora of species to be caught at the many and varied waters of the North-central Washington reservation.

By Mike Wright

W

ashington state is considered by many avid stillwater anglers to be one of the finest lake fishing destinations in the western United States. Unfortunately, this particular fact is one of the worst kept secrets

Fishing opportunities on the sprawling Colville Reservation in Northcentral Washington shine particularly brightly in spring, when Omak Lake and its Lahontan cutthroat are at their best. (FISHING PHOTO CONTEST) nwsportsmanmag.com | APRIL 2020

Northwest Sportsman 91

FISHING The days of state-record triploids at Lake Rufus Woods may be in the past, but thanks to regular stocking by the Colville Tribes the upper Columbia River impoundment still gives up its share of stocky rainbows, like this pair caught by Becky Burdick on green pumpkin Super Grubs at the mouth of a spring creek. (FISHING PHOTO CONTEST)

in the region. Waters such as Lenore, Chopaka, Dry Falls and West Medical can often be rather crowded during much of the fishing season. Those individuals who prefer a somewhat less popular location to pursue their quest for trophy trout or bass may want to investigate one or more of the lakes on the Colville Reservation.

The Colville Reservation covers over 1.4 million acres, with 35 fishable lakes, 24 of which are open to nontribal anglers, although you will need a reservation license. The lakes are stocked annually by tribal fisheries managers, generally with trout ranging from ¾ to 1 pound, which is considerably larger than most of the trout planted by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Like nearly all the waters of the 92 Northwest Sportsman

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Columbia Basin, reservation lakes are very fertile, which means these fish can reach trophy size in a much shorter period of time than those in lakes outside the region. The redband rainbow subspecies had been used in the stocking program for a number of years, but was discontinued in 2011. According to Jill Phillips, a Colville Tribes hatchery manager, that was “because stocked fish from that program did not meet fishery objectives and conservation goals, along with reducing the genetic risks to native redbands.”

Redbands were replaced by triploid rainbows, which better meet the objectives and goals, plus have the added positive attribute of a rapid growth rate. Triploids are sterile and maintain their weight better,

since they do not lose weight in the spawning process.

In order to put a little more excitement into the fishing prospects, the hatchery also releases a sizable number of much more mature trout into several of the lakes. Some of these fish may exceed 7 or 8 pounds.

In addition to the trophy-size trout available in many of the reservation lakes, there is also the possibility of catching some bragging-sized bass in several bodies of water. According to Phillips, there is not a warmwater stocking program on the reservation and the bass in Buffalo and Twin Lakes came about from unauthorized introductions by bucket biologists.

“The lakes that have a bass fishery are annually monitored by the CTRF Hatchery Monitoring and Evaluation

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Northwest Sportsman 93

FISHING FISHING Rufus Woods is also renown for its walleye fishing. Bill Stanley caught this nice one a couple Aprils ago by jigging.

program and managed through harvest regulations,” Phillips says.

Overall, it appears that the tribes’ fisheries management is working out quite well, especially considering that a state-record trout has been taken from these waters, an 18-pound 4-ounce Lahontan cutthroat.

ALTHOUGH THERE ARE two dozen fishable lakes on the Colville Reservation, six are of particular interest. Probably the best known is Rufus Woods, the 51-mile-long reservoir on the Upper Columbia between Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee Dams. This body of water is famous for triploids that lurk in the depths. The current state record rainbow, a 29-plus-pounder, was taken from Rufus Woods in 2002, which was the third time the record had been set since 1998 following a series of netpen escapes.

In 1995, one of the commercial enclosures was torn apart by a careless angler’s boat and 10,000 mature fish escaped. This was followed in 2011 with another massive escape of an estimated 100,000, due to heavy spring runoff that ultimately tore the pens apart. This “great escape” did not go unnoticed, as a small armada descended upon the area, with a multitude of trophy fish being taken.

These days it’s more likely the triploids are purposely released. The Colville Tribes has an agreement to stock approximately 2,500 triploids a month into Rufus Woods. Many of these rainbows are raised in pens and fed highly formulated fish pellets, and because of this they take on a different shape than your standard rainbows found elsewhere. Shorter and more rotund, they also have the reputation of being extremely hard fighting fish.

Although the lake is still a popular fishing destination, its length means it is rarely overcrowded. Fishing from a boat is the most popular and productive. Rufus Woods is rather deep and probably not the best spot for fly fishing, but a fast sink line and the use of streamers such as Zonkers, Muddler 94 Northwest Sportsman

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(FISHING PHOTO CONTEST)

Minnows and Woolly Buggers will produce fish. There are midge hatches that come off throughout the year, so using a chironomid and long leader can also be productive at times.

Bank fishing is also available in a number of areas and at times can be very good. Worms, PowerBait, marshmallows, Pautzke’s Balls of Fire and even shrimp can be very effective.

Trolling with FlatFish and Rapalas is also a popular and productive strategy, especially in the deeper sections. In the

shallower sections a Rooster Tail can be very effective.

Undoubtedly the most productive area to try your luck is near the fish pens. The average trout in this area will run between 2 and 6 pounds, but there is also the chance of catching something considerably bigger.

Unfortunately, this fact is not a wellkept secret, especially given the nearby designated RV campground.

This is one area that can, at times, draw a crowd.

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FISHING FISHING Compared to Lake Lenore, further south in Central Washington, Omak Lake and its Lahontans see relatively little pressure as fewer anglers make the trek to this reservation water to tempt its desert-adapted cutts with Woolly Buggers, chironomids and other flies. They will also attack spoons, stickbaits and other lures. (FISHING PHOTO CONTEST)

However, there are springs and stream inlets spread throughout the length of Rufus Woods that will often attract substantial numbers of fish.

When the water temperature of the lake increases past the comfort zone of trout, these areas become coldwater refuges for the fish. When the lake temperature is below 40 degrees, they also seek these areas because of the more temperate conditions. These areas will also generally contain a great deal of feed for the fish.

There are times when Rufus Woods seems like a fish factory, where anglers can catch 20 to 40 of these footballshaped triploid rainbows in a day, while other days it may seem like a case of lockjaw has spread throughout the lake. Since the reservoir is governed heavily by water released from Grand Coulee Dam, temperatures and power of the current can vary dramatically.

This in turn has a major effect on the appetite, or lack thereof, on the part of the trout. If you time your fishing trip right, it could turn out to be a little slice of paradise; if not it might resemble a spot with a much warmer climate. It would be advisable to check water temperatures and flow from the dam, before making the trip.

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to fish off Rufus Woods’ Douglas County shore, while either a state or tribal license is good for fishing from a boat or the designated fishing area on the reservation at the Net Pens Campground.

THE MOST WELL-KNOWN lake on entirely within the Colville Reservation itself is Omak, the largest saline water in the state of Washington. Due to the saline nature of the lake, most trout species cannot survive in these waters. However, this changed dramatically in 1968 with the introduction of Lahontan cutthroat trout from Pyramid Lake in Nevada.

Pyramid, like Omak Lake, is also very saline, and it was found that Lahontans not only survived but prospered in these waters.

Lahontans also have a much longer life span than Washington’s native cutthroat species, westslope and coastal cutts, therefore they tend to reach a much greater size. The world record Lahontan is over 41 pounds.

In 1993, a fish over 18 pounds was caught in Omak, which is still the state record for the species.

Another saline lake in the general vicinity of Omak is Lenore, near Soap Lake. Lenore is also stocked with

Lahontans, and like at Omak they are thriving. However, there is one major difference between the two waters.

Lenore is what many might consider combat fishing, while on Omak it is not all that unusual for an angler to find that he or she may have nearly the entire 3,200 acres to themselves.

Both lakes are well managed, with an excellent, well-fed fish population, plus Omak, unlike Lenore, has never – to any one’s knowledge – had an illegal gillnetting operation.

The reason for the vast difference in fishing usage between the two lakes is a bit of a mystery. Both Lenore and Omak are designated as quality regulated lakes (flies and lures only, no bait) and provide anglers the opportunity to catch a truly memorable size fish. All things considered, maybe it’s better not worry about why there are far fewer fishermen on Omak, but rather enjoy the relative solitude.

The lake is located in a narrow valley, approximately 8 miles southeast of the town of Omak. The majority of the shoreline is rocky with fast dropoffs into deep water, which can reach up to 300 feet. The southeast sections as well as many of the bays have more gradual dropoffs, which makes wade fishing a far easier task.

