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Northwest Sportsman 7

Sportsman Northwest

Your LOCAL Hunting & Fishing Resource

Volume 8 • ISSUE 7 PUBLISHER James R. Baker

SMOKERCRAFT PHANTOM OFFSHORE

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Dick Openshaw EDITOR Andy Walgamott COPY EDITING Katie Sauro LEAD WRITERS

Jeff Holmes, Andy Schneider CONTRIBUTORS

Ralph Bartholdt, Randall Bonner, Jason Brooks, Tim Bush, Dennis Dauble, Chris Gregersen, Zac Holmes, Doug Huddle, Randy King, Terry Otto, Rob Phillips, Buzz Ramsey, Troy Rodakowski, Todd Switzer, Dave Workman

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SALES MANAGER Katie Higgens ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Becca Ellingsworth, Mamie Griffin, Steve Joseph, Mike Smith, Paul Yarnold DESIGNERS Beth Harrison, Sonjia Kells, Sam Rockwell, Liz Weickum PRODUCTION MANAGER John Rusnak PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Kelly Baker OFFICE MANAGER/ACCOUNTING Audra Higgins

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Capt. Todd Girtz manhandles a pair of Neah Bay halibut, caught in 2013. (TODDSEXTREMEFISHING.COM) NEW FEATURE! TYPO OF THE ISSUE

Editor Walgamott is particularly lazy, but even he couldn’t stomach sending you to fish a death zone or risk the ire of the Cookie Monster for wastefulness, had these two typos made it press: 1) “Indian Beach, Ebola State Park: The rocks adjacent to this beach can be fished well during a low tide ...”; 2) “Most anglers now peg one or two large No. 4 black cookies halfway down their leaders.” Make that Ecola and Corkies!

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

MAY 2015

Northwest Sportsman 9

CONTENTS

VOLUME 8 • ISSUE 7

FEATURES 42

81

59 81 91 105 116

Springer Flings

133 143 153 159

Rockfish – off Oregon’s rocky and surprisingly fishy headlands Neah Bay bottomfishing Tillamook halibut, springers Willamette River spring Chinook 5-salmon-species challenge Northwest year-round trout calendar, part 2 Columbia Gorge smallmouth Mid-Columbia, Snake spinyrays Late-season Westside bears 3 tactics for wary May turkey

DEPARTMENTS 13 15 16 23 29 32 35 39 40

Spring Chinook head for their natal waters this month, and we put you on them, from Tillamook County to the Willamette, Yakima and Snake-Salmon system! (DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST)

79

Editor’s Note Correspondence Big Pic: Last stand for Lower 48 mountain caribou Real Women Of Northwest Fishing: McMinnville’s Sara Dodd Reader Photos From The Field Daiwa, Browning Photo Contest winners Dishonor Roll: Illegal gillnetters, trophy elk poachers sentenced; Kudos; Jackass of the Month Derby Watch: Grande Ronde steelhead, Sound blackmouth derby results, upcoming events Outdoor Calendar; Record Northwest Game Fish Caught This Month Rig of the month: From The Vault – Oregon deepwater halibut rig

COLUMNS 51

THE KAYAK GUYS New to offshore halibut? Longtime kayak angler Todd has how to handle the toughest part: killing and lashing the beast to the boat.

97

BASIN BEACON Even as it’s grim news for fruit growers, low snowpack could make for great springer fishing on the Yakima, Rob Phillips reports.

137 STUMPTOWN Last issue, Terry covered the best Portland whiskerfisheries; this issue, he takes a look at Southwest Washington’s top channel cat lakes.

65

WESTSIDER “Lingcod Todd” Girtz has built a reputation on catching the biggest fish in the sea – Tim reveals his tips for large lings and kong kings.

101 INLAND NORTHWEST Downstream anglers have had their crack at kings, and now Idaho salmon fishermen get a go.

149 CHEF IN THE WILD Mix equal parts Spanish-influenced cuisine with a boy’s first fish and what do you get? Randy’s bluegill escabeche.

71

NORTH SOUND Doug details the Juan’s hali haunts and the Sound’s only May movingwater op: Skagit Delta char and cutts.

127 BUZZ RAMSEY With practically no winter to speak of, mountain troutin’ is starting early this year, and Buzz has tips for your next alpine outing.

165 ON TARGET Let there be light and more bang, says Dave, who has the word on new flashlights and reloading gear.

SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Go to nwsportsmanmag.com for details.

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

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THEEDITOR’SNOTE

“D

ickie-bird” lovers may be as strong of conservationists as we hunters. That’s what a study released by two universities earlier this year suggested. In being a notall-too-unexpected result, it provided an insight into the other side for the “binoculars and bullets” set.

“Both birdwatchers and hunters were more likely than non-recreationists Eric Bell (left), a hunterto enhance land for wildlife, donate birdwatcher, the strongest to conservation organizations and kind of conservationist, advocate for wildlife – all actions that according to a recent study, helps the editor drag his significantly impact conservation 2013 buck. (MIKE ARMSTRONG) success,” reported Clemson and Cornell.

Surveying a variety of rural Upstate New York residents to predict conservation values, they found that “birdwatchers are about five times as likely, and hunters about four times as likely, as non-recreationists to engage in wildlife and habitat conservation.”

It would be interesting to find out if their results can be replicated here, but it reconfirms ancient news: Egyptian tablets report on the link between hunting and conservation. OK, maybe not that far back, but coming out of the rape that was market hunting, those of us who chase deer, elk, migratory birds and other species have long been associated with caring for critters. Through excise taxes and stamps, we have contributed billions to habitat and restoration.

Yep, you bet, a lot of that is flat-out to help bucks and bulls, but it also provides for the rest of the Ark’s brood.

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BIRDWATCHING’S LINKAGE WITH conservation isn’t as clear, and the term dickie-bird lover – which I know from Vence Malernee, one of the most hardcore sportsmen to have lived in the Northwest – is a disparagement that rose as game agencies began to fold in missions beyond wildlife featuring tasty meat and/or big racks. There’s a clear connection between buying a duck stamp and seeing wetlands bought and restored, but the question has always been, how does hanging out on the Skagit Flats and watching the snow geese lead to more money for wildlife? There’s no excise on binoculars, and fortunately, there’s never been one on Polaroids and rolls of slide film – otherwise, wildlife would be up Dry Slough without a paddle.

There’s also tension at the management level because of the implications of adding more chairs to the table. But as I’ve written before, we and the agencies that manage animals should be looking for allies, and those folks with the life lists might be some.

“Birdwatchers, a group not traditionally thought of as a constituency by many wildlife management agencies, have real potential to be conservation supporters if appropriate mechanisms for them to contribute are available,” wrote one of the authors of the universities’ study. The $64,000 question is, what are those tools?

Last thought: Know who researchers found to be the most ardent conservationists? “Hunter-birdwatchers had the greatest likelihood of engaging in all types of conservation behaviors.” –Andy Walgamott

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CORRESPONDENCE ON SPRINGER CATCH STATISTICS (LIES, ALL LIES) Every March and April, Columbia spring Chinook managers send out a regiment of creel checkers to boat ramps and beaches between Bonneville and Buoy 10, chat up 20 to 25 percent of anglers, collate the data, multiply by a set factor, and come up with the week’s catch estimate. One biologist forwards it to another who sends out word to newshounds who eagerly post stories … and then run like heck.

Which is to say we got some feedback in mid- and late March from anglers who didn’t quite buy ODFW and WDFW’s weekly figures: “One thousand fish kept! You guys are off your rockers! Tell whoever guessed that number to quit guessing,” said Denny King on nwsportsmanmag.com. Scott Salmon wrote on Facebook, “Almost comical,” while Carole Barnhart pointed out, “I know of only two fish caught in the area where I fish. This is far less (10 percent, perhaps) of the normal number caught by now. If they can’t catch fish with gillnets (test fishing), there aren’t many fish present (yet).” Meanwhile, Arten Easty had his own interesting theory: “They must be counting the seal and sea lion catch, because sport fishing has been nowhere near that, especially last week.”

CHANGES ON THE COMMISSION – OR MAYBE NOT Word in mid-March that longtime member Miranda Wecker was suddenly resigning from the Washington’s Fish & Wildlife Commission came as a surprise. The natural resources policy lawyer who lives in Naselle has led the citizen panel through some tough times and tough issues, and done so in a thoughtful way. Governor Jay Inslee’s office said the move was “not about politics or policy,” but rather “time to make a change in order to improve collaboration on the commission.” However, recreational anglers weren’t ready for her to step down. Wrote Marsha Schaefer on our Facebook page, “Hopefully, our emails make a difference and she stays until the end of her term. She is one awesome lady!”

Meanwhile, news that Dave Graybill, the Central Washington fishing writer/broadcaster/videographer, was joining the commission drew cheers from the state’s Outdoor Journalists Syndicate, and Steve Parsons immediately saw the possibilities: “Maybe Dave will do a video on how the commission operates.”

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Last Stand For Our Mountain Caribou Washington, Idaho and BC’s super-rare South Selkirk herd now only numbers 14 due to wolf predation. Will we do something about it?

By Jeff Holmes

Overwhelming evidence from Canadian and American tribal biologists shows that wolves are to blame for a recent rash of Selkirk mountain caribou depredations and a calf survival rate of 5.6 percent – less than half of what is needed to sustain the herd. Here, Kalispel tribal biologist Bart George holds up the remains of one of the world’s rarest mammals, less than 24 hours after a wolf pack killed and devoured it last September. (KALISPEL TRIBE)

METALINE FALLS, Wash.—A few Selkirk mountain caribou still live in the highmountain forests of the extreme corner of Northeast Washington and northernmost Idaho along the Canadian border, splitting time in British Columbia. These caribou are the rarest and most overlooked mammal in North America and one of the rarest on Earth. Black-footed ferrets and Florida panthers are booming in numbers, comparatively, and even in the environmentally degraded wilds of China, there are 19 panda bears for every mountain caribou we’ve allowed to survive in the southern Selkirks of the U.S. and Canada. Even here in the world’s richest and most powerful nation with the greatest history of wildlife and landscape conservation on the planet, we are about to allow this rare form of woodland caribou to wink out and go extinct.

Disgustingly, after decades of compromises, many millions of dollars, thousands of miles of closed roads, and upticking caribou populations by the late 2000s, homegrown and national wildlife extremists have followed the foundation money and switched teams from caribou

activists to wolf activists. Meanwhile, though they have recently been forced to reevaluate their thinking, federal U.S. wildlife managers almost appeared to be abandoning caribou recovery in the Lower 48 to Canada with their tenfold reduction of critical habitat and proposed upgrading of the species’ status from endangered to threatened.

TODAY, ONE PRIMARY caribou mortality source is squarely in the sights of BC biologists, with full support from First Nations biologists and the Kalispel and Kootenai Tribes here in America, and that is wolves. Cougars have long preyed upon caribou during recovery efforts – bears too occasionally – but the sudden, jolting impact of wolf recolonization in the heart of the most susceptible recovery zone has caribou numbers exactly in line with the number of wildlife “conflict specialists” employed today by the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife. Fourteen.

Those specialists have been hired by the state primarily to work the impossible job of managing wolves under WDFW’s management and conservation plan, which is unwieldy, unsupportable by common sense and a product of political compromises leveraged by wolf extremists. Paying the bills to manage to its onerous requirements is taking time, money and energy away from the rest of our state’s fish and wildlife, including species that truly need help. WDFW and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service are both charged with recovering caribou under state and federal endangered species acts, respectively, and USFWS has more oversight and responsibility than WDFW. While Washington state managers are disappointing on the subject of wolves, it’s the feds who ignored common sense that wolves were gonna eat caribou. I’ve been complaining about the inevitability for almost a decade, as have many others.

The 14 South Selkirk mountain caribou that have not yet become wolf turds struggle daily in a harsh environment to avoid a disproportionately high population of predators, especially wolves.

The story of their decline is of course

much more complicated than just wolves, historically. Logging, road building, predation, poaching and human intrusion, in general, were all factors in the decline of the most elegant of our North American deer species over a century. Changing forest structure brought other ungulate species into the high country, and carnivores naturally followed. It will likely take decades before the woods return to their former caribou-friendly state, and moose, deer and their pursuers retreat. But in the meanwhile, data from Canadian and tribal biologists show an exact correlation between wolf population increases and a caribou population crash.

MOUNTAIN CARIBOU ONCE lived across a much larger swath of the Northwest, ranging as far south as Idaho’s St. Joe River and elsewhere in high-elevation forests in the Selkirks and other Rocky Mountain subranges of Washington, Idaho and Northwest Montana. Today they are confined by their small numbers to a postage-stamp-sized range. Caribou were able to persist in small numbers only in the Salmo-Priest Wilderness and adjoining lands, as they were extirpated from their former range.

It’s in this amoeba-shaped area between BC’s Salmo Pass, Idaho’s Priest Lake and Washington’s Salmo-Priest where many believe it’s necessary to completely remove or significantly retard wolves as caribou recovery continues. There is scarcely a species on the landscape doing better than wolves, and in no way would a small wolf-free zone during caribou recovery endanger wolf recolonization one bit. Managing their numbers to protect caribou is the obvious choice for those operating in reality, like British Columbia and Tribes in the U.S. and Canada. Unlike the ineffectual wildlife managers south of the border, BC’s Ministry of Forestry, Land, and Natural Resource Operations is actively protecting our shared Selkirk herd, as well as other caribou herds elsewhere in the province under threat from wolves.

Their plan is to kill 24 wolves just north of the border and another 156 elsewhere in the province to protect other caribou

populations. This is the best, most rational reaction to the science that a caribou lover could ask for, gun-toting or not.

Today, WDFW and USFWS look on through their wolf-colored glasses as tribes in the Lower 48 and First Nations in Canada abandon hope in the U.S. and look north of the border and to the law for their only chances to recover caribou.

IN RECENT DECADES, three primary sources of mortality have played the largest role in managers’ inability to bring caribou back close to acceptable numbers, despite excellent habitat and increased protections that include road closures and seasonal restrictions galore. Predators are number one, followed by Disneyheaded whackadoos populating and supporting environmental and animal extremist groups enabling unchecked predation, followed by the managers themselves. The same environmental groups that fought for wolves on the landscape now block their reasonable management (case in point: March’s federal lawsuit filed by five organizations against USDA Wildlife Services’ ability to lethally remove wolves in Washington), all while waging a campaign of emotional appeals, biologically unsupportable positions and direct attacks on biologists and anyone who disagrees with their emotional imperative to prevent the death of predators at all costs.

Some of those same environmental groups danced in the streets of Spokane and elsewhere dressed as caribou in the 1990s and 2000s. I saw them in person and cringed. They beat the drum (literally) for protecting caribou, but through only one strategy: large-scale land protections that include wilderness and roadlessarea designations, road closures and use restrictions. Big, wealthy national foundations that provide funding for local and national environmental groups partly dictate the focus for groups that take money. In the ’90s and most of the 2000s, much of that funding stream was geared toward caribou recovery. Yes, surely there MAY 2015

Northwest Sportsman 17

MIXED BAG was real effort and sentiment to recover caribou by those groups, but the species was a means to an end to protect roadless habitat, a primary goal of the environmental movement and its funders.

As the wolf A chart that made the rounds between international wolf and mountain caribou issue has ramped managers shows 2014 caribou (purple line) and wolf populations (blue line) in the south Selkirks, where the rare ungulates wander across the US-Canada border. up around the wilderness, at least in the current political West, more dollars and attention has been climate. Essentially, Northwest green thrown at wolves than anything else, and groups cut and ran from caribou as their much of the foundation money now goes erection for wolves and wolf dollars grew. to the wolf issue and the protection of Wolves provided an easier means to other predators. Wolves, bears, cougars, achieve rewilding objectives and to rally wolverines and lynx are beautiful and public support. Just as wolves change fascinating animals, and furry critters are their feeding preferences to ensure their easier to sell to followers and funders easiest survival, so do preservationist than the abstract notion of preserving

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animal advocates when it comes to money and allegiance.

Canadian animal activists are incensed that their government is killing wolves, regardless of any biological data or concern for caribou that they once rallied behind, just like their American counterparts. These extremists argue that killing one species to save another defies conservation and fails to acknowledge real reasons behind declining caribou.

This moralizing is better left for the pages of unread environmental journals, not a real-life management scenario where wolves are chomping on a species now numbering 14.

THINK ABOUT A little herd of 14 elk, or 14 deer. We can all picture that.

Now imagine that was all that was left, period. Would your heart be broken by the loss of animals that sustained your families for decades of hunts? Such is the case with caribou for the Kalispel Tribe,

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MIXED BAG whose ceded lands span a couple million acres of Washington, Idaho and Montana.

Along with the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, the Kalispels depended on caribou as a reliable winter food source for at least hundreds of years.