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Northwest Sportsman 97

FISHING FISHING

In addition to outstanding scenery, fishing the waters of the Colville Reservation provides good wildlife viewing opportunities. Jeff Witkowski snapped these images of a herd of bighorns along the shores of Omak and a pair of bucks swimming in the lake. (JEFF WITKOWSKI)

The lake contains a considerable population of both redside shiners and sculpins, making streamer patterns such as Bunny Leeches, Woolly Buggers, Zonkers, Muddler Minnows and Matuka sculpins a wise choice. Insect hatches such as midges, callibaetis, damselflies and dragonflies began appearing the last part of March or April, making marabou damsels, chironomids, Sheep Creeks, Carey Specials, Hare’s Ears, Pheasant Tails and Nyerges Nymphs the more preferred patterns. Although Omak is not a particularly good dry fly lake, it would be advisable to include some parachute Adams, Griffith’s Gnats and Renegades, just in case.

Beginning in the latter part of March and continuing through April, depending on weather conditions, the Lahontans go into spawning mode.

During this period of time they can be found in small schools cruising the shallows near the lake’s shoreline.

Sight fishing can be highly effective, especially if you can elevate high enough to see the edges of the dropoffs.

The north and south ends of the lake 98 Northwest Sportsman

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are shallower and are probably the best areas for sight fishing. The north end can also be the best section to avoid the effects of the strong winds that are often present on the lake.

The deeper sections of the lake are probably best fished from a boat using lures. A depth finder is another very valuable tool that should be included when fishing the depths. Large schools of fish often hang around the thermoclines, separation lines between colder and warmer waters in the deeper portions of the lake. A fish finder can help locate these schools, and a downrigger will help get to the desired depth. Two of the most popular lures to use would be a Needlefish in pearl or pink and a Swimmer Tail in green with a gold head.

Along with selective-gear regs, there are several rules to be aware of, including the April-May catch-andrelease-only season, tribal-fishing-only areas, and required creel submission.

ANOTHER HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE body of water on the Colville Reservation is Buffalo Lake, a 542-acre lake

approximately 9 miles north of Grand Coulee Dam, off Highway 155 via Peter Dan Road/Buffalo Lake Road or Rebecca Lake Road.

The lake contains rainbows and kokanee, with some brook trout and largemouth bass. While rainbows are generously stocked throughout the year, kokanee, on the other hand, were originally stocked in the lake but are now a self-sustaining population. They also provide a substantial food supply for the trout.

The bass are the product of a shortsighted bucket biologist.

Fly patterns such as Woolly Buggers, leeches, damsels, Sheep Creeks, Six Packs, Prince Nymphs, Pheasant Tails, Hare’s Ears and chironomids are popular for subsurface action, along with Purple Hazes, parachute Adams, Griffith’s Gnats and Elk Hair Caddis for dry fly patterns. Rapalas and Needlefish seem to be the preferred lures for hardware fishermen.

Besides fish, Buffalo also holds a very sizable population of crawdads, which can provide a good alternative when fishing is a little slow and you

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Northwest Sportsman 99

FISHING FISHING If smaller venues are more your angling style, a number of lakes are open to nontribal fishermen, including the North and South Twins, where Tara Bailey caught this nice rainbow. (FISHING PHOTO CONTEST)

happen to be there between July 1 and September 15. Note that harvest is only open for nonnative crayfish.

Buffalo is a rather large, moderately narrow lake with the middle portion reaching depths of up to 120 feet.

Probably the best fishing spots for fly fishermen are the bays at the northeastern end. There is a considerable amount of surface action near the resort at the bottom, or northwest, end of the lake, but these fish are generally rather small. Lure fishermen will often troll the deeper portions, often with the help of a downrigger.

Walleye have also turned up in the lake, concerning tribal managers who worry about impacts to the kokanee population. Any that are caught must be killed and reported.

Like other lakes on the reservation, you may get lonesome at Buffalo from lack of company. If this is a problem, there should be someone to talk to Reynold’s Resort (509-633-1092).

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JUST A SHORT distance south of Buffalo lies McGinnis Lake, a 120-acre water which might be considered one of the very finest brook trout fisheries in Washington. McGinnis receives a generous stocking of brookies each year, and they grow rapidly in these fertile waters. Fish in excess of 2 pounds are fairly common, with some occasionally reaching up to 4 or 5 pounds. The lake is managed exclusively for the species.

The lake is surrounded by rolling hills and sagebrush, with some pine and aspen stands, but not enough cover to buffer the wind, which at times can be a good thing. One of the best fly patterns to use on the lake is a chironomid, which mimics the larval stage of a fly slowly working its way to the surface to hatch. When fishing below a strike indicator, a moderate breeze adds movement to the chironomid.

Another effective fly pattern to use on McGinnis is the Booby Fly. This

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Northwest Sportsman 101

FISHING big-eyed pattern is used with fast sink line. Cast out and let it fall to near the bottom of the lake, then employ a rapid retrieve while slowing down or stopping occasionally to allow the buoyancy of the fly to float it up slightly before continuing the rapid retrieve. The other flies that work on Buffalo will also do well in McGinnis.

For lures, gold Mepps, Rooster Tails and copper-colored spinners can be very productive, especially over weedbeds. Bait fishermen do well with nightcrawlers, PowerBait and marshmallows.

ANOTHER EXCELLENT TROPHY fishery on the Colville Reservation is the Twin Lakes. Both North and South Twin annually receive approximately 150,000 triploid rainbows, plus some brook trout. They also contain a very healthy population of bass, including a sizable number over 4 pounds.

A fairly narrow channel connects

the two lakes and fish can easily move back and forth between the two lakes. Fishing near the inlet and exit of the channel is always a good strategy. Woolly Buggers in olive or black seem to work well, as do damsel patterns, Carey Specials, Pheasant Tails, beadhead Prince Nymphs, Hare’s Ears, green Kaufman Mini-leeches, blood worms and the venerable chironomid. Depending on the hatches and the weather, dry flies such as various Adams patterns, Purple Hazes, Griffith’s Gnats and Renegades will also elicit takes.

Mepps, Panther Martins, coppercolored spinners and Rooster Tails again are good choices for hardware anglers. PowerBait and worms are generally the best bet for plunkers.

The lakes are located approximately 9 miles west of Inchelium by way of Bridge Creek Road. Both are rather large (North Twin: 744 acres; South Twin: 977 acres) and have

a considerable amount of private property around their edges, which makes fishing from shore somewhat problematic, except for the docks at Rainbow Beach (509-722-5901) and Hartman’s Log Cabin (509-722-3543) Resorts. There is a launch on each lake, so most fishing is done by boat.

FOR ANGLERS WHO appreciate catching large fish without the need for a great deal of companionship, the Colville Reservation can fulfill those aspirations better than nearly any location in the Northwest. A nontribal fishing license will be needed, but the cost is very reasonable, especially considering the quality of the experience. A one-day license is $10, and it’s $20 for three, $30 for seven and $40 for a seasonal license. Fishing rules are available at cct-fnw.com/regulations-permits.

It would also be advisable to take along a map, since road signs to some of the lakes may not exist. NS

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104 Northwest Sportsman

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COLUMN The rainbows on author Randy King’s stick are a result of what might be termed the California version of the Columbian Exchange, in which nonnative species were moved between the Old and New Worlds – in this case, the distant progeny of Golden State hatchery trout to a Boise-area pond. (RANDY KING)

On The Columbian And Californian Exchanges T

he tug was slight, almost imperceptible on the tackle I was using. I had CHEF IN THE WILD 6-pound test on

By Randy King what was essentially a bluegill fishing rod. Half a nightcrawler was skewered onto a circle hook, with two miniscule split shot a foot up the leader.

The bite was happening, I just needed to do my job.

I was drowning my worm at Wilson Ponds, a series of canals and public access fishing areas located downstream of the fish hatchery in my hometown of Nampa, not far from Boise. The ponds themselves are nothing fancy – a few improved trails, a large number of super-loud geese and stocked rainbow trout for the catching.

On the next tap, I lifted the rod out of the holder and the “fight” was on. I reeled about 10 times, then lifted the 11-inch trout out of the water. That was two for me and just like

that, my limit was filled. I beamed, took a sip of my malted barley pop and smiled at my children fishing next to me.

GROWING UP IN Idaho, to me nothing felt more American, more Northwestern, more Idahoan, than digging up a few worms, grabbing my pole and heading off to the local pond. As with many things you assume as a child, I was so very wrong.

History is a funny topic that way. Things you think you know to be true – like Henry

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Northwest Sportsman 105

COLUMN

TRY HOMEMADE OLD BAY/SHRIMP SAUCE ON GRILLED ’BOWS

T

his issue’s recipe – grilled trout with Old Bay and shrimp sauce – mixes a Northwest fave with a famous MidAtlantic Coast seasoning, a hint of the sea, plus beer. How can you go wrong?

Old Bay Sauce 1 clove garlic 1 cup amber beer (any beer really, but something you like)

Grilled trout with Old Bay and shrimp sauce. (RANDY KING) 106 Northwest Sportsman

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1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning 1 tablespoon lemon juice 3 tablespoons cream 1 cup pink shrimp, raw and thawed 1 stick of butter, cut into four segments Zest of one lemon Salt and pepper as needed Bring the garlic, beer, Old Bay and lemon juice to a boil in a small sauce pan. Reduce

by half the original volume. Turn down to a simmer and add the cream. Let the liquid reduce for five more minutes. Turn down the heat on the pan to low and add the shrimp. Stir a few times until the shrimp are cooked, about two or three more minutes.

Next add in one segment of the butter. Whisk it into the sauce until it has disappeared. Then add the next. Repeat this until all the butter is gone. (Do not add all the butter at one time, as this can cause the sauce to “break,” separating the fats from the liquids – not a good thing.)

Next add the lemon zest. Taste and adjust with salt and pepper as needed.

Grilled Trout 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning 1 lemon, juiced and zested Splash of beer 3 or 4 trout, depending on how well you did and the size of the fish, gutted but with head and tail left attached Salt and pepper, as needed Heat grill to medium-high. Clean grill grates with wire brush, wipe with paper towel and then “season” them with an oil-soaked rag.

This will be a smoky mess, but it will keep the fish from sticking.

Add the garlic, olive oil, Old Bay, lemon juice, lemon zest and beer to a mixing bowl.

Whisk together. Add fish to the mixing bowl and coat the fish evenly with mixture, inside and out.

Place fish skin side down on the grill, laying on its side. Let cook for two to three minutes, then flip and cook for two to three more minutes. Remove to a serving plate and cover with a paper towel. If the fish is sticking at any point, simply wait a little longer as it will come off on its own (This timing depends on the size of the fish: an 11-inch trout took me about three minutes per side; a big steelhead-sized trout will take much longer.)

Pour the shrimp and Old Bay sauce on the trout and serve with your favorite side!

Enjoy.

For more wild game recipes, see chefrandyking.com. –RK

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Northwest Sportsman 107

the 8th being a hunchback and that George Washington used wooden teeth – are provably false. In that vein, many of the things that we think are American are actually not.

Case in point, the humble earthworm.

The nightcrawler. The bait-shop staple.

The earthworm is not a native of North America. Its natural home is Northern Europe. During the last ice age, native North American earthworms were crushed under several thousand feet of ice. According to the Smithsonian, it is hard to make a living eating organic matter while being scraped across the landscape by a glacier.

As such, the native North American earthworm went the way of the dodo. The earthworms we have now came across in the hulls of ships and the roots of trees brought by Old World settlers.

The process of bringing new and invasive life to the New World and at the same time taking things back to Europe became known as the Columbian Exchange, after Christopher Columbus. It has had a remarkable effect on the world at large.

Think about potatoes – they originated in the Andes Mountains, then spread to Mexico. “Discovered” by the Spanish, they were taken back to Europe, given to the Irish to then become integral in Irish cuisine, not to mention the Irish famine. Still, you can’t think about Irish food without the potato – from colcannon to corned beef and cabbage. Potatoes are Irish, but they are not Irish at the same time.

The same can be said of the tomato.

What cuisine do you think of? Italian? Me too. But tomatoes are not native to Italy whatsoever. They came from Mexico and were imported to Italy to become a staple in that country’s cooking. All because of the cross pollination of the Columbian Exchange.

Polenta is Italian too, right? Wrong, corn is not native to Europe. Polenta is a part of the Columbian Exchange.

THE EXCHANGE WAS not all good, however.

Things came here that should not have.

Invasive plants, invasive wildlife, invasive invertebrates. Think pigeons, cheatgrass and Africanized bees.

Oh, and feral hogs.

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Northwest Sportsman 109

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All of these things are potentially harmful to native environments, but in many ways the cat is out of the bag.

But not so with earthworms – at least not all the way yet. Some places in the upper Midwest still have “earthworm free zones,” where it is illegal to sell or use earthworms to fish. Signs warn of fines if you’re caught fishing with the wrong kind of bait. They are trying to maintain the last bits of what life was like before the Columbian Exchange hit North America.

THE TROUT ACROSS most of the West are not native either. Most of them, unless you are in some seriously isolated areas, are hybrids of the California rainbow.

A brief review of the scientific literature illustrates that the first fish hatcheries in the West opened in northern California around 1880. Biologists of the day decided to stock and raise a trout native to that state’s coastal systems.

When the program showed signs of success, the science became repeatable, i.e. transferable to other locations around the region, and the fish squeezers did not look to local waters for their gene stock. They used instead the coastal rainbow – the one they knew how to grow and how to breed.

Why change what works, right?

According to Dr. Chris Walser, professor of biology at The College of Idaho, “The introduction of coastal rainbow trout is basically an artifact of historical fish management.” These hatchery trout were able to breed and have, in the past 140 years, passed their hatchery genes to the native redband trout.

As such, “You don’t find genetically pure populations (of redband trout) unless you are in an isolated location – a location not historically stocked with hatchery fish,” explained Dr. Walser.

This means that the first Californians to invade the Northwest came in the form of trout, not Bay Area and Los Angeles expats.

So when you are fishing a pond located directly below the runoff of a fish hatchery, like I was, you can bet your bacon that the fish I caught were Californian rainbows.

Indeed, they bit a European earthworm while I was surrounded by Russian olive trees and Canada geese.

Man, I love America. NS

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Coyotes Offer Offseason Challenge

Coyote and predator management is a hot topic in the Northwest, and sportsmen can do a little of their own now before deer and elk give birth later in spring. (JOHN MOSESSO, USGS)

T

he .257 Roberts is a marvelous cartridge that’s been celebrated as one of the best plains mule deer calibers ON TARGET ever produced for its

By Dave Workman ballistics, and having clobbered a few deer with one I got in a swap at a gun show more than 30 years ago, I’d have to agree.

It launches a 100-grain Nosler Ballistic Tip (blue tip) bullet at more than 3,000 feet per second, according to loading data in the Nosler Reloading Guide, and that applies to the loads I use, stoked with 37.0 grains of IMR 4895, which Nosler says is the most accurate load with that propellant and bullet combination.

But this year I’m not hunting deer, but coyotes. So setting this rifle up for songdogs – we’ve got far too many of

them preying on deer fawns, elk calves, livestock, house pets, etc. – seems like a good way to help the game herds.

MY RIFLE’S SOMETHING of a custom job.

Built around a Mauser ’98 action, it’s got a Douglas barrel and not long after I acquired it, I ditched the wood stock in favor of a Ramline synthetic to meet the wet environment of the Northwest.

For years, this rifle has been topped

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Northwest Sportsman 125

COLUMN

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Author Dave Workman pulled his .257 Roberts out of mothballs and slapped on a new Weaver 4-16x42mm AO scope. Notice the Lever-Lok scope rings, which he prefers. (DAVE WORKMAN)

with a 3x9 variable scope; actually more than one. It has been fitted with scopes from Weaver, Kahles, Leupold, Bushnell and Redfield. For this endeavor, I recently pulled the Redfield and replaced it with a Weaver 4-16x42mm featuring an adjustable objective, semitarget turrets and Dual-X crosshairs.

I’ve had this scope for quite some time and it’s a dandy. With the adjustable objective, one can adjust focus on longrange targets as one rises through the magnification range, which is why I chose it for this project.

Often referred to as the “.257 Bob,” the Roberts was developed by the late Ned Roberts many decades ago. Necked down from the 7x57 Mauser, the cartridge has developed something of a cult following over the generations, by no surprise.

My first contact with a .257 came as a young teen, when a neighbor was building a rifle in that caliber in his garage.

I would visit every few evenings to see his progress, finishing the barrel and action with steel wool and crocus cloth, working on the stock for weeks, with various 126 Northwest Sportsman

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The scope’s adjustable objective enables a shooter to keep in focus out to several hundred yards, through all power ranges. (DAVE WORKMAN)

COLUMN

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SHOULD COYOTE COMPETITIONS BE BANNED?

P

ublished reports say Evergreen State wildlife overseers “are considering” a ban on hunting competitions, especially for coyotes.

Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission member Barbara Baker was quoted by the Spokane Spokesman-Review contending, “Sometimes we have to do something for social reasons and this is one of them, in my mind. This is the kind of thing that gives hunters a bad name.”

Is it really? The newspaper article noted research showing coyote competitions “have nearly no lasting impact on coyote populations.”

But if eliminating hundreds of coyotes saves some deer and elk from at least temporary predation, isn’t the effort worth it? (Gun prohibitionists use the same rationale to justify gun control proposals, remember.) Helping some species by conking coyotes seems like a good idea to lots of people.