The Kalispel consider themselves Bear People. Bears are very spiritually powerful to them, not just because they are physically powerful forces on the landscape, but also because they were bear hunters. Their Selkirk home has never offered great riches of ungulates, and winters are harsh. To ensure winter survival in a mountain landscape, Kalispels adapted to what protein was available, which meant digging out wintering black bears and grizzlies for survival. Just as they knew where harvestable bears were in winter, the Kalispels similarly depended on caribou. While not confined to dens, caribou follow predictable patterns in winter and are easy to track. Tribal history shows caribou as one of the most

With almost no help and significant hurt from wolf-promulgating state and federal agencies, the Kalispels and other Tribes have joined forces with Canadian biologists in British Columbia to monitor, protect and enhance the tiny herd of 14 transnational caribou that wolves and cougars have not yet eaten.

(KALISPEL TRIBE)

important sources of winter protein.

Today the Tribe has no interest in hunting caribou, but is deeply committed to fighting as hard as needed to keep them from winking out. Protecting caribou and

all species from extinction or extirpation is a cornerstone of Kalispel belief, and they are putting their money where their Continued on page 173

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MIXED BAG Patience paid off with a productive day of catch-and-release fishing for wild steelhead in the Siletz gorge for Sara Dodd. (RANDALL BONNER)

No Bad Days For Sara Not just another pretty face, Sara Dodd has an authentic passion for fishing.

By Randall Bonner

I

f you’ve paid attention to this publication recently, you’ve noticed that we put a lot of energy into

highlighting women who have an authentic love for the outdoors. While many hook-and-bullet magazines feature advertisements of scantily clad females in heels promoting guns and gear, there are women outside that spotlight who are opening camo compacts and putting on seafoamgreen waders, proving that they’re as capable on Northwest waters as

any man, all without handing in their woman card.

Sara Dodd not only fits the mold for the Real Women of Northwest Fishing feature as a legitimate angler, she sets a standard. A native of Southern Oregon, she grew up fishing the Rogue, but these days you’ll be more likely to find the McMinnville resident fishing Tillamook waters. If you’ve seen a pair of gals in

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Northwest Sportsman 23

MIXED BAG goofy costumes in the front seat of guide David Johnson’s boat, that’s Dodd and her fishing buddy Kristin Bishop.

I WAS FORTUNATE enough to have Dodd and her father Larry introduce me to the Wilson River in early March. With the water barely at a trickle, she launched a Northwest Boats drifter and rowed us two hefty men through some very skinny water. As we approached the first pinch point, she made it politely clear to her father that he needed to sit down, and that I needed to shift my weight to the right. Larry answered, “Yes, dear,” and took a seat while I followed the captain’s orders. She then proceeded to tell me how she borrowed the boat from a fellow Coastal Conservation Association member, Marty Theurer, who rescued it from sitting in an old farmer’s barn. I got a history lesson behind Northwest Boats being bought out by Clackacraft 20 years ago while she rowed us downstream, avoiding her fair share of obstacles with ease.

While Dodd, who is 31, exhibited confidence on the oars, we didn’t

Combining crazy costumes and having fun comes naturally for kids at heart Sara Dodd (left) and her friend Kristin Bishop. (DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST) 24 Northwest Sportsman

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have high expectations for the day. We were one of only three boats on the entire stretch, one of which was wellknown local guide “Big Dave” Manners, owner of the Wilson River Lodge (wilsonriverlodge.com). The water was so low and clear that the chances of us hooking anything in the few puddles we could drift over seemed bleak. I was floating 8mm beads, trying to present something subtle to spooky fish. Dodd was chucking a bead nearly twice the size of mine. Her father landed a trophysized cutthroat on a spoon, but most of the holes seemed to be holding nothing more than a few very late fall salmon.

We stopped the boat to get out and fish a hole on the opposite side of an island we had drifted past. Just as I made sense of her presentation and switched to something closer to a Chinook-egg-sized bead, she hooked up on a nice chrome hatchery buck.

While I was scurrying around holding a net, she brought the fish into slackwater to beach it. Just about the time she had its head flopping in the gravel, I went to reach for the fish’s tail and tripped on the basket of the net. The winterrun freaked out, broke the line and I stumbled clumsily up the bank trying to swat at it in one last futile attempt to get between her trophy shot in a magazine and that fish’s freedom. I could make up a story about how it was a wild fish and we were being good river stewards caring more about the fish than getting pictures, but I’ve told that fib so many times nobody believes it anymore.

“Slimy, scaly, stinky, louse-ridden, beady-eyed sons-a-bitches!” her father exclaimed. I won’t repeat what Dodd said because she’s a lady. Let’s just say I took a walk to give her a moment to herself, while I stood in a corner and thought about the sloppiest landing job I’ve ever done. She seemed to get over it pretty quickly, but that was the only steelhead we touched all day and I kept replaying the moment over and over in my head until it haunted my dreams.

I wanted to set up another trip for us to stomp the banks on some

Not just an angler, Dodd gets out after deer too. Here she poses with a blacktail taken last fall.

(MARTY THEURER)

water that we were both familiar with.

Unfortunately, Dodd’s busy schedule and the oncoming spring salmon season competed with our mulligan, but she made time to fish one afternoon a week later. She managed to spot a few fish that weren’t interested in biting.

Again, it was a low-water situation late in the season, so fresh chrome winters were few and far between. While she has a long successful history as an avid hunter and angler, I grew frustrated with failing to bring her a fish to the bank to make up for my faux pas on the Wilson.

I got grumpy, and started complaining and making excuses. Dodd, running on very little sleep already, had to leave the river early to get back to her job as a CT/X-ray technologist. Even though we both had little to show for our combined knowledge, skills and experience, she exhibited the one quality that is a priority for fishing: patience. That would pay off on our next adventure.

THE SILETZ GORGE would provide us with some fruits for our labor. In late March, as the end of winter steelhead season neared, rains earlier in the week had given the Central Coast river some color, so I was floating a larger bead

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Northwest Sportsman 25

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in the morning. The water started to clear, and at about the same time I went to downsize, Dodd, one step ahead of me, was hooked up. Then she hooked another, and another and another. In just a couple hours, we hooked half a dozen wild steelhead decked out in beautiful spawning patterns. She hooked five out of the same hole. I spent most of that morning throwing my gear up the bank and scrambling to land her fish.

The experience we had fishing together served as a good example for any woman (or man, for that matter) aspiring to be a successful steelheader.

Not because we were consistently successful, but because she was determined to overcome adversity.

In a modern culture of instant gratification, patience is required to enjoy fishing. Fishing and hunting are not sports where everyone gets a trophy.

If you don’t enjoy putting in the work as much as the reward that comes from it, then it isn’t for you. Dodd says she is drawn as much by the anticipation of a bite as she is the adrenaline of the fight.

“Fishing is my therapy. I think about nothing. It’s calming,” she says.

Dodd has mastered the zen and art of enjoying being on the water – sometimes going the extra mile to create a few smiles along the way, a la those crazy costumes.

Sponsorships and pro-staff gigs aren’t the motive behind the interesting wardrobe selections. It’s more Cyndi Lauper, “Girls just want to have fun!”

“Growing up, fishermen have always been serious and competitive about the sport,” Dodd says when asked about the outfits she and friend Kristin Bishop put on.

Far too often I’ve found myself frowning at googans and snaggers ruining my trip. Those days I’d give anything to replace them all with a shameless comedian. That’s the fishing buddy Dodd aims to be to those she shares the water with. Her positive attitude, patience and pleasant company make it quite clear why she’s fished with some of the top guides and anglers in the Northwest. Who wouldn’t want to fish with someone who doesn’t have bad days? NS

MAY 2015

Northwest Sportsman 27

28 Northwest Sportsman

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MIXED BAG It’s a looooong flight from Paul Donheffner’s hometown of Salem to Aukland, but was well worth it – after winning a New Zealand hunt at the Oregon Hunters Association’s banquet, he downed this 17-point red stag on the South Island in mid-March.

(BROWNING PHOTO CONTEST)

Well, maybe not quite that big, but a pretty nice Olympic Peninsula winter steelhead nonetheless for Eddie Fox. He was fishing the Hoh in mid-February. (DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST)

Kamryne Bruno to Friday the 13ths for the rest of forever and ever: “Bring it on!” That’s the March day the 10-year-old landed this whale of a rainbow out of tiny Mattoon Lake, just south of Ellensburg. (DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST) Right about the time we were putting the finishing touches on last issue’s big-bass-may-bebiting-early-this-year piece, what should bite Dustin Sharpe’s set-up but this Willamette Valley bucketmouth.

(DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST)

This issue marks the start of our brand-new Daiwa fishing photo contest! Monthly winners will receive a Daiwa hat, T-shirt and scissors for cutting braided line, and the grand prize winner will receive a Daiwa rod-and-reel combo! You can enter the contest by emailing your full-resolution, original images with all the pertinent details – who’s in the pic and their hometown; when, where and what they caught their fish on; and any other details you’d like to reveal (the more, the merrier!) – to awalgamott@media-inc.com.

MAY 2015

Northwest Sportsman 29

MIXED BAG After lucking into a moose tag for Idaho’s Shoshone County, Spokane’s Don McGinnis bagged this handsome Shiras there last September. The bull’s 161 6/8 rack made the Boone & Crockett record book, and the animal has provided month’s worth of fork-tender crockpot fixin’s. (BROWNING PHOTO CONTEST)

Anthony Roseman can’t get enough fishing, says his dad, Wayne, so naturally when the Longview lad spent midwinter break in North Pole, Alaska, with his grandma, he hit up nearby Chena Lake for rainbows, salmon, grayling and char. The Fairbanks-area lake features rentable ice fishing huts.

Closer to home, Anthony can be found prowling Silver Lake.

(DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST)

Talk about the power of positive thinking!

Until that day last July on Coos Bay, Karen Bigby of Southern Oregon had caught precisely one other fish in her entire life, an 8-inch bass out of Lake of the Woods while at summer camp 43 years before. Fishing near the Port of Charleston Marina, she says she “visualized a giant silver fish and whispered a brief prayer for divine assistance only moments before my rod popped down and the fight began.” At the other end, this 54-pound, 42-inch-long Chinook – glory hallelujah! (DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST) 30 Northwest Sportsman

MAY 2015

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Northwest Sportsman 31

PHOTO CONTEST

WINNERS!

Matt Gibson is our inaugural Daiwa Photo Contest winner, thanks to his photo of daughter Wylie and their Clackamas River spring Chinook. It wins him a Daiwa hat, T-shirt and scissors for cutting braided line, and puts him in the running for the grand prize of a Daiwa rod-and-reel combo!

Our monthly Browning Photo Contest winner is Josh Etringer, who sent this pic of Danica Denham and her first duck hunt ever.

They and Teal the German wirehair were on the Skagit Delta last season.

It scores him a Browning hat!

Sportsman Northwest

Your LOCAL Hunting & Fishing Resource

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

32 Northwest Sportsman

MAY 2015

!

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Northwest Sportsman 33

34 Northwest Sportsman

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MIXED BAG

Trio Sentenced For Illegal Gillnetting

A

fter the solid sentences that four men got for illegally gillnetting trout at one Grant County lake, the penalty handed down to three others who were caught with 376 whitefish and seven nets one night last December at another lake left a bit to be desired.

“For a commercial operation like this, I think the penalties should have been higher,” WDFW Capt. Chris Anderson told the Spokane Spokesman-Review.

In March, the trio, identified by the newspaper as Victor Lala, 42, Sergei Lala, 52, and Leonid Lala, 47, received a combined $1,700 in fines as well as 56 hours of community service.

By comparison, the quartet who were caught with 242 Lake Lenore Lahontan

JACKASS OF THE MONTH The case of a despicable “hunting” – if it can be called that – operation wrapped up in late winter with the sentencing of an Oregon guide who worked for Christopher W. Loncarich of Colorado. Nicholaus J. Rodgers of Medford received three years probation, six months of confinement at home, 50 hours of community service and $5,000 in fines for his part in the catching and caging of mountain lions and bobcats in Utah and Colorado for clients of Loncarich’s to later shoot. Loncarich charged from $700 to $7,500 per hunt.

To his credit, Rodgers appears to have had misgivings and was said to cooperate with federal authorities, and it was Loncarich who deservedly got both barrels. He received over two years in jail plus a lengthy probation for conspiracy to violate the interstate Lacey Act. And it’s possible that, through the Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact, Loncarich may never hunt and fish again.

By Andy Walgamott cutthroat in 2012 got nearly three weeks of jail apiece and were fined over $4,000.

The prosecutor who held those men’s feet to the fire was voted out of office last year.

With a rise in illegal gillnetting during Banks Lake’s winter whitefish spawn, WDFW officers had staked out the south end of the reservoir on Dec. 8. After a brief chase, they arrested the three Tacoma men and seized their nets. Just as with the cutthroat, the whitefish were

Washington game wardens seized 376 whitefish and seven nets from three men illegally gillnetting at Banks Lake last December. (WDFW) able to be salvaged.

Somehow, the overlimit charge against Victor Lala was dropped by the court. The daily limit is 15.

Noting the hard work that goes into making cases such as this, Anderson told the newspaper that he was disappointed with the result.

Plea Deal In Asotin Trophy Elk Poaching Case A father and son who poached and largely wasted a pair of trophy bull elk in Southeast Washington last fall took a plea deal offered by county prosecutors in mid-March.

While much of the jail time and court fines that Richard J. Kramer, 39, of Anatone, Wash., and Johnathan R. Kramer, 23, of Lewiston, Idaho, could have received for pleading guilty to illegal hunting, wastage, transportation and trespassing were suspended or whittled down to nominal amounts, they were still handed a $12,000 criminal wildlife penalty for shooting the 7x6 and 6x6 bulls.

That can be imposed on those who poach elk with more than five points on both beams (not including eyeguards) and deer with more than four points on both antlers (again, not including eyeguards).

WDFW officers Matt Sabo and Doug King and the heads of the two trophy bull elk that Richard J. Kramer and his son Johnathan P. Kramer poached last November. (WDFW) “My hope is that everyone else in our community will decide that it simply is not worth it to hunt illegally or poach animals when they see the significant amount of fines and fees that the Kramers now owe as well as the jail time to which they were sentenced,” Catherine Enright, Asotin County deputy prosecutor, told a local radio station.

“In the grand scheme of things it’s probably an indication of prosecutors being understaffed and overworked,” WDFW Sgt. Paul Mosman told outdoor

MAY 2015

Northwest Sportsman 35

reporter Eric Barker of the Lewiston Tribune. “Across the state, they dismiss a lot of (poaching cases), so it’s nice to see them go through with this one.”

According to local news reports, early last November the Kramers were driving near the junction of Wiessenfels Ridge Road and Kisecker Road southeast of Anatone when the two bulls turned up in their headlights.

Richard Kramer told officers that he shot them while his son held the spotlight, according to the radio station.

Officers were tipped off to the crime after he bragged about it at a Clarkston business. A visit to their trailer turned up fresh elk meat and the bulls’ heads.

Both were charged in January with two counts of second-degree unlawful big game hunting, two counts of firstdegree waste of big game, two counts

of first-degree unlawful transportation of wildlife, two counts of seconddegree spotlighting and one count of retrieving wildlife from the property of another. The elder Kramer had also been charged with two counts of unlawfully using a firearm. The spotlighting charges were dismissed, but the other charges largely led to $150 fines instead of larger maximums.

Richard Kramer was given two years of probation and because of a medical condition, either 10 days in jail or home monitoring, while his son was sentenced to 10 days in jail as well as two years of probation, according to local reports.

In addition, they both will lose their Washington hunting privileges for two years, as well as in dozens of other states, thanks to the interstate wildlife compact.

KUDOS

Officer Cal Treser (second from right) accepts his award in the company of WDFW brass, including Director Jim Unsworth, Wildlife Program Assistant Director Nate Pamplin and Chief Steve Crown. (WDFW) A longtime North-central Washington game protector was named WDFW Law Enforcement Program’s employee of the year in late winter.

Officer Cal Treser was lauded for his “positive attitude, dedication and selflessness, and engagement as a community member in the Okanogan.”

Particularly noted was his sense of duty

36 Northwest Sportsman

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this past summer when the Carlton Complex fire swept near his home but he went to help others. In recent years, he performed key work in the investigation of a bear-baiting case above Winthrop. Treser received his award at the Safari Club International Northwest Chapter’s annual fundraiser and banquet in late February.

MAY 2015

Northwest Sportsman 37

WENATCHEE SALMON DERBY

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Lake Pend Oreille Idaho Club Annual Spring Derby, April 25-May 3; lpoic.org/blog

The Detroit Lake Fishing Derby, May 15-17; detroitlakeoregon.org

By Andy Walgamott

An Extra Inch Pays $500

W

Winners of the 9th Annual Boggan’s Spring Fishing Derby include Mason Rurberti, Will Gregory and Jim Haas. (BOGGANS.COM)

ill Gregory needed every inch of his best late-winter Grande Ronde River hatchery steelhead to win Boggan’s Spring Fishing Derby.

His 9.0-pounder tied with Jim Haas’s fish, and while it had threequarters of an inch less girth, it made up for that with an inch more length.

Length was the first tie-breaker in the contest put on by Boggan’s Oasis.

Gregory took home first place and $500 for that fish, as well as another $50 because it was the largest steelhead of week four in the ninth annual running of the month-and-a-half-long event on the banks of the Southeast Washington river.

First place in the youth division went to Mason Rurberti, who landed a 7.8-pounder. He won $200.

Other weekly winners included Bob Brawdy (week 1, 7 pounds), Everett Stevenson (week 2, 8.2 pounds), Jim Haas (week 3, 9.0 pounds) and Ken Pagano (week 5, 7.8 pounds).

All totaled, 37 participants weighed in 80 hatchery steelhead caught out of the Ronde between the Oregon border and derby headquarters at Boggan’s. Gregory actually weighed in three of the top five fish; his others went 8.8 and 8.4 pounds.

Familiar Name Places High Twice More

Boat, Trailer Top Prize At Detroit Lake Derby

I

f you’ve been following Derby Watch in recent issues, you know that some guys just know how to finish in the money.

Take Don Thomas and his fishing partner Larry Quesnel. They’ve collected $30,000 in back-to-back-to-back first-place finishes at the Olympic Peninsula Salmon Derby the past three Februaries.

Well, if you had looked just a short way down the reader board at that event, you would have spotted the name Ron Lampers. He took third there, but the Snohomish man did better at a pair of closer-to-home derbies.

He finished second at mid-March’s Everett Blackmouth Derby with a 14.18-pound (cleaned weight) immature Chinook, and took the same spot at the Bill Hayes Hot Plug Derby off Camano Island the weekend before with a 12.05. All totaled, he collected nearly $3,500 at the three.

As for the winners, Dale Helgesson of Marysville won the Everett derby with a 16.12-pounder, good for $3,000, while Terry Pitt of Sedro-Woolley took home $2,350 for his Hot Plug-winning 15.12-pounder, according to write-ups in the Everett Herald and Seattle Times.

Editor’s note: To have your derby listed or results posted here, email awalgamott@media-inc.com.

A

Smokercraft fishing boat and a trailer to truck it around the Northwest are the grand prizes at the 2015 Detroit Lake Fishing Derby, but thousands of dollars’ worth of other prizes will be given away too.

Held May 15-17, fishing begins at 6 a.m. each day and runs till 4 p.m. on the first two days, and 2 p.m. on the last.

The prize ceremony is set for 3 p.m. on the 17th, and you must be present to haul off your loot. Tickets are $15 for adults and $8 for kids. For more, see detroitlakeoregon.org.

UPCOMING OR ONGOING DERBIES • Lake Pend Oreille Club Spring Derby, April 25-May 3; lpoic.org/blog • Wildcat Steelhead Club Sedro-Woolley Kid’s Derby, May 2, Northern State Juvenile Pond • Spring Walleye Classic, May 2-3, Potholes; mardonresort.com • Snohomish Sportsmen’s Club and Lake Stevens Lion’s Club Lake Stevens Kokanee Derby, May 16: gregscustomrods.com • MarDon Bass Tournament, May 16-17, Potholes; mardonresort.com • Northwest Washington Steelheaders Bellingham Kid’s Fishing Derby, May 9, Whatcom Falls Park Pond MAY 2015

Northwest Sportsman 39

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Watched over by his two safety officers, the author tries his luck off the headland above Boiler Bay, between Newport and Lincoln City. Anglers can catch black rockfish, greenling, surf perch and even lingcod from the rocky banks of Oregon’s middle coast. (BARBARA OTTO)

42 Northwest Sportsman

MAY 2015

FISHING

Rock-fishing Oregon’s fishy Central Coast bristles with more than jetties – its headlands can be great places to catch bass and lings.

By Terry Otto

BOILER BAY—Standing high over the foaming waters below, I threw a bait prawn out as far as I could. As the weight touched down, I kept steady pressure on the line, feeling the tide move the bait along the bottom with every pulse of the surf. Letting the line send its signals, I waited for the unmistakable “pop” that meant a bite. When it hit, I reared back on the hook, and watched the rod double over.

A good one!

This time it was a nice rock bass, and once I’d lifted him up the headland, I added him to my bucket where he joined an oversized surf perch and two greenling.

Fishing the Pacific ocean from the rocks is a great way to load the freezer with tasty saltwater fish. This fact is no secret, and yet there seem to be fewer bank anglers fishing off Oregon’s rugged coastal shore than just a few years ago. In this age when almost everyone has a boat, the sight of guys casting off the rocky headlands has become a little bit rarer.

Most shore-bound anglers prefer to fish the easier jetties, something I’m fond of myself and have written about here in past issues. However, once the weather warms in early summer, the wavebreaks at the mouths of Yaquina and Tillamook Bays get crowded, and many of the better quality fish have already been caught. It can get a little harder in the warmer months to find good fish on the jetties.

That’s the time to switch to fishing

off natural rock formations. There are fewer people, more fish and the size of your quarry generally runs larger than those left around the jetties.

It’s not as easy to fish the rocky headlands. First, many are difficult to access. Second, they are not as protected as the jetties and the surf comes right into them. It isn’t safe to fish off the rocks much of the time, especially in winter and early spring.

However, as the weather warms and the surf gentles in summer, the rocks can offer much better fishing than any jetty.

LOW SURF IS KEY The single most important aspect that affects the fishing and the safety off the rocks is the surf. First, if the surf is high, you can be swept off those rocks in a heartbeat. Second, it gets too rough for the fish too, and they will move off the shoreline to deeper water and wait it out.

When the waves lie down, greenling, rock bass, lingcod and surf perch will become available again, as well as the occasional surprise species. Good strong line is required to lift the fish up out of the surf and onto the rocks, but 20-pound test will serve for most fish.

They can be taken on baits such as sand shrimp and bait prawns.

Soft-plastic jigs are another option, especially if you want bass and cod.

Snags and hang-ups are inevitable, but can be managed. Another problem is that fish will often find a crack to squeeze into if you do not keep their heads up. Keep steady lifting pressure on anything you hook.

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FISHING There are unlimited opportunities for anglers to explore the rocks for themselves, thanks to the rocky nature of the Oregon Coast (bonus fact: some of the dark headlands were created by the same lava flows that flooded Eastern Washington).

But this is not a loner sport! It is imperative that you fish with friends, or at least where there are other people fishing. Remember that if the surf is high enough to get you wet at times, it is high enough to generate sneaker waves that can sweep you away.

Perches high above the water provide some safety from the waves, but slipping and falling are real threats. If you drop 20 or 30 feet onto the rocks, you will probably be severely injured, maybe even die.

WHERE TO GO So, with safety in mind, let’s take a look at some of the better-known

46 Northwest Sportsman

MAY 2015

Kelp greenling, like this one caught off of the rocks at Boiler Bay, are a common fish found along rocky shorelines. Fishing from the rocks can be surprisingly good for many species, and it is fun! (TERRY OTTO)

rockfishing areas. Remember, these are just for starters. There is no shortage of rocks or rockfish along our coastline.

Indian Beach, Ecola State Park: The rocks adjacent to this beach just north of Cannon Beach can be fished

well during a low tide. In addition to rockfish, you can find surf perch in the sand along the rocky edge.

Boiler Bay: This rocky set of bays and headlands between Gleneden Beach and Depoe Bay has some of the best rockfishing along Oregon’s

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FISHING middle coast. There are miles of excellent habitat, and much of it is easy to access. The most popular spot is the point of land known as Government Point, at the Boiler Bay State Wayside. Not only is there room for a few anglers off the point itself, but sheer rocks drop into the ocean for a half mile to the south.

There are good places to fish all along this reach.

Fogarty Beach: This short but steep beach just north of Boiler Bay offers some good bank access off a set of rocks near the mouth of Fogarty Creek, and a few places just to the south. Surf perch can also be caught along the beach near the rocks.

Fishing Rock, Depoe Bay: Access can be found by taking a short hike from the end of Fishing Rock Street, just south of Depoe Bay proper. There is a small spot just big enough for two or three anglers.

While popular, it only fishes well

48 Northwest Sportsman

MAY 2015

when the swell is gentle, and from the north.

Depoe Bay: There are opportunities right near Depoe Bay for cautious anglers. In fact, there are rocky shorelines from north of Depoe Bay all the way south to Whale Cove.

Access is limited by the terrain, but many areas can be fished safely.

Whale Cove: Rocky shorelines around this cove provide some opportunities when the surf is mild.

Yaquina Head, Agate Beach: Yaquina Head to the south of Boiler Bay also offers some good chances for rockfishing. However, access at the point can be difficult. One of the best ways to fish this area is to approach it from the north end of Agate Beach in low tide. High tides can be difficult, but when access is good, you can do surprisingly well.

These rocks are only fished by a handful of anglers who know how good the opportunity is.

SAFETY FIRST, SAFETY SECOND …

While these are good starter spots, you can find plenty more areas to fish for the ocean’s bounty off the rocks.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s three “Marine Recreation Fishing In Oregon” brochures, available via the Fishing tab at dfw. state.or.us, spotlight dozens of other spots from Astoria to Brookings.

Exploring them can be exciting and profitable, but only as long as you keep an eye to safety. Fish with friends; let someone know where you are going, and when you will return; do not turn your back on the ocean; a good-fitting personal floatation device is an important accessory, and can save your life; and remember, rockfishing is like ice fishing – you should never go alone!

That said, now get out there and rock the bass and cod along Oregon’s coast. NS

OREGON

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Northwest Sportsman

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50 Northwest Sportsman

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COLUMN The author poses with a nice Neah Bay halibut.

(TODD SWITZER)

How To Land Halibut From A Kayak

H

alibut season is here again, and Marine Area 4 at Neah Bay, on the northwest coast of Washington, KAYAK GUYS is the place to be

By Todd Switzer if you’re looking to score a trophy halibut from your kayak.

Fishing here opens Thursday and Saturday for two weeks beginning May 14, and once the quota is met, it closes.

While last year Neah anglers had no problems filling it in four days, if the quota is not reached, the season takes a

break for a couple of weeks and opens again in early June until it is met.

AREA 4’S QUOTA exceeds 100,000 pounds, about half of the allotment for the entire state. This might sound like it should last half the summer – that is, until you witness the intense fishing effort and the amount of flatsiders that are caught.

The line at the Neah Bay boat ramp on opening day can exceed two hours, but if you’re fishing from a kayak, the last place you should be is caught in this line. There are several areas to launch from that will place you close to prime fishing grounds, and your choice of which to use should

be determined by the weather.

For the past two years, Hobuck Beach has been the place to launch for halibutseeking kayak anglers due to exceptional weather conditions and calm seas on opening day. Last year the outstanding conditions in the first couple days of the season brought many kayak anglers to the beach in Makah Bay, just south of the mouth of the Waatch River, and many were rewarded with halibut caught within a couple miles of shore. In fact, the weather has been so cooperative that many kayak anglers anticipate that this month’s start day will be as calm as a mill pond with light winds and mild

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COLUMN temperatures. Friends with little, if any, kayak-fishing experience have told me they’ll be there this year to take part in the great halibut harvest of 2015.

What can I tell them, other than I sure do hope that the weather cooperates.

The fleet has done very well for halibut these past two years, and it’s not just the great weather that is responsible. The ocean has put a large amount of bait, as well as feeding halibut, up against the coast and even inside Makah Bay, well within the range of most pedalers and paddlers. Typically, strong spring upwelling conditions result in the majority of the baitfish being spread across miles of coastal waters. Offshore areas such as Swiftsure Bank have been very productive under these conditions.

However, the past couple of years has seen weak upwelling, so baitfish have moved close to shore. The halibut are feeding up at this time of year and go where the bait can be found in the highest concentrations. During years with strong

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MAY 2015

It’s easy enough to go out and jig for halibut out of a kayak, but like deer and elk hunting, the real work begins at the kill. (TODD SWITZER) upwelling, halibut are often found several miles or more offshore, in 150 to 400 feet of water, but when bait is concentrated in a tight band along the coast, they’re in water as shallow as 35 feet. Follow the

bait and the halibut will be there.

If weather and ocean conditions this year follow the trend of the past two years, we can expect similar results, and probably a few more powerboats also

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COLUMN inside Makah Bay. However, if typical weather patterns return, many kayak anglers will opt for more sheltered locations to launch and fish. There are many sheltered options inside the Strait of Juan de Fuca, everywhere from the town of Neah Bay eastward to Port Angeles, but read up on the regulations, as there are several marine areas along this stretch and they’re not all open for halibut at the same time. The tide range will largely determine the currents inside the strait on the day you fish, so consider it as an important factor in addition to the weather and swells.

ONCE QUESTIONS OF wind, swell and tide have been settled, it’s time to get down to figuring out some serious fishing logistical issues. While it’s not impossible for a novice kayak angler to land a halibut over 50 pounds, typically those with the best preparation are the most successful at landing these bigger fish.

The rod and reel are the first items

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to consider. I used to be a fan of using heavy halibut rods and high-line-capacity reels, but my thinking on these fish has changed and I think the most important quality is a reel with a buttery-smooth drag. Braided line helps to minimize the drag when fishing deep spots, and a stout rod can help encourage a big fish off the bottom, but the largest stress these fish place on the gear is when they take off in a burst run. That usually comes after they have been stuck with a harpoon or flying gaff. But even the big halibut seldom run for more than a minute, and usually they head right back to the bottom, so huge line capacity is not required. Lighter gear can also help with the fatigue that can set in from a day of soaking baits or jigging.

On rigging baits for halibut, one thing is certain: If they can’t find your bait, they won’t eat it. There are many different techniques to enhance a bait presentation, including scent rags and salmon dodgers or can lids attached to the spreader bar to make noise. I like to

use a short piece of chain; it replaces the lead and it makes a bit of noise when dragging the bottom. Almost anything that makes the bait a larger target for the halibut to find is likely to help. These fish are not frightened off by anything; leaders of 400-pound mono don’t even seem to deter them. Baits can range from large whole herring, squid, octopus or almost any other combination of fish item. Large flashy spoons, bar jigs and leadhead jigs have taken many halibut, as well. The most important thing is to put your bait in the strike zone of the halibut for as long as it takes.

AS FOR LANDING a big halibut from a kayak, this has been a topic of considerable discussion among most kayak anglers for years. One thing everyone agrees on is, don’t use a gaff on a halibut that is larger than about 10 pounds. These fish are extremely powerful and they might not show it until they feel threatened.

While most fish panic at the hook set and

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Northwest Sportsman 55

COLUMN display their power right away, halibut don’t always behave this way. At times even a very large one can be brought to the side of a kayak without much of an initial fight, but that doesn’t mean it will roll into your lap and lay still for the ride home. Think of a halibut as an old and wise poker player who lures you into a sense of false security, then takes you apart when your defenses are down.

When you do get your halibut to the side of the kayak, relax the line tension and they’ll often stay calm just a foot or so under the water. Make sure that once you’ve brought your halibut into striking position that there is slight tension on your line, just enough so the line is clear to scream off the reel without catching on something. I like to slightly loosen my drag before taking the harpoon shot, as I want these fish to run some distance away from the boat once they are harpooned.

It’s an odd moment looking into the eyes of a large halibut just a few feet away, as if it’s asking you what your next

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move will be. If you’re tempted to pull the head of the halibut out of the water at this stage, don’t. Nothing makes a halibut as angry as having its head pulled from the water. If you’re using a harpoon with an attached float, attempt to get the halibut to lay parallel to the surface and hit the fish just behind the gill plate in the thickest part of the meat. If you’re using a flying gaff, also called the shark hook method, with attached buoy you can slip the hook inside the mouth or in the thick meat near the head and pull up hard enough to sink the barb deep into the fish.

With either of these methods, avoid hitting the gill plate or the soft outer edge of the belly. Either way, be prepared for a huge reaction from the halibut.

Once you have a buoy attached to the fish, the real fun begins. Unless you’ve pierced the brain, the backbone or the heart of the fish with your harpoon shot, they will thrash wildly or just tear off in a reel-screaming run. The additional drag

of a buoy will help to wear the fish down quickly and eventually you’ll get it back to the side of your kayak. If you have confidence in your gear, don’t rush to land them too fast. Once at the kayak, slip a stringer hook through the gills, wrap a rope around the tail or any other method you have to secure the fish.

At the same time, don’t believe for a minute that your fish is finished. You can cut the gills and wait until every last drop of blood is out of the fish and it is still capable of doing extreme damage to you and your gear if you bring it aboard too early. I suggest you make absolutely certain that a big halibut is dead and cold, then wait another half hour before attempting to bring it aboard your kayak.

Before you go, let’s revisit the aforementioned old poker player: Don’t let the past few seasons’ good weather conditions for the halibut opener lull you into a false sense of security about how relatively easy this might seem. Tight lines and stay safe. NS

MAY 2015

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MAY 2015

FISHING

Play Neah Bay In May

A father and son heft a pair of heavy hali, caught during a trip out of Neah Bay to Canadian waters, where the season runs longer, though requires a stop in British Columbia for a license.

(JAMBOSSPORTFISHING.COM)

Bottomfishing ops shine this month off the northwestern tip of the Lower 48.