Some states have already banned or restricted coyote contests. Beaver State lawmakers were trying to as well. Before

the legislature closed shop for the year without holding a final vote, an amended bill would have prevented nonprofits like the Oregon Hunters Association from awarding raffle prizes based on how many coyotes that participants killed.

In Washington, the commission is tentatively scheduled to talk about it again

in June, at a meeting in Yakima.

There’s something else. Predator management/control shouldn’t be governed by “social reasons.”

While I’m not personally interested in competing in coyote contests, I am interested in reducing predation on deer and elk. –DW

A presentation to the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission illustrates recent years’ relative rarity of coyote competition permits granted by state wildlife managers, who consider the contests to have no biological impact on the population of mesopredators. (WDFW)

tools and then through increasingly fine grades of sandpaper, to be finished with a combination of linseed oil and tung oil, but only after he had “whiskered” the wood by dampening the surface.

Whiskering involved passing the wood over a warm burner on his wife’s stove to raise tiny slivers to be polished off with sandpaper so fine I could feel no grit.

The finished product was simply awesome. Then the family moved to a different city, and only the memory remained.

So, when a guy approached me at a gun show offering to swap this rifle for a well-used .38 Special revolver I was desperately trying to be rid of, it took about five seconds to shake hands. A gunsmith pal head spaced it and said it was spot-on. Retiring to the range, first with factory ammunition and later with my carefully weighed handloads, I’ve found this rifle to be nicely accurate.

It has put down blacktail, whitetail and mule deer bucks. All one-shot kills, through the ticker on downhill shots; the .257 Roberts did its job decisively.

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Workman brought in his shots carefully at 25 yards with this paper target ...

NOW THE TARGETS will be smaller, and they tend to play very hard to get. But coyotes can be pains in the posterior, especially during calving and fawning times, when new generations of deer and elk come to life on wobbly legs that are no match for

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stealthy predators.

Back in the day when coyote pelts were bringing good prices from furriers, I’d write about coyote hunting during the winter months when their fur was in its prime. People hunt them with AR-15s,

single-shot Rugers or break-action H&Rs, bolt-action Remingtons or Winchesters; it was a treat to see images of hunters with hides hanging from barn walls.

To zero the rifle with the new scope, first I had to put the scope in rings. I like Weaver’s Lever-Lok rings. They are steel, they can be mounted and popped off with very little effort and when the scope is put back on with the rings still in place, you’re pretty much right back to zero.

Find a level surface, put the bottom half of your rings on that and gently lay the scope in. Make sure the scope is level by looking through to see the crosshairs lined up vertically and horizontally, then place a small level on top of the top turret cover to confirm. Gently add the top half of each ring, making sure after the first few cranks on each screw that the scope is still level. With one ring fastened down securely, mount the scope on the bases and adjust the loose ring to marry up with that base, then tighten.

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Northwest Sportsman 131

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... while at 100 yards, the rifle scope still needs a bit of adjustment for windage, elevation is spot-on. Coyotes – look out! (DAVE WORKMAN, BOTH)

Then head for the range.

FIRST, PLACE A target at 25 yards, and use a sandbag rest to fire the first shot. See where the bullet strikes. Take a second shot, as I did, and if the second shot holes the target at the same spot, open the action to allow it to cool while you adjust for windage and elevation. On a ¼-MOA

scope, each click adjusts the impact point by a ¼ inch up or down, left or right. But at 25 yards, you need four clicks to adjust that ¼ inch.

After my first two shots, I had to crank the crosshairs up 28 clicks and to the left 34 clicks. That put my next two shots on the edge of the X-ring.

Next, I raised the magnification to 16X,

adjusted the focus with the adjustable objective and cut loose.

The bullets struck high a couple of inches, so I cranked the crosshairs back down accordingly and to the left several more clicks.

My final three rounds were 1½ inches high and about ¾ inch to the right. I cranked the crosshairs left four clicks but left the elevation where it was.

Out on the prairie, my intention is to shoot songdogs at better than a hundred yards, so hitting high at that distance is fine. Besides, a coyote hit at that range by a bullet that may be an inch or so high is still not going anywhere.

I’ll be wrapping my rifle with strips of camouflage cloth, and for those who don’t have such cloth strips, try wrapping burlap around the barrel and stock.

By the time you read this, I’ll have literally gone to the dogs.

Hunting licenses are required but there is no season and no bag limit. NS

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redding-reloading.com 132 Northwest Sportsman

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HUNTING Turkeys may not be all that smart, but adapted to survive in the wild as they are, they’ve made more than one hunter look like amateurs, including author MD Johnson. (AVIVA YASGUR)

9 Reasons You’re Not Killing Turkeys … … And how to fix those mistakes.

By MD Johnson

C

hances are fair that at the time you’re reading these words, turkey season hasn’t even started yet. That’s OK. Just relax. It can’t be that far away. And look on the bright side. The season hasn’t opened, so you haven’t had the opportunity to make those 1.46 million tactical mistakes you’re going to make over the course of the next six weeks.

If hunting has opened as of this

reading, the good news is all the aforementioned time on the clock – more than a month – to correct your errors and bag that bird.

But what’s this? Mistakes?

Clairvoyant? And this from a guy who will be happy to find his way home from the grocery? How can I be so certain you’re going to make the aforementioned mistakes, and cost yourself a gobbler? Because I know.

I’ve done it. Or done them. Made them. I’ve made them all. Some I’ve

made more than once during the course of a single morning’s hunt. It’s in our nature as human beings, this screwing-up thing. And it includes turkeys and turkey hunting.

Let me not belabor the point, though. This issue, let’s talk about all the reasons why you’re not killing turkeys. Hopefully, one or more of these will make their rounds of your cerebral cortex, and you’ll stop, think for just a second, and … then commit the error anyway. nwsportsmanmag.com | APRIL 2020

Northwest Sportsman 135

HUNTING

Patience, grasshopper. Your day might be scheduled, but that doesn’t mean your quarry’s is. Give your setup and calling plenty of time to work – and then some. (COAST HUNTING PHOTO CONTEST)

No, seriously. You’ll think, “Didn’t I just read something about this very situation and what not to do?” That all said, here are some thoughts – just conjecture, now – on why you’re not giving those ol’ longbeards a ride home in the back of Grandpa’s truck.

1) YOU LACK PATIENCE AND PERSISTENCE I have a friend back in Iowa, an experienced hunter, who struggles each spring with numerous gobblers.

Part of the reason behind his issues is his watch. His watch? Yes, his watch.

When Friend X sits down behind a decoy for a session of blind calling, he looks at his watch and gives himself exactly 60 minutes to get it done.

Gobbler’s not dead in an hour, he up and moves.

The problem with this is simple: Turkeys don’t wear watches. You’re working on his time, not him on 136 Northwest Sportsman

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yours. In fact, he’s not even supposed to do what it is you’re trying to make him do, and that’s come to you. No, Mother Nature says he gobbles, and the girls (hens) go to him; not the other way around. That is, you yelp, yelp, yelp and he comes a’running.

So, with this 180-degree role reversal in mind, it only makes sense that it just might take a little time for him to change his mind. Maybe it will happen in 60 minutes; maybe not.

Turkey hunting is all about patience and persistence. Sit another 10 minutes. Or 15. Or 30. Call a couple more times. Get yourself comfortable behind a lightweight blind, read a book and relax. Tom has nothing better to do all day than wander around.

2) YOU’RE WORKING WITH NO INTEL

everywhere you walk, you find fresh boot tracks, empty shotgun shells, cigarette butts, piles of feathers – all the signs that indicate you’re hunting in the equivalent of a Walmart parking lot on Black Friday.

You do it for elk. For deer. For bears and ducks. What is “it?” You scout. You hedge your bets. You put yourself in a more favorable position to be successful by gathering as much information as possible before the hunt ever begins. Is it possible to kill a gobbler going in cold? Absolutely. I’ve done it; many times. But I’d much rather have a bird (or birds) roosted or a plan outlined sometime prior to opening day than have no idea what’s there, who’s there or where I’m going. I do that enough on a day-today basis throughout the year. Ugh!

You didn’t scout. You went in blind.

You heard nothing. Or worse,

3) YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND YOUR QUARRY

HUNTING Fidgeting and other fast movements are some of the best ways to catch the uber-wary eyes of the flock and send birds skedaddling. (COAST HUNTING PHOTO CONTEST)

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This one ties in somewhat with scouting. The better you understand the wild turkey biologically, the more likely you are to be able to anticipate his moves. Or at least guess why he did this or didn’t do that.

The birds show a tendency to roost here or roost there. They need water every day. The boys follow the girls.