By Jeff Holmes

T

he trend of improving bottomfish stocks along our Pacific Coast has been a pleasant outcome of tightened management. Depth restrictions, protected reefs, tighter regulations and limits, and seasonal restrictions imposed by rule and by big seas have combined to improve many rockfish stocks, as well as lingcod, off Oregon and Washington. Today, truly excellent bottomfishing can be found in all of our major ports, from beautiful Brookings in Southwest Oregon all the way to Washington’s Neah Bay. This rocky outpost on the Makah Indian Reservation is one of my favorite places to fish and one of the reasons my wife and I just bought a new Thunder Jet with an offshore bracket. Neah Bay offers some of the coast’s best protectedwater angling for private anglers, including ocean newbies like me, who are ill-equipped to tackle the run to offshore riches without logging lots of nearshore hours first.

Like many other Neah Bay regulars who keep coming back to the port’s best and safest operator,

I’ll leave the offshore runs to Mike Jamboretz of Jambo’s Sportfishing (jambossportfishing.com). He is well known as one of the Northwest’s best downrigger fishermen – a subject he and I will explore in the July issue – but he’s perhaps even better known for his halibut, lingcod, Pacific cod, sablefish and rockfish prowess. Although there are solid bottomfishing opportunities throughout summer and into autumn, there is no time like May to fish Neah Bay. Large lings, halibut and easy limits of yellowtail rockfish are on the docket in the second full month of spring, as this sleepy port wakes up

and begins to bustle with the early influx of visiting anglers. Neah has a deserved reputation for kicking out good-sized halibut during the super-brief May fishery, but before the recreational sportfishing armada gets their paltry allowance of halibut poundage for the year, deepwater lings are available during a short window.

Jamboretz specializes in these trips and loves them. His awesome 37-footer, the Malia Kai, is wellequipped for long offshore runs to The Prairie, where he understands the bottom composition and drifts very well. Here, over 30 miles from port, anglers encounter a larger

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FISHING class of lings, but the opportunities and seats are limited. For years Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife has imposed important depth restrictions to protect yelloweye and canary rockfish and other incidental bottomfish species, including lingcod. Unfortunately, over the last few years, Jambo and other offshore anglers have been limited to only the last two weeks in April, a notoriously rough month on the ocean. This year WDFW is allowing anglers to fish from April 16 to May 9, in recognition of improving stocks and anglers’ desire for more opportunity and their willingness to use rockfish descending devices to limit incidental mortality to release yelloweye and canary rockfish. Jamboretz does a good job of avoiding these slow-growing and protected rockfish by employing only pipe jigs for lings and carefully descending incidentally hooked rockfish.

ON ONE TRIP with him three years ago in April, I was thrilled with the class of lingcod we caught and impressed by Jamboretz’s fishing program overall. As a bonus on these deepwater lingcod trips, anglers are all but assured limits of fine-eating yellowtail rockfish, a midwater species well known for their superior flavor and texture.

Sometimes, however, they can be too deep to responsibly fish.

“If we can get it going offshore, we use the same rods as the lings with a lead leader dropper and two homemade shrimp flies,” says Jamboretz. “If the rockfish are not high enough in the water column, we will not drop down near the bottom, as we could encounter yelloweye and canary rockfish. If this is the case, we will switch to the lighter rods and motor all the way in and fish the shoreline, as we would for our nearshore rockfish trips.

The catch here is generally black and blue rockfish, and the action 60 Northwest Sportsman

MAY 2015

May means halibut in Neah Bay, but there are also good opportunities to catch big deepwater lingcod, like this estimated 49-pounder held by Capt. Mike Jamboretz.

(JAMBOSSPORTFISHING.COM)

is very good. Here in Marine Area 4, the limit is 12 total bottomfish, two of which can be lingcod over 22 inches.”

For private boaters fishing inside the Tatoosh-Bonilla Line in the Strait of Juan de Fuca (Marine Area 4B), lings remain the same, with 10 total bottomfish allowable and black and blue rockfish the only species retainable. When conditions do not allow safe travel to offshore haunts, Jamboretz will fish the nearshore reefs for typically easy limits of lings and nice black rockfish, along with some blues and a smattering of other nearshore species. Typically, though, weather windows allow offshore access. I highly recommend these trips, and he may have seats still available or cancellations by the time the magazine hits newsstands and mailboxes.

For halibut, however, get in line. Jamboretz is booked for the next two years.

After lots of waiting, I’ll finally get a seat on one of the few May days

Washington halibut anglers will be allowed.

“HALIBUT FISHING ON the North Coast has turned into a four-daya-year season,” notes Jamboretz.

“Basically, it’s a mid-May Thursday/ Saturday, Thursday/Saturday, and then done! The limit on these trips is one halibut, two lingcod (or other: sablefish, etc.). If there are no dogfish present, we like to use bait (herring, salmon bellies, any legal fish) on a lead slider.

Drifting across tops of hills, and down slopes tapping the bottom will draw halibut bites. Gravel seabed near bottom structure is also very productive. Pipe jigs are the best option for targeting lingcod, but often trigger halibut bites.

Sometimes our strategy is to target the lings before the halibut, hoping for a big halibut. Popular areas I like to fish include the southwest corner of the C-Shape Closure, The Humps inside the opening in the closure,

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FISHING Tabletop, Swiftsure Bank, Blue Dot and 72 Square. Fewer, but sometimes larger fish can be found in the Straits, and inside of Tatoosh Island offers great opportunity for smaller private boats. This area is also a good option for stormy offshore conditions.”

Halibut fishing remains frustrating for recreational anglers, with a disproportionate amount of the total catch going to commercials, per the International Pacific Halibut Commission. When the season ends this May 23, Jamboretz can still put you on halibut, but you have to go north to get a license.

“I also do Canadian halibut fishing trips, with a one-halibut daily limit,” he says. “These trips are available all season long, compared to our fourday Washington season. You must purchase your Canadian license in person, in Canada, dated for your fishing date, for any areas, from Canadian Swiftsure Bank and west.

That’s the only tough part, but plenty of people do it. We tend to get some rather large fish on those trips.”

Jamboretz will gladly book Canadian halibut charters, but once salmon season begins, he abandons American bottomfishing trips unless that’s all folks want to do, and he begins the hunt for an extremely nice class of Chinook salmon, often averaging 20 pounds. He’s a master with his Scotty High Performance Downriggers, and he fishes depths other anglers would never dream of, employing 200-pound braid and heavy lead to get spoons and plugs well over 300 feet deep when he needs to find traveling fish. Typically he fishes much shallower and regularly limits clients on nice kings without ever needing to target coho, which he catches equally effectively for those who want coho instead of kings.

“Along with a two-Chinook limit, this year there’s a bonus limit of two

Along with bottomfish, Neah Bay is well known as one of the best early spots for returning kings, and this year’s prospects look great. Last year’s were good enough that Jerry Allen dragged his boat 10 hours from Pasco to work the waters off Tatoosh Island for this 20-pound hen. (DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST)

pink salmon, and the Chinook forecast is the third largest since 1938!” says Jamboretz. “I’m very excited, but if warm water-El Niño conditions persist, fishing deep may be critically important during the summer of 2015.”

WITH THAT REMINDER from someone who knows, I’ll be stripping the cable off of the two Scotty 1106 Depthpower Downriggers that I just bought and fitting them with 500 feet of 200-pound braid. Jamboretz uses a whopping 900 feet on his ’riggers, but I won’t be fishing a fraction as much as Jambo, nor venturing to nearly the depths. Erika and I will, however, be dialing in our Thunder Jet Luxor from Kennewick’s Traveland Marine (travelandrvmarine.com) all summer long, and we also booked a salmon trip with Jamboretz to score seats in one of the best downrigging classrooms on the coast. In the meantime, I’ll keep mentally checking off the days until my May 22nd Sol Duc spring Chinook trip with Springer’s Sportfishing (springersportfishing.com) and my short drive from Forks to Neah Bay for my May 23 date with a Washington halibut and two fat lingcod, courtesy of Jambo and the Pacific. NS 62 Northwest Sportsman

MAY 2015

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COLUMN “Lingcod Todd” Girtz shows off a very nice specimen. The ocean skipper has built a reputation for catching big fish, as well as fishing deep waters. (TODDSEXTREMEFISHING.COM)

Todd’s Tips For Lings, Kings, Coho

I

f you’ve been fishing around the Northwest for a few years, you’ve probably heard about Todd Girtz.

He’s known as WESTSIDER “Lingcod Todd,”

By Tim Bush but that belies his reputation for catching lots of incredibly large fish of different species off the Washington Coast.

Whether he’s pointing his 26-foot North River Seahawk west out of Neah Bay, La Push, Westport or Ilwaco, giant lings, halibut, tuna and salmon are the target, if pictures of whopper after whopper after whopper on his website, toddsextremefishing.com, are

any indication.

I transcribed his words from a recent Puget Sound Anglers seminar and just had to share his killer advice, which is based on years of seriously hardcore fishing!

GIRTZ STARTS HIS ocean season off at La Push most years. His goal is lingcod over 20 pounds. The early part of the season, from mid-March to the second week of April, is a great time to find large lings close to shore, but the weather can be very rough this time of the year, so watch the weather reports very closely. After the second week of April, many of the bigger fish start moving farther offshore.

The best way to entice big nearshore lings is live bait, says Girtz. In the early season, he concentrates on the big rock

piles near the beach to about 10 miles out. In 150 feet of water or less, the big boys can be really finicky eaters at times.

When using leadhead jigs and darts, you will get a lot of 5- to 10-pounders, but with live bait you will start seeing a lot more of the 15- to 20-plus-pound fish, he says. Try first going for kelp greenling or yellowtail rockfish. Fish for them using shrimp fly jigs or white darts, and when you catch one, don’t be surprised if a big ling grabs it before you can get it to the surface. The lings in the early season are super aggressive towards live bait, he says.

(Using live rockfish and bottom fish for bait is not legal in all places, all depths and all times of the year, so check your regs beforehand.)

Pipe jigs work really great farther

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COLUMN I am in an area that I should offshore, Girtz says.

All of Washington’s ports are great options for salmon, but it’s hard to argue be catching lots of fish, I will Typically, in waters 400 or with a shiny batch of Chinook for La Push, where Girtz put clients into these. keep changing my lures till more feet deep, fish feed (TODDSEXTREMEFISHING.COM) I can find something that’s more aggressively on a working. One of my best wider range of forage. They lures is a green Delta squid know they have to get it with an apple core hoochie right away or their buddy stuck inside. I call it the will get it first, he says.

Rogers Special; it’s named “Lingcod like a lure that after a friend who taught me is aggressively jigged, but the set-up,” Girtz says. not many people can jig “On most days I believe a 3-pound pipe jig all day hoochies fish better without long,” Girtz notes. “I usually beads. Beads weigh down only jig hard while I am the hoochies and change in the most productive the action. But if I know areas of the drift. If you fishing is going to be great are unfamiliar with the and we’ll catch a ton of area you are fishing and fish that day, then I’ll put you feel the hard thump beads between my hooks of a rocky bottom instead so the fish’s teeth won’t of soft sand or mud, then wear through the line. I use jig aggressively. I would 40-pound Ultragreen for also jig aggressively any most of my leaders,” he says. time anyone else hooks a Whether it’s superstition fish. On tougher days, do or there’s something to it, a double-pump with the Girtz uses herring scent on rod. Doing a quick jerk dark-colored lures, anise on halfway up and another light ones. jerk the rest of the way up “It just seems to work for with your arms all in one me,” he notes. quick motion really drives As for depths, when he’s them crazy!” working Swiftsure Bank out of Neah Bay, He uses electric reels for all of his deep leader should be to achieve the same Girtz says the 50-, 150- and 250-foot marks bottomfishing. If you’ve ever fished in 600 action you get with a shorter leader at are keys for him. feet of water, you know cranking up can a slower speed. When fishing hoochies, “When I am way offshore at places like be quite a chore. It’s nice to pull big fish up bucktails and spoons, my leader lengths Shark Fin or Compass Rose, I like to run my one after another and not tire out. are tied from my stretched-out hand to ’riggers very deep, 300 to 400 feet deep. my chin because it’s easy to get a quick It’s a fine line between not being deep and consistent length. It usually comes SHALLOW-WATER SALMON fisheries save enough and being too deep. If you’re out to about 30 to 33 inches from the front the average ocean angler hard-won gas catching bottomfish, bring your ’riggers of the lure to where the leader attaches to money, but Girtz prefers to be out to sea up till you get out of them, and you should the flasher clip.” earlier in the year. be at a great depth,” he says.

Girtz says that all boats will have their “I like to do most of my salmon fishing That said, at first light, you’re likely own “sweet spot” in terms of speed; under offshore in the deeper water. There can to see Girtz fishing cutplugs behind a perfect conditions, he likes his Seahawk be some great nearshore fishing also, but 5-ounce “red” lead near the surface. running 2.5 mph. the fish tend to bite more aggressively for While leader length isn’t as important longer periods of time when you’re out in to him offshore, he’ll still exactly match 200-plus feet of water. I would rather run LATER IN SEASON, Girtz moves shop south any set-up that proves to be the day’s “it” 30 miles to find aggressive fish than try to to Westport and Ilwaco for coho and kings. bait. Inshore, he says that leader length grind out a limit fishing on fish that do not “A lot of times I catch really nice fish and boat speed are more critical. want to bite,” he says. just trolling a 5-ounce red lead and a “In most cases, I like to stick with He notes that while trolling, boat green-label herring about 65 feet behind proven lures, but on the rare day when speed interplays with leader length. the boat. Sometimes big kings will just the proven lures are not working well and “The faster you troll, the longer your spark and be up top instead of down low.

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COLUMN It’s not uncommon for the rod with the 5-ounce lead to be my top producer of the day once in a while.”

“I cut-plug herring to spin as tight as possible; I like green-label herring because I can get it to spin tighter than blue or purple. The smaller the herring, the better it will spin. If I want to get the best spin possible, I drop down to 20-pound test and 2/0 hooks – I usually use 4/0. The lighter hooks and thinner line really help the spin on a slow day.”

Girtz says even if there’s a great bite right off the beach, like last year, he’d prefer not to fight the crab pots. Instead, he doesn’t look for salmon till he’s out over 200 feet of water. He’ll usually set lines at 50, 75 and 150 feet on the downrigger, but in 2014 he found a great bite at 250 feet over 390 feet of water.

“We trolled for miles and miles catching them. It was phenomenal!” he recalls.

As much as he likes ’riggers, Girtz says Ilwaco’s one place he doesn’t use them too often.

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“The Columbia River current runs quite a ways offshore and I think that causes the fish to pull in tight to North Beach. I think they smell the river and don’t tend to hold offshore as much, like they do at Westport, La Push and Neah Bay,” Girtz says.

He also points out that anchovies gather along North Beach, and that holds the salmon too. With fresh fish moving in throughout the season, that water can be productive from early June till season closes in September, he says.

“I like using small EZ Divers or a 5-ounce red lead and a green-label herring because I’m only going to be fishing in 30 to 75 feet of water most days. I like the ease of just running a 5-ounce red lead, but EZ Divers must add some type of action because some days they will absolutely kill ’em! For coho, Royal Flashes behind a small EZ Diver catch them like crazy, but put a Royal Flash behind a 5-ounce lead and they just don’t seem to catch anything,” Girtz notes.

He has a couple more thoughts on fishing North Beach: If super-heavy rains

fall, salmon holding there will shoot upriver, and consequently angling will slow down. However, in June, he says that late springers will still be available there.

As we roll into summer, coho enter the picture, and though this season’s forecast is lower than last year’s actual return, that phenomenal fishery is still on Girtz’s mind.

“The coho fishing off of Ilwaco last season was some of the best I’ve ever seen.

(We were) in 50 feet of water, just north of the Columbia River in the ocean. Most of the hatchery fish were 3 pounds bigger than the natural fish. I’ve never seen that before. Apparently the hatchery guys were doing a great job. The fish tags I got back said they were coming from the Cowlitz and Lewis Rivers. The salmon fishing was so good last year that we were able to catch limits of salmon and still had time to catch several tuna on some of our better days,” he recalls.

Use some of Girtz’s tips this year and you could enjoy a pretty good season as well. NS

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COLUMN

Not All Hali Hug Those Banks

H

alibut, lingcod and prawns all come into play in May in the waters of

By Doug Huddle the greater San Juan Islands. And with the lower Skagit River restored to the ranks of fishable waters in May, stream enthusiasts have a rare spring option of either cutthroat or bull trout.

NORTH SOUND

RULE NO. 1 FOR HALIBUT: GO NOW! Halibut fishing opportunities close to home for North Sound anglers are being squeezed into a much smaller window these days. Trips to Washington’s Coast or outside Canadian waters can be offputting, what with traffic, ferry waits and fuel costs, so the order of the day is to prep the boat, gear up for a “ready-five” departure, then go on standby mode with family and work on the days of the week when halibut are legal.