He doesn’t have to gobble to attract hens. Full-strut decoys may work on the dominant bird, but can easily intimidate, i.e. frighten away, a lesser albeit mature 2-year-old. Rain, and they gravitate toward more open areas where they can use their eyes to avoid predators. Gobblers cluck and yelp. A kee-kee run, typically considered a fall call, can be very effective in the spring.

My point is this: You know elk.

You know blacktails. You know salmon and steelhead. You know them biologically. Scientifically. Know turkeys that way, and you might just swing that pendulum a bit your way.

HUNTING 4) YOUR CALLING IS MEDIOCRE AT BEST Do you have to be perfect – a competition-caliber caller – to call in and kill a wild turkey? No, and in fact, some of the worst calling I’ve ever heard has come from turkeys themselves. Hideous, I tell you.

“That has got to be another guy,” I’ve told Julie more than once, “and boy is he terrible.”

And then, about that time, a little girl turkey steps out of the bushes making a sound like someone hitting a burlap sack full of cats with a broom.

Oh, and before anyone bellyaches and writes their Congressperson, I love cats. Have three. Wouldn’t hurt a one.

That all said, you should sound natural. Real. Turkey calling is a cadence. A rhythm. If, it’s my thought, you can yelp and purr and cluck, you can call a gobbler to the gun, if he wants to wander over that way. My suggestion is that if you, well, if you

suck at calling, you should practice.

Thanks to YouTube, there’s no excuse not to know what a live hen sounds like. Can’t get the hang of a mouth call? A diaphragm? No worries. Get a box call or a slate-style call, watch a YouTube or two, and then practice.

Oh, and a final thought on calling.

If you ever find yourself stymied as to what sound to make or how loud or how often, here’s a tip: Put the call down, and don’t touch it for a bit.

Make him hunt you. Make him come looking for that hen he heard. I know it’s tough to sit and be silent while he gobbles and gobbles and gobbles. But he’s getting frustrated, and maybe – just maybe – he’ll come looking.

5) YOU CAN’T SIT STILL I told a guy once that turkey hunting with him was a challenge. Why, he asked. Because, I told him, “You have the attention span of a caffeinated hummingbird.” Every 45 seconds, and

he was in his second series of the seven basic gymnastic movements. Fidget, fidget, fidget and more fidgeting.

It’s tough to impress upon new turkey hunters just how well the wild turkey can see. How quickly they can register motion and movement.

And how they’re scared to death of everything in the world. They don’t often stand and try to figure out what that thing over yonder is like a mule deer might. Oh, no. They just run, regroup, and then think, if turkeys do indeed think, “Damn, but I’m glad we ran away from whatever that was over in those bushes.”

You got to sit still. Get the gun up, get ready, and use your eyes, not your head, to search for that incoming longbeard. How many birds have come in, seen the hunter moving around haphazardly and melted away, without ever having been seen? Thousands. Tens of thousands.

More. So sit still.

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HUNTING It seems like adults more than kids are phased by foul weather, and while hunting in the rain let alone the snow is not the most pleasant don’t let it be an excuse and instead prepare for conditions. Jessica Schreiber, then 8, bagged this bird on a 25-degree day and blizzardlike conditions in Northeast Washington several years back. (COAST HUNTING PHOTO CONTEST)

everything is, and when I take it out, it gets returned to its own pocket or pouch or space in my vest. Sure, I’m a bit OCD when it comes to my equipment and my self-preparation, but I kill a lot of turkeys because of it.

7) YOU HAVE NO CONFIDENCE IN YOURSELF OR YOUR LOCATION When we left Iowa in 2015 for Washington, I had 17 different private farms I could hunt each spring. And on each of those farms, and every time I hit a lick on a turkey call, I fully expected a gobble in return.

That’s how much confidence I had not only in myself but in those pieces of property too. Did it always happen that way? It did not, but it happened more often than I can tell you.

Much of hunting is mental. Much of fishing is mental. Much of life in general is mental. Confidence in your abilities, in your area of operation, or AO, for the morning, and in your equipment is a huge variable in the equation that is success.

You think you suck as a turkey hunter? You very well might. But that bird gobbles and you think it through: I’ll do this, you decide. I’ll sit here.

He’s so far and over in that direction.

6) YOU’RE ILL-EQUIPPED AND ILL-PREPARED This one could apply to big game hunters, waterfowlers, anglers, hikers, bikers, camping enthusiasts – pretty much anyone who spends time outdoors. If you’re not dressed to spend the day in the field, you’re not going to spend the day in the field. If you’re cold, wet, hungry, tired, lost, hot, or suffering from any of a thousand other pseudomaladies, you’re less likely to invest the time needed to kill that ol’ longbeard. If your boots don’t fit. If 142 Northwest Sportsman

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you’re unorganized. If you get into the field and you don’t have your calls or you’re this or you’re that.

Or, heaven forbid, your gun – don’t laugh; a friend of mine in Iowa does this at least once each spring – then there’s a good chance you’re going to go birdless. At least that morning.

So get your gear. Get it organized.

Know that’s it there and where it is.

My goal is to be able to find everything I need in my turkey vest without ever taking my eyes off that gobbler standing at 60 yards. I know where

If you’re taking shots at turkeys and not connecting, you’re either pulling your shot or misjudging your range. Ethical hunters pattern their shotguns and loads so that they know their effective range and don’t wound birds. (NWTF)

HUNTING Take it from an expert – the author and his wife have killed 100-plus gobblers between them – you’re going to make mistakes chasing turkeys, but learning from them (and trying not to repeat them) will make you a better hunter. (JULIA JOHNSON)

You get set, take a breath and hit that call just so. You’ll get there.

8) YOU’RE A FAIR-WEATHER KINDA GUY No, I don’t like turkey hunting in the rain. I don’t like duck hunting in rain. Fishing in the rain. Gardening in the rain. Honestly, I can’t think of anything I enjoy doing in the rain.

That said, the birds are still out there when it’s crappy. When it’s raining. When it’s blowing. When it’s hot and cold. When there’s 6 inches of snow on the ground. They’re there, and while maybe that ol’ gobbler’s ardor has been curbed just a touch with those 30-mile-an-hour winds, he’s still there and just as eager to do what you want him to do. The 144 Northwest Sportsman

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question is, are you there?

Maybe a pop-up blind is the answer.

Or understanding that wind can really play havoc on how well you can or can’t hear. He gobbles and you guess 150 yards, but, due to the wind, he’s really only 60. You move, he sees you, and he runs away. It’s what he does.

Rain? Get some good raingear, a waterproof call, e.g. an acrylic pot call with a carbon striker, and tough it out. No, it’s not pleasant, but it’s going to be worth it when you hit that call a lick and he thunders back not 40 yards off your left shoulder.

9) YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT ‘35 YARDS’ LOOKS LIKE Congratulations!

You’ve

done

everything right. Called Ol’ Tom up out of that canyon, across that little oak/pine/whatever flat, and now he’s standing dead still at 35 yards.

You swing, and it’s a miss!

Flustered, you don’t even bother to shoot again as he takes wings and returns to the creek bottom from whence he came. You’re sad. If you’re like me, you text your wife, also an avid turkey hunter, the words “Guess what? I missed. I suck. Ugh!” But after pacing it off, you find he wasn’t at 35 yards. Or 45 yards. But according to your stride, some 53 steps.

Oh, yeah. Many will disagree, what with today’s fancy choke tubes and depleted uranium heat-seeking turkey ammunition, but 53 yards is a healthy poke for anyone. It happens. I’ve done it. Not often, but I’ve done it, yes.

Here, the solution comes down to the patterning process and practice.

While you’re patterning Ol’ Betsy, you should be practicing range estimation as well. And from a seated position. What does 30 yards look like while seated on your bum?

How about Forty? Fifty? Does my shotgun (and the shooter) perform consistently – con-sis-tent-ly – every time I pull the trigger, or is anything beyond 40 a “poke ’n hope” kind of thing? Let me tell you, Ol’ Tom deserves better than that.

MISTAKES ARE LEARNING EXPERIENCES IN DISGUISE In summation, here’s what I tell those who attend my turkey seminars.

As long as the mistakes you make this spring don’t involve safe gun handling practices or ethical/legal anomalies, make them. All of them. It’s how we learn. I didn’t sit long enough. I underestimated the distance. I called when I should have shut up. Or I shut up when I should have called. My fancy full-strut decoy scared the bejesus out of that nice 2-year-old, and I knew better. Make the mistakes. But try – try – to only make them once.

PS – Bahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! That’s a good one! NS

HUNTING

A New Turkey Hunter’s Journey

Trout once topped all in one Northwest sportsmen’s spring, but chasing gobblers fills the bill now, emblematic of how easy and fun it is to take up the hunt.

By Jason Brooks

S

everal years ago I was introduced to the world of turkey hunting. Up until that first trip my springtime was spent on local lakes and trout fishing. Like

most of us in the Northwest, we grew up catching planter trout in April and May. But then one January day during the Western Washington Sportsmen’s Show in Puyallup, my youngest son Ryan and I ran into Michelle Bodenheimer.

Michelle and I had several common friends in the outdoor industry and at that time she was the regional director of the National Wild Turkey Federation. She knew Ryan and I were hunters and within a few minutes our conversation turned from inquiring

“Once you start to explore the turkey woods in spring, you might just find yourself foregoing opening day of trout season and picking up the shotgun,” writes author Jason Brooks, here walking back to the rig with his son Ryan and a freshly harvested Northeast Washington gobbler. (JASON BROOKS)

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Northwest Sportsman 147

HUNTING

“Big toms gobbled and hens clucked. We sat in silence until we could hear the birds leaving the roost.” (JASON BROOKS)

about turkeys to being invited to hunt with her near Colville that spring. I didn’t know it at the time but soon I would replace my springtime trout infatuation with turkeys.

When we arrived in Colville the day before the statewide opener, we met up with Michelle at the annual NWTF chapter banquet. That is where we also met Kurtis Vaagen of Vaagen Brothers timber and lumber company. Kurtis is a guru when it comes to calling turkeys.

The next morning we met in the woods at a predetermined location.

After quietly walking through the darkness to a small field we set a screen of burlap camo across some bushes. This makeshift blind would conceal our movements and allow us full view of the small, 1-acre field where a hen decoy had been placed.

As the sky began to lighten I could see a ridgeline with tall pine trees above the field. Kurtis let out a few clucks and the trees exploded with turkey responses. Big toms gobbled and hens clucked. We sat in silence until we could hear the birds leaving the roost.

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Kurtis began clucking and purring using a mouth reed, then Michelle pulled a slate call out and also began doing some soft purrs. Soon the flock of turkeys were walking down a small pathway that led from the ridge to the field. It didn’t take long before the big tom saw the hen decoy and strutted right towards us. Ryan raised his 20-gauge shotgun and knocked down the bird.

From that second on I was hooked.

No more sleepless Friday nights before the Saturday general lowland lakes trout opener for me. Instead, I start to lose sleep once the snow melts and I can get out and scout for turkeys.

By the time early April’s youth season comes around I’ve had trouble sleeping for weeks. Maybe it is because I am still learning how to hunt turkeys; after all, you really never stop learning new tricks, calling techniques, locations and turkey behavior. Indeed, the continual learning is what I love most about turkey hunting. Being lucky enough to spend my first two days of chasing gobblers ever with two of the Northwest’s best tom hunters gave

me an accelerated crash course in all things turkey.

LATER THAT FIRST day we were driving along a Forest Service road when we saw the distinct brown and white barred feather of a turkey wing. The ground was scratched up and it was either where a gobbler had decided to scratch or where a fight had taken place; either way it meant turkeys were around. Kurtis had us step out of the truck and asked us to be quiet and listen for birds.

Then he slammed the door shut.

At first I was confused since he wanted us to be quiet, but then a loud gobble erupted from the woods about a hundred yards away. Kurtis explained that this was a “shock gobble.” Male turkeys are always looking for more hens and will fight other birds. Since they are all “jacked up” in the spring, they often gobble at any loud noise.

This happened later in the day as we drove across a cattle guard as well.

But with this particular bird we knew he was close, so we hiked into the timber, a stand owned by Vaagen Brothers. Instead of a large clearcut

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HUNTING “It didn’t take long before the big tom saw the hen decoy and strutted his way right towards us. Ryan raised his 20-gauge shotgun and knocked down the bird.” (JASON BROOKS)

like other forest companies in the Northwest use in their timber practices, Vaagen understands the need for a healthy forest and everything that lives in it. This stand of timber was known as a “thinned stand,” one where you could see through the trees and sunlight penetrated the canopy.

It was selectively logged, where the mature trees with timber value were harvested and the younger trees left to flourish.

Instead of putting up our burlap screen again, we just sat next to some trees, hidden by a huckleberry bush.

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and then some clucks. We could see five hens moving along, but they weren’t interested and took the flock away from us. Instead of busting this group of birds we let them go, knowing we could come back another time and try for them if need be. There is a lot to learn when it comes to turkey hunting, including when to push your luck and when to be patient.

IN THE EVENING, just before roosting time, which occurs when the sun starts to go down, we found dozens of birds in a local field that was adjacent to some state land. Setting up on the public land and attempting to draw

birds to us didn’t work out, but we learned where they were and that since the private land the turkeys were on was a large field, it meant they would be roosting in the trees on the Department of Natural Resources ground that evening. This would be a good place to come back to in the morning and try to draw the birds towards some decoys once they came off the roost.

The next morning we once again found ourselves hiking into the woods while it was still dark. Knowing where the roosting birds were meant we didn’t have to worry about finding turkeys. This is one of the best techniques to hunt an unknown area: Go into possible turkey grounds just before roosting time and do some light calling. If you get gobbles in reply, then you know where the birds are.

We set up with a hen decoy out about 70 yards from where the birds were perched. Waiting again for sunlight and the loud fluttering of wings indicating birds were leaving the roost, we got to enjoy morning as the woods came alive. It is hard to explain to nonhunters what it is like when you’re amongst the trees in the early morning as the forest wakes up – the birds chirping, squirrels chattering and, if you are lucky, a loud gobble.

The turkey flushed and landed nearby. A lone tom came strutting by our hen decoy but just out of shotgun range and then realized he wasn’t with the large flock. He never returned and soon we were headed home.

THE NEXT FEW years I added different calls and locations, as well as got to hang out in the woods with other turkey enthusiasts. I learned how to locate birds and more about their habits. Turkeys have extraordinary eyesight and can run very fast. The birds cover a lot of ground and it is little use to try and cut them off if they are fleeing in the opposite direction.

However, if you know where they are heading, you can circle around them in hopes they slow down to feed, and

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HUNTING

“Looking for sign, setting up, calling and then seeing turkeys will get a budding hunter excited for fall seasons as well,” writes author Jason Brooks, here with son Ryan. (JASON BROOKS)

GOOD OP FOR NEWBIES

T

urkey hunting is one of the best “first hunts” available in the Northwest. If you know of someone who is thinking about getting into hunting, regardless of age, take them out for gobblers.

The excitement of hearing birds and being out in the woods when most other hunters are fishing local lakes makes this a perfect introduction to the pursuit.

It is a combination of big game and small game hunting, meaning you are following big game rules with tags and calling but it is not a large animal that you are after.

Some people who go hunting for the first time have difficulty shooting a deer, but a turkey is often looked at as food and there is less of an emotional attachment. Plus you’ll likely see multiple birds and not have to shoot the first legal one you see. (Only bearded turkeys, which are mostly males but there are some females, are legal in Washington and other states.)

You can hunt turkeys all day long, if you choose, or just go out for a few hours, which is perfect for new hunters.

A single-shot shotgun works well and is good to teach gun safety. Looking for sign, setting up, calling and then seeing turkeys will get a budding hunter excited for fall seasons as well. Overall hunter numbers are declining, so this spring take out someone new because our future depends on it. –JB

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then call them once more.

Unlike deer hunting you don’t have to worry about the wind as far as your scent goes, but their hearing is quite remarkable for such little ear holes and they can make out a purr, cluck, and yelps from some distance away.

Learning to call is key to hunting turkeys. Even if you are a hunter who likes to intercept, or “run and gun” after, the birds a few calls will help you locate them. For those who prefer to call the birds in, knowing what sounds to make and when to make them is key. I prefer to keep it as simple as I can. Turkeys flock together and like any other herd animal, any hazard or sign of danger is met with a sharp sound. This is why it is important to

practice with your calls.

One of the easiest and most fun to use is the slate call, also known as a pot and peg. A small, tight circle makes a cluck and an extended curve makes a yelp. A light pull on the peg can create a soft purr. But when doing any of these movements, if you push down too hard and draw across too fast you make a sharp, loud yelp and this means danger. A slight mistake like this might send the birds the other direction.

Mouth calls are difficult to learn, but once you get the hang of them they are “hands free” and allow for a large range of calls, and you can also “throw” the call to make it sound like it is coming from a different direction

GUNNING FOR GOBS

W

hat shotgun should you use for turkeys? The easy answer is, the one you have. The more important question focuses on your choke, as you need a tight pattern.