On an inside sport catch quota of 57,393 pounds, just 11 days are currently penciled in for 2015 Puget Sound flatties.

From day one’s jig drop, Friday, May 8, there are back-to-back-week two-day openings, then a four-day stint over Memorial Day weekend, followed by three days at the end of the month.

Besides the foreshortened sport season, three more things compel serious halibut fishers to put all else aside.

Number one is the nature of halibut occurrence in Puget Sound. Mature fish come up from offshore depths after winter spawning into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and inner Salish Sea sanctums to feed and regenerate. As days lengthen, they drift back out and north into deeper, colder waters. Our inside fishery takes place well into that exodus, therefore, fishing the earliest days potentially puts you on more flatties.

The second rationale for going out sooner rather than later is the inside management regime. To modulate the ever-increasing participation in the Puget Sound zone, managers again this year

Larry Mandella and the boys enjoyed an “epic” day of halibut fishing in Area 7 last season. (DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST) have largely overlapped the Marine Area 5 halibut opening with that of Areas 6 through 10. That means, inside fishers won’t have the option of a later-running outer Straits fishery on which to fall back on, so they’ll again be faced with either/ or decisions.

The third element dictating early participation is the quota-driven nature of this fishery, which if the weather and fish cooperate, will close when managers estimate the poundage allocation has been landed. That could come before the last announced open date. The goal for halibut managers is to avoid exceeding

the quota. That will result in the overage being deducted from next year’s catchceiling number.

A wild card of sorts this season may be the reaction of southern halibut to warmer offshore ocean temperatures that could prompt fish to stay inside a little longer, or cause postspawners to make their northerly migration sooner.

Either eventuality will affect the sport landing rate, so it behooves anglers to check the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife’s emergency regulations in the latter half of the month for changes to the inside fishery.

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COLUMN

In a region otherwise devoid of flowing-water ops this time of year, the many sloughs and two forks at the mouth of the Skagit provide a unique opportunity to fish for trout and char in spring. (WASHINGTON DOE)

BEST HALI HOLES The most lucrative mid- to late-spring halibut lairs in northern inland waters are Eastern, Middle, Hein and McArthur Banks, and Smith Island. These expanses also are the most exposed, so with considerable wind and tide action, loiter time for effective jigging can be brief.

Experienced halibut jiggers have backup locales as well as a little extra money in their boat fuel budget for relocating.

In the San Juans there’s virtually always a lee water expanse that, besides being a refuge during a big blow, will also harbor halibut.

If wind and sea conditions drive you from outside jigging areas, look to the Haro Strait-Boundary Pass reach or, on the opposite side of the San Juans, southern Rosario Strait.

In particular, the shoaling waters on the south and southeast side of Boundary Buoy are proven halibut producers, as is the gentling ramping bottom in the channel to the south of Skipjack Island, especially a 354-foot-deep kettle, or depression, just off the southeast shore of the island.

Keep in mind that at the bell bobber in the middle of Boundary Pass you’re flirting with a line separating U.S. from Canadian waters, so to avoid border incidents, keep station south and east of 72 Northwest Sportsman

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the buoy.

Look too to the uneven shoal bottom on the north side of Stuart Island, centering on Satellite Island around the two 60-fathom rises there.

In Rosario Strait, waters north and especially south of Tide Point on Cypress Island are known to yield halibut. The southerly trending tail of Lawson Reef west of Deception Pass (don’t fish the reef itself ) also produces halibut. So does the rather nondescript stretch of water from Deer Point northeast to the Peapods on the east side of Orcas Island, where there is significant gravel bottom and a broad area of uniform 26- to 28-fathom depth.

The aforementioned gravel, smallrock character of the bottom is a fair key to the presence of halibut inside. These are good feeding grounds for young crab and shrimp, and therefore a good table setting for foraging halibut. Mud and sand bottoms are less enticing to them.

It’s thought that adult halibut hug the bottom no matter where they are.

This behavior is compatible with their physiologically, and it’s assumed they seldom, if ever, raise more than several feet off the saltwater substrate to strike prey.

No matter whether you offer a horse herring on an old-fashioned stiff-wire spreader bar (with a lead weight on the

other end), a dart-shaped or skirted curltailed jig as well as one of the newer lightor sound-emitting lures, the best advice is to keep your terminal gear in contact with the bottom.

Other tactics that will attract and provoke halibut include making noise by bouncing your jig or lead on the bottom frequently, and/or leaving a scent trail from a shrimp or herring oil-dipped lure or a plug-cut or whole herring.

Lingcod, Pacific cod and cabezon also are on the menu even if flattie jiggers on their days are working waters 120 feet or deeper.

Along with jigging rods and leadheads, anglers might consider rigging out pots and mount pullers. Halibut and spot shrimp seasons overlap May 15-16, 21-23 and 28-30 in Area 7.

LOWER SKAGIT SPRING TROUT The resurrection of the lower Skagit River’s trout fishery after its closure back in 2010 was indeed a fortunate recovery for North Sound anglers. If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool stream fisher, spring can be frustrating in that April and May options here are all but nonexistent.

From the Nooksack south to the Nisqually and along Hood Canal and even the Snohomish’s extensive delta channels, nowhere else offers this blend of estuary

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COLUMN habitat and fishable quarry.

Restored to the Skagit’s unique fold of spring fishing waters are the mainstem from Mount Vernon’s Memorial Bridge (Route 536) downstream, i.e., its two key distributaries, the North and South Forks where the mainstem is parted by Fir Island.

A network of lesser channels, including the lower South Fork’s trifurcation into Freshwater, Steamboat and Tom Moore Sloughs, and the North Fork’s splits below Fish Town – Sullivan Slough on the right or north bank and a number of no-name sloughlets on the left or bay side between Clark and Ika Islands – also are open out to markers delineating where the waters legally cease to be fresh river and turn into salty Marine Area 8-1.

The angling regulations from March 1 to May 31 differ from those later in force here. Terminal tackle must conform to the selective-gear rule (barbless hooks, no bait), and there’s a max hook gap size of ½ inch as well.

This fishery, practically speaking,

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doesn’t impact wild winter-run steelhead, as most are already upstream, but wild and hatchery spring/summer Chinook together with the Skagit’s native anadromous char also are present. The kings are off-limits, but voracious bull trout and Dolly Varden 20 inches or longer are fair game.

Together with the char, sea-run cutthroat trout, both kelts (departing spawners) and smolts (first-time migrators), are the focus of anglers. An ultralight spinning combo or flycasting rig will gin up quite lively and entertaining action, though a big percentage of these lesser trout are smaller than the 14-inch minimum keeper size.

Within the limitations of selective gear, bull trout enthusiasts are still making adjustments to new lures and presentation techniques. The old triedand-true method for them, now outlawed, was to back-troll a 6- to 7-inch whole herring that looked for all the world like a downstream-migrating smolt. In the

North Fork frequently below the Fir Island Road bridge, and in the cramped confines of the three or four North Fork sloughs spilling bayward through salt marshes between Craft and Ika Islands, that was tactic du jour for the aggressive char.

It was always a bit of an angling nonsequitur to see some savvy old-timer trolling downstream faster than the current to lend action to his bait offering.

It was even more amusing to watch him jet down through those narrow sloughs at outright breakneck speeds, dodging logs and silt bars in an effort to coax those big char out of their hides.

One thing that can be said is that the native char fishers probably spare many young steelhead, Chinook, coho and cutthroat smolts’ lives by vanquishing a few bulls.

Successful fly fishing tactics for the cutts incorporate a fairly wide array of dry flies in both gaudy attractor and drab imitator patterns. Some anglers have added smaller streamer patterns to their

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Dry flies often are dead drifted in close proximity to overhanging trees or bank undergrowth. The streamer presentation in accordance with the pattern may be presented in a downstreamoriented retrieve simulating departing diminutive chum fry.

While bull trout seem to gravitate to the deeper thalweg – the deepest line of the channel – the cutts, both smolts and kelts, tend to scoot under and amid large woody debris. That tests the mettle and tries the patience of anglers who either finesse fish from those aquatic bunkers or lose tie-up after tieup to the snags.

Small Dick Nites, Rooster Tails or Miracle lures should be presented or drifted downstream, then retrieved at a very slow cranking speed to let the current impart both loft and action to the offering. In the fastest water, use a drop sinker off a three-way swivel.

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most of these lower Skagit’s diverse watercourses. Six well-spaced launch ramps – Edgewater Park at Mount Vernon (mainstem), Spudhouse (mainstem), Conway Bridge (South Fork), Milltown (South Fork, Tom Moore Slough), Skagit Wildlife Area Headquarters (South Fork, Freshwater Slough) and Blake’s (private resort on the North Fork) – are dispersed among the three main reaches and available to the public either free or with a small fee.

Drift or oar/paddle-powered craft can easily work stretches of these reaches from, say, the Spudhouse down to Blake’s, or from Conway to Headquarters on the Skagit Wildlife Area. But keep these pieces of advice in mind: The ebb and flow of marine tides significantly influences depths throughout the Skagit Delta, so a tide book is a must. And there’s a rising and falling learning curve involved in safely navigating these waters. Just because you can launch doesn’t mean that four or five hours later you will be able to haul out at the same ramp.

Avoiding submerged stumps and logs embedded on the river or slough bottom can be hard-won knowledge.

Reading water-surface roils and boils and then giving unseen as well as seen wood a wide berth is a highly valuable skill. A number of boats and their contents are lost annually by those operators who didn’t see a hidden piece of wood or who misjudged their watercraft’s maneuverability in current and confined spaces. It’s remarkable how fast a watercraft can be pasted up against a log, limb or stump by the current and then tipped over.

NEXT ISSUE Upper

Skagit spring Chinook, opening day lake reprise, kokanee. NS Editor’s note: Doug Huddle lives in Bellingham, is retired from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and has written about hunting and fishing in the Northwest for more than 30 years.

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RIG MONTH OF THE

ROTM VAULT: Oregon Halibut Rig

80-pound braid NOTES Oregon’s halibut fishery is mainline unique compared to those to the north.

24-inch, Our fish tend to be caught in much 200-pound solid deeper water, so it makes sense that braided nylon Aluminum we use different rigging. This simpler crimp sleeve cord (tuna leader) 1/0 deep-water rig utilizes baits such as (.78-inch ID) McMahon salmon or tuna bellies, shad (whole or 1/0 McMahon swivels swivel fillet, depending on size), sardines, black16-inch, 150- to label herring or Gulp! Squid. Use Stretchy Large duolock snap 200-pound-test thread to lash your bait to the two 9/0 monofilament hooks and leader to ensure you will leader 20- to 60-ounce still have bait after a missed bite. When cannonball deploying, make a 10-foot cast behind 9/0 octopus hooks the boat; this will ensure the setup will not tangle on its long journey to the bottom.

When you get a fish onboard or ready for release, you can grab the cannonball in one hand and wrap the tuna leader Large around your other hand (either bare glow or with gloves) and get control of a squid thrashing halibut without doing any damage to yourself, crew or boat. –Andy (ANDY SCHNEIDER) Shortened line used for illustrative purposes.

Schneider

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FISHING

Look To Tillamook Earlier This month could jumpstart spring Chinook fishing in the bay, rivers.

By Andy Schneider

I

f you went solely by the catch stats, you might not point your springer sled to Oregon’s largest North Coast watershed for another month. Though May is no slouch, June has provided the most spring Chinook for Tillamook anglers over the past few seasons, according to Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates.

But there’s reason to believe the action will kick off earlier this year.

“Tillamook Bay spring Chinook was pretty amazing last year in early May,” notes guide Ted Teufel (503803-2616; profishingguide.com).

“With such a mild winter and the warm spring we are having this year, I’m betting Tillamook Bay is going to start early again.”

The estuary’s spring Chinook are some of the most prized of all salmon returning from the Pacific. Not only are these fish extra tasty, they are also jumbo sized, unlike most other stocks of the spring-running fish.

There is nothing quite like catching a 20- or 30-pounder right from the briny waters of Tillamook Bay – that is, unless you catch two! The daily limit here is more generous than on the Columbia.

Another great thing about Tillamook springers is the variety of ways to target them. Starting in early May, you’ll find most action in the lower bay or just out in the ocean. By mid-May you’re bouncing back and forth from the Pacific to the shallow waters of the upper bay.

And as June rolls around, you’re pulling hard on the oars while your front seaters back-bounce eggs into

Early in Tillamook Bay’s spring Chinook season, good fishing can be found around the jetties. That’s where Mark Rose picked up this salmon while fishing with the author.

(ANDY SCHNEIDER)

the emerald-green waters of the Trask River.

BY LATE APRIL, spring Chinook will be staging just outside the bay, and any freshet or large tide series in May will spark these fish into action.

“We have some really large tides in the spring, so there is a lot of water moving through the bay.

Once those springers start moving through the bay, they move quick.

It’s nothing like fall Chinook, which stage and move slowly through the

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FISHING bay,” explains Teufel.

Springers tend to hug the North Jetty as they enter the bay, either fighting an ebbing tide or flooding in on the incoming. Most anglers troll against the tides, with most action coming close to the changes.

“The West Channel and North Jetty are my two most productive areas inside the bay. Just behind the South Jetty can be really good for springers if the ocean is calm,” hints Teufel.

It should come as no surprise to springer anglers that trolling herring is one of the most productive ways to catch Tillamook Bay kings.

“I always bring two different types of herring: blue-dyed herring and ones in a standard brine,” advises Teufel. “While I mostly fish green-label herring, I’ll also fish some larger blue-label herring.”

Speaking of bait, in addition to guiding, Teufel has opened a mocha shack along Highway 6. Called Lattes

SPRINGERS AREN’T THE ONLY GAME IN CHEDDARVILLE Starting May 14, halibut season gets under way off Oregon’s Central Coast.

While the traditional seven-day-a-week nearshore season doesn’t start until July 1, there’s no reason why you can’t stay in close and fish the shallows during alldepth days. While heading over the blue horizon to popular deepwater locations will yield more consistent results, many anglers are not equipped to run the long distances to reach these destinations.

The first rule of nearshore fishing is to cover lots of water. Don’t expect halibut in the shallows to be stacked on top of each other. They are more scattered and constantly on the move. Lack of upwelling from the continental shelf means they have to range far for their groceries.

One of the biggest advantages of nearshore halibut is the ability to combine trips with other species, but with the season not opening for two more months, your combo trip will have to consist of halibut and salmon, since bottomfish and halibut cannot be onboard at the same time during alldepth days.

“Every year I get a chance to do some combo days of halibut and salmon,” says guide Ted Teufel. “It’s hard to book these trips because of weather, but when it cooperates, it’s pretty special to get a Tillamook Bay spring Chinook and a 82 Northwest Sportsman

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and Lures, it’s tough to miss, what with the full-sized drift boat on its roof, and will offer herring, tackle, prawns and fresh sand shrimp, along with breakfast burritos, fisherman lunches and Tillamook ice cream between 5 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Teufel uses 6 feet of 30-pound monofilament with two 4/0 fixed hooks for his standard set-up. When the bay’s grass thins out, he will run the occasional flasher to add some attraction to his bait.

Garibaldi led all Oregon Coast ports last year during the nearshore halibut fishery. While that opens in July, shallower waters are fishable during earlier all-depth days.

Fishing out of Garibaldi a few Junes ago, Adam and Annabelle Stark picked up these two flatsiders.

(DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST)

halibut in the same trip.”

“Most of the time I’ll slowly troll herring tight to the bottom when attempting a combo trip, since you never know what’s going to bite. But if I’m just going for halibut, I’ll mooch a whole or cut-plug herring,” he explains.

Rigging for shallow-water halibut doesn’t need to stray too far from your salmon tackle. In fact, the only real modification you may need to make is to pinch your barbs so that if you do catch a salmon, you can legally harvest it.

Many times there isn’t a lot of current near the shoreline, so a trolling motor may be needed to keep your bait moving along bottom. No matter where you start your drift, work deeper or shallower in 50-foot increments until you find fish. Current

seams, riplines and estuary mouths are always productive for salmon, and can also be for halibut.

Out of Tillamook Bay the most popular nearshore halibut drift is from Manzanita to the mouth of the Nehalem. Going south to the Netarts Bay, Nestucca Bay and Pacific City may require a little longer boat ride, unless you have a dory, but also may be worth the extra fuel as fishing can be very productive.

Between nearshore halibut and Chinook, a late spring trip to Tillamook County can be pretty amazing. As you look down upon your prize flopping in the bottom of the boat in a tangle of tackle and gear, be it a flat brown fish or a chrome-bright one, you know you have found something pretty amazing. –AS

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FISHING With smolt releases slated to end in the Wilson, the Trask, where Brian Hawkins picked up this springer, will be the place to go for springers in Tillamook Bay. But don’t overlook the nearby Nestucca, as it will also see continued stocking.

(ANDY SCHNEIDER)

“I’m always fishing my baits right on the bottom, two to four cranks off the bottom at the most, when fishing the jetties, and only one crank off the bottom when fishing the West Channel. Make sure to keep your baits on the bottom, and let them eat it – don’t jump on the rod too early,” Teufel tips.