You’ll want to use a tight full, extra-full or “turkey” choke. This means no steel shot, as it can damage the barrel and it does not carry as far. Lead and tungsten loads that shoot smaller shot at fast speeds are often used. Some special turkey loads use a combination of shot sizes. The idea is to have a tight pattern that carries out to 40 yards. Some gobblers are taken further than that, but in reality you shouldn’t shoot any farther because you risk injuring a bird that instead runs off and isn’t recovered.

Some swear a larger gauge is needed because turkeys are such large birds. But you are not shooting at the bird; you are shooting at their head. It only takes one shot to hit the mark to get your turkey. All shotguns will shoot the same size shot at the same speed when loaded with an equal dram (dram equivalent is the measurement of black powder to smokeless powder, since shot shells were first loaded with black powder which is measured in drams). So if your 20-gauge grouse gun and 10-gauge goose blaster shoot size 6 shot at the same speed (same dram equivalent), they both “hit” just as hard.

The difference is the amount of shot. One ounce of size 6 shot has about 225 pellets. A standard 2¾-inch 20-gauge shell holds 1 ounce of size 6 shot, or about 225 pellets, while a 2¾-inch 12-gauge load holds 1¼ ounces of shot, or 251 pellets. More pellets means more chances of one hitting the brain of the turkey.

Since you are aiming at the head and shooting at fairly close distances, don’t overlook the tiny .410. Some firearms companies are making “turkey” specific shotguns in this gauge. This is because the shotgun is lightweight, easy to carry and has a mild recoil with the high-velocity shot shells. After all, it only takes one pellet and they are all coming out of the end at the same speed when there’s equal dram equivalent, regardless of gauge size.

In my home state of Washington you can only use a shotgun that is 10 gauge or smaller, a muzzleloading shotgun, bow or crossbow. For shotgun and muzzleloader users the shot must be size 4 or smaller. Again, while this might seem light, you’re aiming for the head. Archery and crossbow hunters aim for the vitals. –JB

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HUNTING

With assists from Kurtis Vaagen working a mouth reed and Michelle Bodenheimer stroking a slate call, Ryan Brooks notched his tag with this spring tom. (JASON BROOKS)

by turning your head. This can mimic multiple birds and lead a gobbler to think there is a group of hens with no boyfriend nearby.

Another easy call is the box call which is an elongated wood box with a flat piece of wood you draw over the top. It can make most of the hen sounds and is simple to use, but be careful on how you carry this call. More than once I’ve had it make noise as my backpack shifted.

The simplest of all the calls is the “push-pull.” It is a small wooden box with a plunger that when you push it, a piece of wood slides across the inside of the box. You can use it to purr and cluck but it is hard to yelp with as it has pretty much just one volume.

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Ryan refuses to use it and makes fun of me when I pull it out to call with.

I admit it is not much of a challenge, but it works, plus you can keep this call in your front hand while holding your shotgun with the other and use it to coax in a nervous bird.

ANDY BYRD IS a turkey nut just like me and is often out scouting for birds with his young daughters, looking for sign and picking up feathers. Scouting is one of the most important keys to successful turkey hunting. Most hunters who scout try and look for live animals, especially deer and elk with big antlers. But when it comes to scouting for turkeys, finding the birds is a bonus because you are really looking for signs of them. Since they can travel

a little ways they might not always be at the same place each day, but they will be in the same general area.

Look for tracks and fresh droppings.

One thing about turkey droppings is that they can tell you if it is a hen or tom. A “J” shaped dropping indicates a gobbler, while a round one or a glob indicates a hen. This is very helpful since you can tell how recently a bird was in the area, as well as if it is a male or female.

It is not a good idea to call during midday when out scouting as the birds might start your way and if you scare them off, then you have just pushed them out of the area. The only time I use calls to locate birds is late in the evening when they are getting ready to roost, or in the early

HUNTING

While it may seem easy, remember that turkeys are wild and wary animals. “A lone tom came strutting by our hen decoy but just out of shotgun range and then realized he wasn’t with the large flock,” Brooks writes. “He never returned and soon we were headed home.” (JASON BROOKS)

morning hours when still in the trees.

Otherwise, I use the tips Andy has taught me to look for signs of birds and if I bump turkeys, I quietly move away from them.

Turkeys have incredible eyesight.

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When hunting them – especially when calling – you need to wear camo. Not just your favorite pattern but one that resembles the foliage in the area you are hunting. Springtime means brighter greens and browns.

A desert camo pattern doesn’t do you any good when you are sitting next to a pine tree with green grasses growing up around you. Be sure to cover your hands and face. Your hands will move the most as you call and pick up

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HUNTING your shotgun, and you will likely be turning your head to look around a fair amount.

You also need to break up your outline, as well as keep in mind that you should never wear any blue, red or white when turkey hunting. That’s because most of the time hunters are seated on the ground at the same height as a turkey, and they’re making turkey sounds with turkey decoys out. It is common to call in other hunters and toms have a red, white and blue head.

THESE LARGE BIRDS are fun to hunt, but

“That first hunt for me was several Aprils ago and ever since, I can’t wait to get out and look for the big birds in spring.”

(JASON BROOKS)

one of the best parts of turkey season is the great table fare the birds provide.

The white-meated breast tastes much like their pen-raised cousins. While the legs and back, where the dark meat is, can be tough, a Crock-Pot or pressure cooker will help tenderize these cuts.

Most hunters end up shredding this meat and making other dishes such as

tacos, enchiladas or casseroles.

The breast is great whether cut into smaller pieces and stir-fried or left whole and slow cooked. One way I like to eat the white meat is to cut it into pieces and pound them flat, panko fry them and make “boneless Buffalo” strips with spicy Buffalo sauce.

Once you start to explore the turkey woods in spring, you might just find yourself foregoing opening day of trout season and picking up the shotgun.

That first hunt for me was several Aprils ago and ever since, I can’t wait to get out and look for the big birds in spring.

I do still try and make it out to catch a few fish, but that is because the turkey opener is a week or so before the start of trout season. Either way, you will probably lose some sleep this spring thinking about all the opportunities our Northwest outdoors offers us. NS

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Scott Lee from SEAL 1 answers that: “There are really two major product categories of gun cleaning and gun care products in the industry. The first category are petroleum-based products; most of the traditional solvents, CLPs (cleaner, lubricant, protectant), greases and gun oils are petroleum based. When you have a petroleum product on and in your firearm and you pull the trigger, you create heat and pressure. This is exactly how we make tar to pave our roads, except we add aggregate. If you are using a petroleum-based product, you are actually exacerbating the fouling problem.

The second category are bio-based (substances derived from living, or once-living organisms) products. The problem here is that most are vegetable oil or vegetable ester based. Vegetable oils or vegetable ester products will dry out and become very gummy or sticky, which is a recipe for disaster.

SEAL 1 CLP Plus products are not petroleum or vegetable oil/ vegetable ester based. They are, however, bio-based and non-toxic. The company started developing what is now SEAL 1 more than 20 years ago and did years of research and development, as well

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HUNTING Gobblers are very wary and will often take their time coming to your setup. Patience is a key to success. (TROY RODAKOWSKI)

How To Get Tough Toms To Commit Oregon hunter shares how he draws overly cautious gobblers into range.

By Troy Rodakowski

T

hey say all good relationships are about commitment and I believe that to be true. In the turkey woods this is also true, and even more so while hunting those lovesick jellyheads. It’s necessary to establish a good dialogue with the birds you intend to hunt this spring and figure out how vocal they really are and how receptive to calls they might be. Here are some rules that have helped a few of my gobblers to close the crucial final few yards over the years.

TO CALL OR NOT TO CALL? This is the ultimate question, right?

Well, you will likely know if you should or shouldn’t call very soon into your engagement. If the gobbler

is loud and moving in quick, then keep doing what you were doing to make him that way. If he cools down, slow your calling and play hard to get.

If the gobbler shuts up and you have heard hen yelps, respond only to the hen and antagonize her. If she gets mad enough, she may just come in to see who’s after her man and bring Romeo along with her.

The silent bird is probably the hardest to read. You know, the one that gobbles two or three times and then seems to vanish into thin air. I’ve learned to just hold my position because more likely than not the tom knows exactly where you are at, so lightly call every 10 to 15 minutes. There’s a 50/50 chance you’ll see a bobbing head within range soon enough.

Most importantly, just make sure

to listen carefully, take your time and assess the situation. Taking the turkey’s temperature, per se, is most important before using your call or deciding which ones to use.

Keeping your calls in your pocket can sometimes be beneficial.