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While spring sees some big exchanges from high to low, there are also many smaller swings.

“On a soft outgoing tide, you will see me fishing the lower bay,” Teufel says. “Any sort of negative tide and I’ll be targeting the upper bay.”

But if things aren’t happening in the upper bay, Teufel will run out to

the jetties and see if he can find fish there.

“The biggest mistake I see anglers making when fishing the upper bay is not starting early enough,” he notes.

“There is definitely a ‘first light bite’ in the upper bay, and if you are not fishing at the crack of dawn, you are going to miss it. It doesn’t happen every day, but more often than not, I’m netting fish while most anglers are still launching their boats.”

Teufel doesn’t change tactics much from the lower bay to the upper bay.

“Spinners work in the upper bay, but so does herring,” he says, “so I just keep things simple and run it everywhere.”

MAY’S FRESHETS MOVE Tillamook County spring Chinook into the tributaries. The Trask and Nestucca are the most productive, though the former only offers a couple options

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FISHING for bank-bound anglers – the Highway 101 boat ramp and Loran’s Drift. But if you have a drift boat, the float between the Trask’s launches is one of the best on the coast. This stretch offers a variety of holding water for low and high flows.

The Nestucca has decent bank angler access and offers multiple productive floats. The most popular drift for boaters is from Three Rivers to Cloverdale. Even in low water, it can be extremely productive, especially after large tides.

In the short term, the Wilson is another option for springers, but as the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife shifts its coastal stocking strategy, its hatchery spring Chinook smolts will be released into the Trask. (The agency will also stock a small number into the Little Nestucca starting this year.)

In the meanwhile, if there are crowds on the Trask, sneaking over

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to the Wilson may be a viable and productive option. The short float from Donaldson’s to Sollie Smith has excellent holding water for Chinook – and as a bonus, it wouldn’t be too unusual to find a summer steelhead for two in some of your winter-run haunts. The Wilson also offers a lot more opportunities for bank anglers, all along Highway 6.

Back-bouncing eggs has to be one of the most exciting ways of feeling a bite and hooking a Chinook, and Trask and Nestucca springers tend to be very aggressive and will usually give anglers multiple opportunities if they miss the first bite or two. Start with a 48inch leader of 30-pound fluorocarbon leader tied to a 4/0 hook, and add a small chrome and chartreuse No. 4 Spin-N-Glo above your bait to give it a little buoyancy. A lighter lead on a 12-inch dropper is usually all that’s needed in lower spring flows.

Speaking of, with precipitation

forecast to continue to be on the light side, go to bobber and eggs to target spring Chinook as they stack up in the available deeper, cooler waters.

When rivers get lower and there is not enough current to back-bounce bait or run plugs, bobber and eggs is just about your only option. But downsize your bobbers from those big fall salmon models; smaller, 1-ounce bobbers may be more effective for spring Chinook. Running longer and lighter leaders also may be necessary as rivers drop and clear.

That said, running plugs is one of the easiest ways to catch springers in the tribs. Wrap a fillet of sardine or tuna belly on the bottom of a diving plug and deploy it into the murky depths of your favorite river. Size 3.5, 4.5 and 5.0 Mag Lips and K13X, K14X and K15X are all excellent choices for flat-lining should rivers be running full, but go smaller as flows drop. NS

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FISHING

Average Is A-OK! The Willamette’s spring forecast might only be so-so, but May’s a good month to work the falls and channel of this urban fishery.

From midwinter deep into spring, Chinook provide a close-to-home fishery for Portlanders like Trey Carskadon, here holding a salmon from 2012’s run. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

By Andy Schneider

PORTLAND—While a mediocre spring Chinook forecast for the Willamette doesn’t get a lot of anglers hyped up, the river still provides plenty of fishing opportunities. This year’s forecast of 55,000 is pretty similar to 2014’s and is in line with the 10year average, and while perhaps not an eye-popping number, noses know better: It’s still enough to keep barbecues sizzling all spring long, so don’t let an “average” run get you down. Rather, take advantage of what your backyard can provide!

Indeed, how lucky are we to have a salmon river so close to so many residents? The Willamette provides a productive fishery that is just minutes from even the farthest stretches of the Rose City’s limits. That’s pretty amazing by itself, but it’s also a river where anglers can choose an assortment of different techniques to pursue their quarry. There’s dragging herring along its snaggy bottom; suspended fishing in the deep waters of its harbor; back-bouncing eggs in the fast waters below the falls; and a new technique we’ll talk about below. If you have a favorite tactic, there’s an opportunity to use it here.

BY MAY, THE Willamette has usually stabilized and very rarely will turn the color of Portlanders’ favorite coffee.

But if heavy spring rains threaten to spoil the river’s green waters, you can always check the turbidity level before hooking up the boat trailer.

To monitor water conditions, most anglers log onto USGS’s website and check the daily turbidity of the river.

A level of 30 FNU and above will only provide an inch or two of visibility, making it pretty hard for springers to find your bait. Ideal Willamette conditions are when turbidity falls below 5 FNU, but fish are caught when it’s below 10 too. Monitoring the river’s daily progress, you can easily estimate what day it is going to drop into shape. Turbidity is measured at the Morrison Bridge in downtown Portland, so figure that the river may fish a day sooner in Oregon City and may remain murky another two days in the Multnomah Channel.

THIS YEAR’S LOWER flows in the Columbia are going to create more current in the Willamette than we may have seen in many spring seasons. This should be good news for Oregon City anglers, who like to back-troll or back-bounce baits, by far the most popular tactics immediately below the falls.

Eggs, prawns and live sand shrimp are the most popular baits to backtroll. Start with a Jumbo Jet diver on a 10-inch dropper clipped to a sliding weight slider on your mainline. Run 6 to 8 feet of 25-pound leader to a 3/0

hook. While Spin-N-Glos have been a popular way to keep baits suspended off the bottom, a new technique has risen. Most anglers now peg one or two large No. 4 black Corkies halfway down their leaders. Not only does this keep your bait suspended, but when a fish does bite, it won’t have the hindrance of anything just above the hook to spoil a solid hook-set.

But if you have a hard time just watching a rod in the holder, backbouncing can be very productive and enjoyable. Usually, once the water temperature reaches 50 degrees, the Willamette’s egg bite really takes off. Eggs or a whole prawn are the most popular baits to back-bounce in Oregon City.

The river’s spring Chinook tend to be pretty finicky about their egg cures, kind of like Portlanders and their java. If the egg cure you brought isn’t what they want that day, it will be a long, unproductive and cranky outing, so make sure to bring eggs mojoed in different cures, and bring along something to complement them too – sand shrimp, or chunks of sardine or tuna.

Another technique that has

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flourished in the Oregon City stretch of the Willamette is jigging, though the jury is still out on whether this technique will stand the test of time or if it’s just a passing trend because of high flows in the Columbia backing up the river. Still, it’s tough to argue with results. Crippled Herring jigs from 2 to 4 ounces seem to be the most productive sizes, but color varies from day to day. Most jigging occurs in the deep water from the falls to just below the downtown bridge.

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– some angler pressure dissipates, but there’s still plenty of quality fishing remaining. One of the most productive locations for fishing the Willamette in May is actually its very own slough: the Multnomah Channel. Fishing is pretty constant along its entire length, but the most productive trolls this month are along Coon Island, Rocky Point and Santosh Slough.

Most of the channel’s waters are 20 feet or less, and it’s easy enough to keep your baits – herring is usually tops for trollers, but be prepared to switch to spinners or prawn spinners as water temperatures rise – close to the bottom. Just keep a close eye on your electronics for the many snags.

Also, on larger tide series, many times fish will flood up the channel on the incoming. Make sure to follow these

MAY 2015

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Even in an average year, like 2014, when this image was taken, hordes of springer anglers will descend on the Willamette. Near the falls, salmon fishermen prefer to back-troll or back-bounce baits or join hoglines, but some are reaching for their Crippled Herring jigs when water conditions allow. (RICK SWART, ODFW)

surges up the channel. If there is a good bite at Santosh at first light, Coon Island or Rocky Point may be good that afternoon.

As fish push out of the channel and into the Willamette, they often mill around at that point, giving anglers a little better chance at ambushing them. The head of the channel is always one of the most consistent producers in the lower Willamette. When fishing in less than 30 feet of water, keep your baits in contact with the bottom; in deeper water, stagger your depths from 18 to 36 feet.

There always seems to be a decent first-light bite and a flurry around tide changes.

While we have had some record-breaking fall king runs, don’t discount an average spring run on the Willamette.

Take advantage of a river close to home that will offer good fishing through the rest of spring. NS

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96 Northwest Sportsman

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COLUMN

Low Snowpack May Really Help Yakima King Fishing

V

BASIN BEACON

By Rob Phillips Guest columnist

ery little snow in the mountains and a warmer-than-normal late winter is causing some concern amongst irrigators in the Yakima Valley.

But anglers who like to fish the Yakima River for spring Chinook are anticipating the upcoming season with high hopes.

Not only are good numbers of salmon expected to return to the Yakima this spring, but seasoned anglers remember

the last time the river was low and clear in May and June. That was the drought year of 2001, and it turned out to be one of the best springer seasons in the last 15 years.

Normally, runoff this time of year makes the Yakima and other Eastside rivers high and muddy. When that happens, the fish move upstream pretty much at will and are really hard to target in the waters that are typically open for springers.

Kyle Phillips of Yakima shows a typical Yakima River spring Chinook, taken just above the Selah Gap on a bobber and bait.

The Central Washington river’s springers are not terribly big, and most are not silver-dollar bright, but they sure do fight good, are incredibly tasty on the grill and this year’s prospects are strong. (ROB PHILLIPS) MAY 2015

Northwest Sportsman 97

COLUMN But this season, the few guides who work the Yakima, including Bo Lybeck of Bo’s Sportfishing Adventures (509-8538572), are anticipating a banner year.

“Actually, last year the Yakima was pretty good,” says Lybeck. “We had some great days later in the season. But this year, low water should make it really good.”

At press time in early April no dates had been set, but regional Department of Fish and Wildlife officials anticipate there will again be a fishery based on the run

which leads to the east river bank below the railroad bridge.

“That’s the other good thing about lower water,” says Lybeck. “It should make other portions of the river more accessible and fishable.”

Most years, anglers working from drift boats will fish the 4-mile stretch from the Harrison Bridge in Selah down to just above where the Naches River flows into the Yakima.

In higher water years, the Yakima

“Lower water should make plug fishing productive for sure.” forecast. An estimated 9,300 springers will be returning to the river. Typically the run is about half and half, wild fish and hatchery fish. And officials hope that anglers will catch every one of the hatchery-origin fish.

The bulk of the return will be 4-yearold fish, meaning they hatched and matured in the river in 2012, migrated to the ocean in 2013 and will return this year to spawn. The salmon returning this year experienced good freshwater and ocean conditions during their lifetime, contributing to the good return.

SOME OF THE very best fishing in past years has been in the lower Yakima Canyon right below Roza Dam, where the fish tend to congregate before moving up the ladder.

And where salmon stack up, so do the anglers, but frankly, the popular fishing spot has turned into elbow-to-elbow combat fishing at its best – er, worst – when the fish arrive.

Every year, WDFW officials ask anglers to be particularly sensitive to making sure they are accessing the fishing water below the dam in the proper ways. It is a walk-in-only area that includes access via passage across the dam to the open water downstream from the railroad bridge boundary on the west bank.

Or anglers can take the trail across private property accessed from the “Roza Cut” parking area at the top of the hill on the Yakima Canyon Highway (Route 821), 98 Northwest Sportsman

MAY 2015

below the Naches can be somewhat dangerous, with lots of snags, sweepers and other obstacles.

But when the river is lower, it is easier to navigate the 6-mile stretch that runs from the Selah Gap to Union Gap, and it makes the holding water more evident and accessible.

“There are some good holes all the way through that stretch,” Lybeck explains. “It will be good to get a shot at them again.”

It also gives anglers working from the banks more water to fish. Anglers fishing just above and below the Terrace Heights bridge, just a half mile from downtown Yakima, do quite well when the water is lower.

The lower river near Richland should also open for spring Chinook, and with lower water conditions, anglers should have a better crack at the fish there too.

In years past, the fishing in this stretch has been very difficult, though, so most anglers concentrate on the waters near the city of Yakima.

Again, no season has been set yet, but last year the Yakima opened on May 16. Officials anticipate the river will open about the same time this year, if numbers over the dams indicate the fish are returning as anticipated.

AS FOR WHAT to use for the springers this year in the potentially lower, clearer waters of the Yakima, Lybeck is rigged for several

different techniques, but says he plans on running plugs a good deal of the time.

“I’ve really had some good luck on the Mag Lip 3.5,” he says. “I have a lot of confidence in that plug. Lower water should make plug fishing productive for sure.”

His most productive color, double trouble, is always good, he says, but try anything with chartreuse in it.

Lybeck also will drift eggs or tuna balls below a float, and says that is what many of the anglers working the waters below the dam use. He will even try running a diver and bait, including herring or anchovies.

Anglers working from the banks in the stretch of the Yakima below the Selah Gap float bait below a bobber or drift fish with bait. Those drift fishing will use cured eggs or tuna balls with a small Corky or Spin-NGlo to help float the bait.

Some anglers have had luck in past years tossing and retrieving spinners and spoons.

REGULATIONS MOST YEARS have included a daily limit of two hatchery Chinook, identifiable by a clipped adipose fin. But on some years, when there are plenty of hatchery fish, the limit has been raised to as high as six fish per angler per day.

All wild salmon and steelhead must be released unharmed and must not be removed from the water prior to release.

As is the case with other fisheries, anglers fishing the Yakima must have a Columbia River Salmon/Steelhead Endorsement, along with a valid fishing license and punch card. Anglers in the past have also had the option of purchasing a “two-pole endorsement” and fishing with two rods. Watch wdfw. wa.gov for final word on opening and closing dates, as well as fishing boundaries and other regulations.

With very little snowpack in the Cascades, it is shaping up to be a low year for many Eastside rivers. The water situation is a concern to many, but with good numbers of springers returning to the Yakima, the conditions just might make this one of the best salmon seasons on the river in years. NS

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Springers Come Early To Inland Anglers

COLUMN

L

ower Granite Dam is a concrete infusion of modernization. Like a a giant toy pressed from a factory mold, it is placed between INLAND NORTHWEST the sloping cuts

By Ralph Bartholdt of the Snake River under short grass hills on the border of Garfield and Whitman Counties in Southeast Washington. From a distance, it is a quiet spectacle of innovation. Its fish ladder allows salmon to migrate to the miasma of mainstems and tributaries that carve their own paths through the mountains of Washington’s Blues, as well as Northeast Oregon and Central Idaho.

None of this comes to the mind of most visitors here, in what seems like a semibarren wasteland 40 miles west of Lewiston. Up close, the dam is loud, windy, there is a lot of steel, concrete and asphalt, and, especially in late March and early April, not a whole lot else is going on except for the sploosh of water, the occasional drenching of sun and the hum of turbines. This year, though, in late March something unusual occurred here. A couple adult Chinook swam up the ladder past the dam and into the impoundment behind it that is the Snake River. But the pair caught the attention of biologists, because the mere sighting of a Chinook here so early in the spring is noteworthy.

Spring Chinook do not show up here for another three weeks or a month. Their numbers, as they laze past the observation windows, don’t begin to climb until late April or early May. But here were two fish that did not abide by the normal Chinook calendar of the last decade.

Joe DuPont, the state salmon manager for Central Idaho, knows this.

Idaho salmon managers expect anglers to harvest over 10,000 spring Chinook this season in the Clearwater, where Garrett Grubbs picked up this duo a few years back, and Salmon systems. (DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST)

“Usually, that time of year we have none,” he notes.

Low flows and warmer water temperatures in the rivers spilling from the mountains of the Gem State have prematurely pushed the calendar ahead.

“The run’s looking early,” DuPont says.

Like most biologists who have been for a while in the business of observing and documenting a species, building models to predict movements and behavior, DuPont knows that, like a Jenga block, there is always a piece that can upset the whole. So he is cautious against predicting that this year’s run up the Snake to the Salmon and Clearwater Rivers is way ahead of schedule.

“It’s very early in the run, and conditions could greatly change,” he said

early last month.

DuPont is also cautious of any predictions as to the length of the run.

But without periodical swells of dirty, cold water holding things up – the usual spring conditions – the big kings could find smooth sailing as they head upstream.

“Those fish could be flying on through,” he says.

He is careful about predicting an anomaly.

“You never know what’s going to happen,” he says.

FOR ANGLERS CONSIDERING reservations at waterway hostels from Clarkston to Riggins, and east along the Clearwater and Salmon Rivers to coincide with the

MAY 2015

Northwest Sportsman 101

COLUMN usual two-week window of fish movement there, the news may be startling.

As writer Allen Thomas wrote in an article in the Vancouver Columbian a while back, “Spring Chinook anglers in the mid-Columbia and Snake Rivers are as crazed and passionate as their Lower Columbia brethren.”

That euphoric feeling of hooking a springer trembles up the backbone of anglers on the Clearwater and Salmon systems, as well, where waters on many upper reaches are open to the keeping of four fish, depending on how soon anglers catch an adult hatchery fish.

“People travel long distances, they plan their vacation around it, they get kind of crazy,” DuPont says.

That’s one reason the Idaho Department of Fish & Game leased a 300-foot tract of land on the Little Salmon River along Highway 95. This stretch near Riggins is an annual combat fishery each spring, as the salmon pass through on their way to the Rapid River

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Hatchery. The extra shoulder room will come in handy for anglers flocking to its banks this month.

They can also expect more signs on the Little Salmon informing them of private property boundaries, the conditional access and how to reach the river.

Idaho fishery biologists are projecting a harvest share of 4,500 fish on the Clearwater this year. That is about 600 more than last year.

Harvest share for the Rapid River fishery are lower this year than 2014.

Biologists expect a harvest share of 6,200 adults on the Little Salmon, compared to 6,800 last spring.

Anglers in the Clearwater Basin, except for the South Fork Clearwater, can keep four fish per day, but only one adult fish measuring 24 inches or longer.

In the South Fork Clearwater, lower Salmon, Little Salmon and Snake River fisheries, anglers can keep four fish daily, including two adults. There are other

rules and restrictions too; they are listed in the regs and anglers are expected to know them.

The rest is a matter of timing.

Last year, the number of Chinook pushing up the ladders at Lower Granite peaked May 10 when 7,000 fish made their way through the behemoth power producer. A week later, another 4,000 fish pushed through.

With this year’s low snowpack, and less chance of cyclical flows that are usually the result of runoff, DuPont has advice for anyone planning to pull a big spring salmon from an Idaho river.

“Be aware, the runs could be earlier than last year,” he says. “Stay alert. If we don’t get high flows, those fish could be pushing through Lewiston in anywhere from 10 to 20 days. That’s not unusual.

We’ve had fish come in all at once and push through in a week.”

Bottom line: Have your plugs tuned, your tuna balls prepared and leaders tied up for when the fish are in. NS

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FISHING

Oncorhynchus Maximus Catch all five species of Pacific salmon this year!

By Dennis Dauble

G

olf has the Grand Slam and horse racing fans honor the Triple Crown winner, so why not bestow an angler award for the Oncorhynchus Flush?

My best guess why such an award has not caught on is that most people can’t spell the Latin derivation of “hooked snout.” I know I never gave the idea of catching all five species of Pacific salmon in a year much thought until my buddy Leroy sent a detailed email of a November fishing

adventure to the Skykomish River that ended with “Oh my God! Five Pacifics in a year!”

I must mention that Leroy had a previous goal of catching one steelhead from every regional stream within 100 miles of his front door stoop, and another year he kept 50 salmon just to say he did. So it was only natural he would aspire to put a Chinook, coho, sockeye, pink and chum on his punch card.

It seems that some anglers are more driven than others.

Regardless, if you have a nagging

Chum may not be pretty, but they are great fighters and a great way to cap the five-species challenge.

These days, opportunities to harvest the dog salmon are more limited due to smaller returns to North Sound streams. Still, a million are expected to the basin. (ANDY FELMY)

feeling that something is missing in your life and it has nothing to do with not having a date for your high school prom, then this article is for you. With what looks like a good fishing year ahead, here are the best bets for catching all five species of Pacific salmon.

CHINOOK The largest and most iconic member of the salmon family, kings or Chinook, can be caught in the Columbia River from March through October.

Jumpstart your quest by bagging a springer, either in the mainstem or its lower tribs, including the Cowlitz, where a strong run is expected, and the Kalama. Early season action for urban anglers is also expected to be hot from the mouth of the Willamette River to Bonneville Dam. Upriver anglers, keep a watchful eye on the dam counts and head for the Wind River and Drano Lake in spring, when passage numbers over Bonneville climb past 2,000 Chinook per day. If you don’t hook up with a salmon there, follow the run upriver to the lower Snake, the Yakima or even the Icicle.

If you whiff on springers, don’t fret. As they fade, summer Chinook hit the Columbia, and some of the best spots are downstream of Wanapum Dam and up in the Brewster Pool.

But let’s say it’s late summer, you still don’t have a Chinook salmon on your punch card, and you’re sick and tired of the close-fisted Columbia.

Best options for Puget Sound anglers include the Samish, Puyallup, Nisqually and Skokomish Rivers, while coastal fisheries expected to have good numbers of harvestable kings include the Chehalis and Humptulips. Fall kings also bite on the Cowlitz, Lewis and Kalama. Or confront your nemesis and “hover” fish for early-run upriver brights in

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FISHING the Columbia off the mouths of the Klickitat and Deschutes Rivers.

And really, you almost can’t go wrong by fishing the free-flowing stretch of the Columbia known as the Hanford Reach, where URBs have returned in record numbers the past two years, producing fast, furious and record catches through early October. If, like me, you had fun reeling in 20-pounders last fall, expect to suffer a similar addiction in 2015.

The Columbia will see solid to great returns of spring, summer and fall Chinook this year, making the long river a great spot to card a king. This 20-pound upriver bright from the Hanford Reach struck a hot lavapattern Super Bait stuffed with tuna for the author.

(DENNIS DAUBLE)

SOCKEYE The second species of Pacific salmon to enter rivers and streams of Washington each year are sockeye, or reds as they’re known for their spawning coat. The run is relatively brief, with action mainly restricted to July and August.

Westside anglers are once again likely to be out of luck because the Lake Washington run is not forecast to come anywhere close to the goal of 350,000 fish, and sport harvest at Lake Ozette is closed. However, while low numbers of sockeye are present in coastal streams such as the Sol Duc and Quinault Rivers, your best bet may be the Skagit River, where prospects are favorable for a Baker Lake fishery in 2015.

There was a time, in the not-sodistant past, where Upper Columbia River anglers had to wait for the management goal of 65,000 sockeye

over Priest Rapids Dam to be met before they could bait their Smile Blade rigs with cocktail shrimp. Not so now. With record numbers of sockeye flooding the Columbia in recent years, more and more anglers have learned how to catch these finicky fish from Portland all the way up to Pateros and beyond.

Indeed, catching his first upriver sockeye was the turning point in my friend Leroy’s goal of five Pacific salmon.

With nearly 400,000 expected this year, fish returning to the Okanogan Basin can be intercepted in the Hanford Reach or downstream of Wanapum and Wells Dams. These same fish stack up in Brewster Pool waiting for the Okanogan River to cool off. And the Lake Wenatchee fishery is also likely to open, given the very favorable preseason projection

As runs have swelled elsewhere in the state, sockeye fishing has moved well past its modern-day origins on Lake Washington. Anglers now are dialing in Hanford Reach reds, like this mint-bright 3-pounder that succumbed to a Smile Blade rig in early July. Another big run is expected to head through here on the way to the Brewster Pool and Lake Wenatchee. (DENNIS DAUBLE)

of 100,000-plus.

PINKS As with every odd-numbered year, this is a pink salmon season in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound, and 2015’s forecast calls for approximately 6.8 million to return starting in midsummer. These feisty little fish transition to rivers and streams from late August through most of September, although their flesh quality wanes rapidly once they enter freshwater.

Every two years, I make the 250mile trek from the Tri-Cities to a Westside river to fish for humpies with my grandchildren. I book an afternoon trip with my favorite guide, Ray Vermillion from All Rivers Guide Service (allriversguideservice. com), and we hook and release fish until our shoulders are sore from reeling.

The biggest producers are the Snohomish/Skykomish, Green and Skagit Rivers, but the Nisqually has come into its own as the species has colonized it. They’ve also moved into the Snoqualmie. Whether you favor jigs, shrimp under a float or flies, there are few better opportunities for filling the smoker than with a batch of pinks on an odd calendar year.

COHO Returns of Columbia River coho approached 1 million fish in 2014, but preseason forecasts for 2015 are 106 Northwest Sportsman

MAY 2015

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FISHING lower than that by several hundred thousand. Still, the odds are good for a limit of silvers if you spend Labor Day weekend battling the crowd at Buoy 10, and it isn’t long before they show up in the Cowlitz, Kalama, Lewis and Willamette Rivers. By late September, action is usually hot off the mouth of the Klickitat.

The Klick marked the end of the trail for coho until recent years. The big surprises in 2014 were October and November fisheries on the Upper Columbia above Priest Rapids Dam. Included were the Wenatchee, Icicle and Methow Rivers. And Idaho anglers were striking silver in November. Stay tuned for whether a similar harvest opportunity presents itself in 2015.

Moving back to the Westside, this year’s forecast is just as strong as last year’s actual return, and consistent coho producers include the Nooksack, Skagit, Snohomish, Green, Puyallup, Nisqually and Quilcene systems. As

those fisheries fade, anglers turn to late-timed runs on the Humptulips, Chehalis and Satsop Rivers. The lower Dungeness River is also expected to support a strong return.

CHUM

Pugetropolis turns into Pinkopolis come late summer of odd-numbered years. Humpies – like this first of the season one for Annalise and Adam Dauble, along with guide Ray Vermillion – flood into every major river and now many creeks from the international border to Olympia. Though a record run isn’t expected, managers still expect just shy of 7 million. (DENNIS DAUBLE)

The wild card in your flush hand is the strongest-fighting and second largest of all Pacific salmon, reaching weights of up to 30 pounds. But because the Lower Columbia’s chum run is listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act, you’ll need to head to coastal or Puget Sound rivers.

The strongest returns of dogs is traditionally seen in Hood Canal and south Puget Sound streams or hatcheries, including a terminal fishery at Hoodsport Hatchery. I caught my very first chum in the Humptulips, where retention is now banned due to low numbers. In contrast, the Satsop River is popular for coastal anglers in catch-and-keep mode. Harvest has

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FISHING

Coho are the most widespread salmon, and last year were harvestable from the mouth of the Columbia at Buoy 10 – where Northwest Sportsman’s Becca Ellingsworth caught this one last season – all the way up to Leavenworth, Carlton and the Clearwater, as well as throughout Puget Sound, Southwest Washington and the Olympic Peninsula. In general, prospects are good for the species again this year. (JOEL ALLEN)

seasons. Many Westside salmon runs have been deemed off-limits to harvest, particularly where wild stocks need protection. Other rules may include barbless hooks and artificial lures only.

When you add it all together, there may be no better year for putting five species on your punch card (or up on your Facebook as selfies). It will be another good year for pinks, the third year in a row of record-breaking Columbia Chinook runs, and sockeye numbers should continue to climb the charts. If coho maintain their presence and you can top off the season with an elusive chum, then you can be like Leroy – “Five Pacifics in a year!” NS

Oncorhynchus Flush, Oncy Quinary, or five-salmon challenge worthy or not of your attention, carefully review the latest sportfishing regulations for stream closures and

Editor’s note: Dennis Dauble is the award-winning author of Fishes of the Columbia Basin and The Barbless Hook. Both are available at DennisDauble. com, KeokeeBooks.com and on Amazon.

not been allowed in several Puget Sound Rivers, including the Skagit, Snohomish and Skykomish, in recent years. Note that a particular river has to open for retention of another salmon species in order to legally practice catch-and-release, unless regulations specifically state otherwise. If time is running out on your poker hand, try the Green or Nisqually, where the chum run can last through December.

GOOD LUCK! Catching (i.e., hooking, landing and possibly releasing) all five species of Pacific salmon in 2015 does not necessarily mean a year spent roadtripping from Pasco to Kelso to Poulsbo to Monroe. Indeed, the odds are in your favor if you park your camper on the Skagit River from July through November. Canada’s Fraser River is another option, as are various Puget Sound saltwaters.

Whether you find the

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Trout are a year-round pursuit for many Northwest anglers, one that takes us far afield in search of rainbows, cutthroat – both westslopes and searuns, as this angler is pursuing on southern Puget Sound – browns, bulls and brookies. Late summer and fall can produce good action, as the various species bulk up for the winter and/or fall spawn. (CHASE GUNNELL) 116 Northwest Sportsman

MAY 2015

FISHING

Shoulder-season Trout Rounding out the Northwest’s best bites by month for fall and winter.

By Zac Holmes

I

n last month’s issue, I shared my “dream list” of trout streams that I’d like to fish in the next six months.

This month’s article rounds out the rest of the year from October to March. Some anglers might assume that the summer-oriented season has better fishing, but I can make a strong argument for the colder months too. The crowds disappear in late fall and early winter, and anglers often find themselves enjoying the solitude without the water skiers and yahoos. The bite can be very steady during the shoulder season, as the fish continue to feed, and move to shallower, more accessible water. Also, in areas where retention is allowed, the trout are firm and in good shape, and provide better eating. There just isn’t an off-season for trout fishing in the Northwest.

FLY BY

MONTH

PART II

OCTOBER: BULLS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BORDER I’m sometimes tempted to give up on trout fishing during hunting season, but I always make a point to chase those other bulls of October – bull trout. Targeting them isn’t permitted, or even possible in much of their native range, but there are a number of drainages in the Northwest that still support good numbers. These streams are widely scattered, but all possess the cold, clean water that bull trout require. Pinch your barbs, respect these fish and handle them carefully.

The North Fork Clearwater River and its large tributary Kelly Creek originate from the rugged slopes of the Bitterroot Mountains.

Native westslope cutthroat provide fantastic fishing throughout summer and early fall. The cutts range from 10 to 16 inches, with some larger fish available. I like these guys, but don’t feel bad watching them get brutalized by big, marauding bulls that lurk in the river’s emerald pools. These bulls sometimes top 10 pounds, and will hammer streamers, nymphs and even the cutthroats on the end of your line. Several of my friends target the bull trout in these rivers throughout late summer and fall. They catch fish on a number of patterns, but particularly like black/yellow streamers and big San Juan worms in red and pink.

Well to the north of the Idaho system, the bull trout fishery in British Columbia’s Duncan River is almost too good to be true.

For one, last October, the first bull trout season in more than 30 years was held. Also, the bulls are abundant, average 30 inches in length, and run even larger than that. To top it all off, the Duncan is situated in a beautiful part of the world, and feels very remote, but it’s relatively accessible. The river is located at the north end

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FISHING In the far headwaters of the Columbia River, where the waters still run cold and pure, lurk bull trout. This one was caught by Zach Mansfield in a reservoir on the uppermost Deschutes system. (DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST)

of Kootenay Lake near the friendly town of Nelson, and serves as a major spawning conduit for many of Kootenay’s bull trout, Gerrard rainbows and kokanee. The fall season is very short, and only open during the last two weeks of October, from the confluence of the Lardeau River, downstream.

The bulls are managed for catchand-release fishing only. A DIY trip to the Duncan is difficult due to access issues, and it would be wise to book a trip with Kerry Reed of Reel Adventures Charters (reeladventuresfishing.com). Reed is a great guy, knows the water intimately, and is well-equipped to provide an unbelievable day on the Duncan.

NOVEMBER: AMBER LAKE CUTTS, ’BOWS Amber Lake is one of my old favorites. My fly fishing career started here almost two decades ago, when I caught my first trout on a fly rod. I visited the 118 Northwest Sportsman

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lake frequently throughout my protracted undergraduate career at Eastern Washington University, and got to know the lake well.

It’s reached by a short drive south from Cheney, and is nestled in a good-sized basalt coulee, where the forested scablands meld into the open hills of the Palouse.

Amber is a productive lake that grows abundant food for the rainbows and cutthroats that are stocked regularly.

According to Chris Donley, Inland Fish Program manager for the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, the November catch-and-release season is a great time to be on the lake. It’s quiet, water temperatures are near optimal levels, and the trout are actively feeding in response to the coming winter. Amber is a great little lake that gives up good numbers of 12- to 20-inch rainbows and cutthroats.

Woolly Buggers and other

streamer flies in various sizes and colors are my top choices for November. Trolling these flies from a float tube or small craft is generally more productive and covers more water than casting and stripping from the bank. Utilizing full-sink and sink-tip lines allows anglers to fish at greater depths, and reach trout at different levels of the water column.

Much of the insect activity has died down by the time November comes along, but the fish haven’t stopped feeding. Chironomids are a staple food item in the lakes of the Northwest, and Amber’s no exception. Effectively fishing these small insects requires anglers to sit stationary in a watercraft and suspend their flies below a strike indicator, 6 to 24 inches above the weedbeds and shoals. Chironomids are imitated with relatively simple small, wire-wrapped nymphs in a variety of colors, especially black, rust and brass.

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FISHING clean up the lake, reducing siltation and improving water quality and the abundance of daphnia. Daphnia are small, plankton-like crustaceans that occur in great profusion, and provide a consistent and prolific food source. The rainbows thrive off the plankton, and grow to an average of 15 to 17 inches, but regularly top 20. They are found throughout the lake.

Rock can be intimidating due to its size and inaccessibility. Bank access is limited to the boat launch area, which can provide good fishing, but boat anglers will cover far more water and catch far more fish. Streamer patterns worked deeply are the key to hooking into Rock’s big fish. Rio Fly Lines’ In Touch Deep 7 sinking line gets down like no other and will maximize the amount of time that your bait is presented at the proper depth.