SHOULD I MOVE OR STAY? Run-and-gun turkey hunters move a lot trying to get in front of birds, closer to birds and covering great distance just to find birds. It’s probably one of my favorite ways to hunt turkeys, but I will say that some of the biggest mistakes I have made – and most turkey hunters make – is moving from a setup too early. When I feel like moving, my rule of thumb is to look at the time and give it 15 more minutes, then make the decision to move. nwsportsmanmag.com | APRIL 2020

Northwest Sportsman 161

HUNTING If you haven’t heard anything in a long time, throw out some sharp cutts and a yelp or two to see if you can get the bird to shock gobble. He may not, but it also doesn’t mean he isn’t close.

Really, it’s just a situational call every hunter lives or dies by. Over the many years I have chosen wrong enough to remember. Patience is the key.

Now, if the birds are actively moving, then of course pick up your setup and get in better position either by closing the gap or getting in front of them undetected. This may not give you time to throw out a decoy, but at least you can try to coax the bird or birds in range with a few yelps and purrs.

BUDDY BIRDS These birds are some of the toughest to hunt. “Buddy birds” are two gobblers that hang out together and seem to be very uninterested in hens or breeding.

In this situation where there really is no commitment, I have always

they want, when they want and how they want. So in the turkey world I’m going to classify these boys as almost 95 percent noncommittal. Like I said, it will take some serious patience to bag one of these birds. Patience and persistence are the keys here.

BLIND HUNTING

The author called this turkey in for his father Terry Rodakowski a couple seasons back. The tom only gobbled a handful of times and then went silent.

Sitting tight was the key to Terry’s success.

(TROY RODAKOWSKI)

found that setting up along a travel route frequented by buddies works great if I am willing to put in the time. Gobblers of this sort do what

I’m not literally talking about hunting from a blind but rather an area you have never been or haven’t had a chance to scout. What’s a hunters best bet, might you ask? Find a place that hasn’t had much human activity. If it looks like you will be hunting birds that have already seen lots of action, well, prepare yourself for some very big challenges. So, what does it take to make one of these birds commit to you for a chance at a shot? Honestly, in most cases it will take lots of luck.

Catching these birds in just the right mood is essential. Finding them in a safe pattern that they have

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HUNTING established away from the initial onslaught of hunters and hitting just the right notes with your call will likely be the best bet for you to get one of these fellas to commit to your setup. I recommend calling very lightly and being very elusive.

Try to put yourself in the bird’s mindset. Pressure has made you careful and cautious, so as a hunter your calling should follow suit. Also, I don’t like to use decoys on these particular birds. My experience has yielded more birds than I can count running from the sight of the decoy after coming long distances to a call.

THE LOUD MOUTH Some birds just like to gobble. That is what comes naturally to them, of course, since the hens are actually supposed to find them. We as hunters are actually trying to make nature reverse itself by enticing the gobbler to us. Birds like this can be very difficult and also at

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OREGON OUTLOOK

W

ith mild weather early this year, turkeys west of Oregon’s Cascades will likely be getting down to business sooner than later this spring.

Mikal Cline, state Department of Fish and Wildlife game bird biologist, says the agency is seeing some expansion of birds in the northern Willamette Valley into hazelnut orchards and that they might be a good bet for hunters to explore this season.

Cline also points out that flocks east of the Cascades will likely disperse from the lowlands into the mountains by mid-April this season.

Winter trap and transplant operations in Southcentral Oregon have boosted turkey populations in the Keno, Silvies and Interstate Wildlife Management Units. Range expansion has also been noticed to the north in the Grizzly, Fossil and south Biggs WMUs. There have also been some flocks building up near Ontario on the Idaho/Oregon border, but mainly on private lands.

Hunters are reminded to obtain permission before accessing private lands and also to update and sync their MyODFW apps before entering the woods. Of course, always keep safety in mind for all of us to have a fantastic 2020 turkey season. –TR

Editor’s note: For more forecasts, see the March issue and nwsportsmanmag.com.

times easy to hunt, depending on the situation, of course. Most of the time these birds will hang up and just gobble their heads off, waiting.

A couple seasons back we waited almost three hours for a bird to finally abandon his strut zone and silently sneak in to us. If he wouldn’t have

made that move, our next idea was to try and get right in on him and force his hand. But this tactic can also be very risky and result in spooking the bird. The best bet is to make the decision early and either set up and try to wait him out, or try to get as close as you can without spooking the bird. NS

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Off-Season Tune Ups, Part II: Communication, Conditioning And Breaking I n last month’s Gun Dog column we looked at how to train your dog to push back on blind retrieves.

This month we’re going to look at more offseason training GUN DOGGIN’ 101 tips, and once again

By Scott Haugen we’re turning to noted professional trainer Jesse Spradley.

“This is a great time of year to do a refresher on everything,” begins the owner of Cabin Creek Gun Dogs (541-219-2526, cabincreekgundogs.com) in Lakeview, Oregon. “An important part of dog training is communication; that is, making sure the dog understands what’s being expected by you, and that you’re clearly and consistently communicating that.”

One thing I do that helps strengthen communication with my dogs when training is to never wear sunglasses. You’ve already developed a strong bond with your dog, so you’ve likely noticed they will do anything to please you. In fact, their drive to please you is so strong, I’m a firm believer they try to read minds. One way dogs feed their need to please you is through eye contact. They can often tell by the look in your eyes what you’re thinking, how you feel and what you’re going to do or say next.

To enhance communication skills, try concentrating on eye contact and what messages you’re sending to your dog while training.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT TIP from Spradley is to not let your dog become a couch potato in the offseason.

“This time of year your dog should be in great condition, so maintain that.

Eye contact and clear communication are essential when training in order for your dog to learn what’s expected. Here, professional trainer Jess Spradley works with Captain, his prized male pudelpointer. (SCOTT HAUGEN) nwsportsmanmag.com | APRIL 2020

Northwest Sportsman 167

COLUMN Spring is the time to correct any bad habits your dog may have picked up during hunting season, as they’re in good shape and eager to be afield. (SCOTT HAUGEN)

have your dog swim beside you, or head out on a paddle board. Water training is a great, low-impact workout for all dogs, especially aging, arthritic dogs.”

My wife loves swimming in the summer, and our dogs swim with her a lot. They’ll often swim in lakes, covering surprising distances and getting far from shore.

This is fun for the dogs and is a great workout.

“THIS IS ALSO a good time to work out any

Be sure and get out every day with your dog, working on both training and conditioning,” he says.

As temperatures begin to warm up, Spradley suggests running your dogs early in the day.

“Once daytime temperatures start getting into the 80s, I’ll run my dogs in the

168 Northwest Sportsman

APRIL 2020 | nwsportsmanmag.com

morning for at least an hour, three times a week. Not only will this keep them in shape, it’ll keep their pads tough too,” he says.

“If early morning and evening training sessions don’t fit into your schedule, condition your dog in the water,” continues Spradley. “Hop in a canoe or kayak and

kinks you encountered during hunting season,” encourages Spradley. “One of the biggest reasons people bring their dogs back to me to train this time of year is to keep them from breaking on the shot. This is something you can fix, on your own, and the process further strengthens the bond between you and your dog.”

“A dog often breaks when multiple shots are fired from the blind or when multiple birds fall,” notes Spradley. “They’re simply confused with all that’s happening, so to fix this, take a step-by-step approach.

“First, head to a duck blind you can

COLUMN

The next hunting season is still months and months away, and to enjoy it to its fullest now is the time to brush up on your dog’s training and correct any behavioral glitches that may have popped up this past season. (SCOTT HAUGEN) train and shoot from with a dead bird in hand, like a training pigeon or starling, or maybe a duck skin you saved from the season that’s secured to a bumper. With your dog watching, and sitting, toss it out, commanding the dog to stay. Don’t let the dog fetch until you release it. Repeat this

a couple times, then toss it out and fire a shot from your shotgun, keeping the dog by your side until released. Make sure the dog retrieves the bird to hand.

“I’ll spend 15 to 20 minutes on each step – watching the bird fall, the retrieve, and the fetch to hand – and will do this a

couple times a night, three times a week.”

I struggled to polish the first step of this training process with one of my dogs that started breaking too quickly, so I had my son help me. He tossed out the dummy and fired a shot from 30 yards away while I managed the dog. In a few training sessions the problem was fixed.

“Even professional trainers need the help of a friend now and then, so don’t be afraid to call someone,” encourages Spradley. “When I do this, I dedicate time on a weekend so the training process isn’t rushed. Sometimes a friend picks up on something you’re missing too.”

If you’re unsure of what to do in any training process, see a trainer, as you don’t want to engrain bad habits into your dog. Whatever training you’re doing this offseason, be sure to make it positive for the dog, and keep it fun for both of you. NS Editor’s note: To watch Scott Haugen’s series of puppy training videos, visit scotthaugen .com. Follow Scott on Instagram and Facebook.

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170 Northwest Sportsman

APRIL 2020 | nwsportsmanmag.com

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Northwest Sportsman 171

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