Classic Woolly Bugger and leech patterns in black, brown and olive will catch fish all day.

Rock Lake is well known for its brown trout, like those Spokane’s Bill Stanley has dialed in, but perhaps overlooked is its quality rainbow fishery.

(DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST)

JANUARY: COASTAL CUTTHROATS IN SOUTHERN PUGET SOUND

DECEMBER: ROCK’S BIG BROWNS, RAINBOWS Rock Lake is one of my family’s favorite destinations because of its unique character and big fish. At one time, Rock was stocked only with brown trout, but a heavy dose of rainbows has been added to the mix in recent years. December is a great month to be on Rock. Due to its great size and steady winds, the lake doesn’t freeze. Rock’s browns become very aggressive this time of year, and some fish exceed 30 inches.

By December, the browns are attempting to spawn, and behaving territorially. Very little natural reproduction occurs due to the lack of the necessary habitat.

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Nevertheless, they concentrate in large numbers near the lake’s inlet, outlet and numerous other areas with the right depth and suitable cobble. The browns are often found in 5 to 20 feet of water, and are quite accessible using fly tackle.

My brother, Northwest Sportsman contributor Jeff Holmes, has spent countless hours researching and pursuing these browns, and knows of credible stories of 10- to 15-pound fish being caught.

I love Rock’s browns, but the plus-sized rainbows are nothing to scoff at. WDFW’s Donley believes that the proliferation of Conservation Reserve Program lands in the watershed has helped to

The excellent sea-run cutthroat fishery in southern Puget Sound is one of the best kept secrets in the Northwest. Coastal cutts are some of the most vibrantly colored trout around, and the Sound has a strong, stable population. On good days, experienced anglers can go out and land bragging numbers of trout, with the possibility of hooking a few resident salmon as well. Puget Sound cutts average a healthy 13 to 18 inches, and run up to 22. Catching hot cutts in January is a great way to get outside during the winter.

According to James Losee, a WDFW fisheries biologist, his agency began reducing daily limits in the late 1970s, when anecdotal evidence indicated declines in the population.

Harvest limits were dialed back over the next 20 years, but numbers failed to rebound. Then, in 1999, catch-and-release regulations were

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FISHING instated in the marine portion of the Puget Sound basin. Since then, stocks have improved, and the cutts have garnered greater appreciation from anglers. Losee says that one of the perks of fishing for the cutts is catching incidental coho and Chinook, and starry flounder. This mixed bag keeps things interesting Ideal sea-run cutthroat habitat can be found all around the South Sound. The cutts spawn in the multitude of small streams that trickle into the saltwater, and are often found in the vicinity of these creeks and springs, from 2 to 50 feet deep. Likely areas include sandy beaches littered with seashells, estuaries, gravel points, root wads and flooded grasses.

Coastal cutts are opportunistic feeders and are frequently visible in the top few feet of water. Losee advises anglers to move if they aren’t catching or seeing fish. He

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will catch fish too. Floating line is sufficient in many instances, but getting deeper with sink-tip and full-sink lines is often the difference between catching fish and getting skunked. A 7-weight rod is about perfect for throwing heavy lines into the wind, and playing the occasional salmon.

FEBRUARY: BIG RAINBOWS ON LAKE ROOSEVELT Lake Roosevelt trout managers seem to have the reservoir dialed in, if this triploid rainbow held

by Logan Braaten is any indication. The fishery produces for those trolling flies and plunking dough bait off the bank. (DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST)

likes a high, slack tide for the best action, and believes a small boat will help anglers access more water.

Fly patterns should imitate the 2to 6-inch-long candlefish, sculpins, smolts and alevin that occur in great profusion in Puget Sound. Poppers and gurglers fished on the surface

Lake Roosevelt is one of the best trout fisheries in Washington, but this wasn’t always the case.

Historically, WDFW was unable to create a legitimate trout fishery in the Upper Columbia reservoir due to the dramatic fluctuations in water levels and the loss of fish downstream over the dam in high water. This is no longer the case, thanks to a cooperative net-pen program operated by the state, the Colville Confederated Tribes and

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MAY 2015

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FISHING The Spokane Tribe of Indians that releases approximately 750,000 catchable triploid rainbows each year. They mostly average a healthy 15 to 18 inches, but holdover fish can reach the mid-20s. These fish, and the occasional walleye or kokanee, provide spectacular fishing when the bite is on. Roosevelt fishes best from late September through May, and February is one of the best months.

According to WDFW’s Donley, Roosevelt’s rainbows are a special strain that target daphnia. The crustaceans drift freely downstream and concentrate in the lower third of the reservoir, and so do the fish. Donley recommends fishing between Grand Coulee Dam and Sterling Point. The Lincoln boat launch is a great starting point.

Roosevelt is massive and using a boat is by far the best way to enjoy the reservoir. Trolling with fast-

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sinking fly lines or leaded line is the name of the game, and if the trout aren’t cooperating, anglers should move around to locate the pods of fish. Fly rods with sinking lines will catch rainbows in Roosevelt, but flies fished with conventional spinning rods, reels and leaded lines generally work better, because they get deeper and are more efficient.

Although abundant and generally cooperative, Roosevelt rainbows are not pushovers. The fish can be spooky, so some anglers run as much as 100 feet of monofilament to their bait. Fluorocarbon leaders are a good option, as well, since they are less visible than traditional mono lines, and are more abrasionresistant. Making S-turns with the boat and changing speeds are good tactics too, if the fish aren’t cooperating. A variety of lures and streamer patterns will catch fish in Roosevelt, but Muddler Minnows

are a time-honored favorite. Many Roosevelt anglers believe that plain flies are not as effective as those tipped with a segment of nightcrawler fluttering off the back.

MARCH: NATIVE RAINBOWS ON THE YAKIMA Jack Mitchell of The Evening Hatch (theeveninghatch.com) has been trying to tell people about the great March fly fishing on the Yakima for years. The river is well known amongst Northwest fly fishermen, but the early season goes unnoticed by most anglers. The river is quiet, wildlife is abundant and, most importantly, the fish are on the hunt for the first big hatch of the year, the skwala stonefly. These big green bugs will draw strikes from some of the biggest fish in the river as they rouse from their winter slumber.

The Yakima is one of Washington’s best spring trout

fisheries, and is a steady producer of chunky, wild rainbows and the occasional cutthroat or brookie.

Stray lake trout from upstream reservoirs have even been landed in winter on Woolly Bugger and streamer patterns.

Spring stoneflies hatch each year as winter gives way to spring.

Yakima River rainbows and cutts have evolved to take advantage of seasonal food sources, and skwalas are one of the most important.

According to Mitchell, the second and third weeks of March have historically been the peak periods for catching fish on dries. Effective adult skwala imitations should be size 8 to 12 greenish bugs that sit low in the water, have a narrow profile and a black butt. Mitchell advises anglers to fish subsurface patterns, as well, because nymphs often hook fish when they aren’t looking up.

Effective skwala nymphs include Pat’s Rubberlegs, 20-Inchers and Kaufmann’s stones.

The lower canyon section, between Roza Dam and Ellensburg, offers abundant access, great scenery and loads of wildlife. The river’s riparian zone is an oasis amidst the high desert plateaus and towering basalt bastions that loom above the valley. Highway 821 parallels the river through the canyon, and provides ample access to the large tracts of public lands that line the banks. This section gets fished heavily during the peak season, but is relatively quiet during the spring.

There are a number of quality fly shops and guide services in and around Ellensburg. Every year, though, The Evening Hatch offers a “winter skwala special” from Nov. 1 through March 31. During this period, a full-day guided float trip is only $275 per boat, compared to $395 for the rest of the season.

This is a great deal for a guided trip on one of Washington’s best spring trout fisheries. NS MAY 2015

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COLUMN

Give Goose A Go

By Buzz Ramsey

A

cting like a steelhead, the trout yanked our youngest son’s rod down and BUZZ RAMSEY headed for the other side of the lake, stopping to perform a double somersault before falling back into the water, changing directions and heading for a submerged stump near shore.

Wade held his rod high and steered the torpedo-acting fish away from the bark-covered obstacle.

The last time I’d seen Wade this excited was when landing his first 40-pound salmon, which, after we weighed it, turned out to be 35. And although this rainbow wasn’t nearly as large as a salmon or steelhead, its speed, acrobatics, fast runs and the fact that we were experiencing nonstop fishing action made catching it a lot of fun. After all, any fat trout measuring more than 12 inches is considered a trophy, and this one was pushing 20.

WANTING TO ARRIVE at our favorite mountain lake early, we’d left home just before 4 a.m. The birds were still chirping when we arrived at the Forest Service campground, launched our boat, and parked after placing USFS Northwest Forest, Discovery and – for good measure – WDFW parking passes on the dashboard of my truck. The ramp was empty, which surprised us, considering the number of trout that we knew were lurking under the water’s glassy surface.

Since the rules on Goose Lake, located

Wade Ramsey, the author’s youngest son, shows off a nice limit of cutts and browns from Goose Lake several years ago. (BUZZ RAMSEY) on the south flank of Washington’s Mt. Adams, west of Trout Lake, don’t allow gas motors, we’d taken our Willie drift boat, complete with a cooler for lunch and fish. We see some anglers fishing this mountain lake using electric trolling motors for propulsion, but for us, rowing

is easy and a lot less fuss.

We tried several fishing techniques during our morning adventure. The first was to slow troll – we’re talking dead slow – small F-5 FlatFish 50 to 60 feet behind our boat. Dark-colored plugs in frog, black or brown, and all tipped with a ¼-inch

MAY 2015

Northwest Sportsman 127

COLUMN

HIGH LAKES INFO Figuring out where to go mountain troutin’ has come a long way since Ernest E. Wolcott compiled those thick green Lakes of Washington books back in the 1960s.

These days, the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife has put together a website that spotlights several hundred alpine waters stocked since 2000.

Under the Fish Washington logo, click on High Lakes and you’ll get a map with symbols showing the locations of “getting started,” “overabundant” and “stocked” lakes throughout the Cascades and eastern side of the Olympics. Click on one and a pop-up screen will detail the lake’s classification, species available and elevation. For adventurous crosscountry bushwhackers – Mike Quinn, Jim Ledbetter, we’re talking to you – another iteration of the data includes superprecise latitude and longitude readings.

Also of note, in 2014, for the first time in some years, WDFW was able to stock

(WDFW)

five lakes on DNR ground classified as natural resources conservation areas, including Granite 2, Foggy, Six, Weden and Rachor near Marblemount, Sultan and North Bend. In these and other highaltitude waters, biologists say to give the fish two years to grow to decent size.

This year’s alpine trout season is well ahead of schedule. Our Doug Huddle reported he visited a lake at 4,200 feet on March 1 and found it ice free with trout actively feeding on a bug hatch. -NWS

section pinched from a white-colored PowerBait maggot, are what produced best on this particular day. It’s always amazed me how fickle trout can be in regards to lure color and size on different lakes and at different times of year. Other plug finishes we don’t leave home without include gold and silver.

This method produced for the first hour, but the trout either moved or wised up to this tactic, which forced us to try something different.

It was then that we switched to casting and retrieving spinners. No fish, especially trout, can resist the sonic vibration produced by a blade spinning on a wire shaft. The other appeal of spinners (and casting spoons, for that matter) is that they allow you to cover a lot of water in a short amount of time.

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Northwest Sportsman 129

COLUMN works better than you might think, and is something we often do.

Since the fish seemed to be holding in the shallow water near shore, we followed the shoreline around the lake, with me keeping the boat 50 to 70 yards away from the bank, while sons Blake and Wade cast towards shore before beginning their retrieve.

If you’re new to lake fishing, keep in mind that fish may be holding near shore or the lake surface early or late in the day (or on overcast days) and will most likely move into deeper water as the light intensifies. Fish don’t have eyelids (or sunglasses), so the only way they can control the amount of light entering their eye is by their location.

WE CAUGHT A mixture of brown, rainbow, cutthroat and brook trout. The brookies spawn naturally in Goose and are so numerous they are mostly small; hardly ever do you catch one over 10 inches.

That actually prompted the Washington

••

Department of Fish and Wildlife to first plant brown trout in the lake, which they do each and every year.

While the majority of browns average 12 to 14 inches, there are much larger, trophy-sized ones lurking in this lake.

For example, WDFW biologist John Weinheimer tells me he has handled 6to 7-pounders at Goose. And according to Bev Meyer, owner of the Trout Lake Grocery (509-395-2777), the three largest browns brought into her store from the lake have included: a 15.44-pound monster taken in 1994 that measured 31.5 inches; a 16.3-pounder caught from the east end of the lake on PowerBait in 2008; and a 10.28-pounder taken in May of 2009.

Numerous nearby lakes, both on and well off the Forest Service’s roads, are also stocked and provide good opportunities. They include Takhlakh, Council and Ollallie Lakes and several inside Indian Heaven and Mt. Adams wildernesses.

When it comes to eating quality, they are all good, but it’s the brook trout that have the sweetest-tasting flesh. But again, those from this lake are mostly small, so we don’t keep many. Our preference is cutthroat, rainbow and browns, in that order. What we do is fillet the sides off and slice each fillet lengthwise, dip in a thin batter and pan fry them until golden brown. Most of our friends can’t believe how good they taste.

There are hundreds of high mountain lakes in the Northwest. Many only become accessible to anglers when lingering winter snows finally melt off the roads and trails leading to them, but this year’s low snowpack has made for early access and a prolonged period of good fishing. Don’t pass up the thrill of catching high mountain trout. NS Editor’s note: The author is a brand manager and member of the management team at Yakima Bait. Find him on Facebook.

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FISHING Crankbaits in salmon-smoltimitating shad patterns or crawfish are great options for spring smallies in the Columbia Gorge, where the author landed this one. (JASON BROOKS)

Smallie Ops Follow Springers May sees the hungry bass move onto spawning grounds in the Columbia Gorge.

By Jason Brooks

THE DALLES—Later this month, the prized spring Chinook run will dwindle in the Columbia River Gorge. But don’t put away the rods just yet: The warming water temperatures that speed the kings upstream spark other fishing opportunities.

Smallmouth bass get ready to spawn in early May, and later this month and into June the fish move into the shallows looking for food and places to make their beds. The prespawn also sees them become increasingly aggressive and hungry.

This timeframe will see the sloughs, coves, bays and current points found in the backwaters of The Dalles Dam to the base of John Day Dam warm up and bass go on the bite.

WHEN NOT WORKING in the fishing department at Sportco (sportco.com) in Fife, Wash., Curtis Blunck can be found bass fishing various American Bass Association and Northwest Bass Circuit tournaments throughout the Northwest, including the Lower Columbia region. Blunck has two top 10 finishes in recent years, and is always willing to talk bass fishing and give some tips on how to find and catch smallmouth.

“A great way to locate fish is to throw out a crankbait and drop the trolling motor, slowly cruising likely areas until you catch a fish,” he says.

Blunck’s favorite crank is a Rat-LTrap in shad pattern, as it looks like a typical baitfish or smolt that the bass in the Columbia feed on. Another great lure is a crawfish Wiggle Wart.

“Keep in mind this is a river with

current, so you need to think a little like a steelhead fisherman,” Blunck points out. “Look for seams and boulders or points that create a break in the flows, where the fish can sit and rest while food comes at them.”

As water temperatures rise, smallies move up and into the shallow waters in preparation to spawn once the river hits 55 to 60 degrees. But during this period, the fish have more on their mind thaNnesting.

“They really put on the feedbag once the prespawn starts,” Blunck says.

He switches to tube baits with a ⅛-ounce jig head, and says he likes white or chartreuse, depending on water clarity.

A pro-staffer for Trokar, Blunck stresses that sharp hooks are a must, as well as changing up to a weedless

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FISHING hook in shallow water, where weeds can become a problem. He also runs braided mainline on his Okuma reels so he can fight the aggressive fish to the boat as quickly as possible, take a quick photo and then send them back to feeding.

I USED BLUNCK’S advice last year while out fishing for bass with my son, Ryan, and my stepfather, Willie Ross, better known as Walleye Willie, a fulltime guide (walleyewillie.com) out of The Dalles. We trolled along the edge of an island and a weedbed where smallmouth were waiting for smolts and other small fish. After only going about a hundred yards, the rod bent over and a big bass was jumping and thrashing around.

These fish fight hard and are really fun to catch. We lost that one, but a few minutes later it was fish-on again.

We continued to fish until the sun was too hot and we called it a day. This is probably one of the best things about bass angling on this part of the Columbia: the mornings are brisk and calm and the scenery is incredible. By midday, the famed winds kick up and it’s time to motor back to the launch and enjoy other parts of the gorge.

A great base camp for bass is Maryhill State Park, on the Washington side of the river. It offers camping, a small swim area for those hot days and an excellent boat launch. You can even fish from the park’s shores and catch smallmouth. It is also just down the hill from Maryhill Museum and Washington’s Stonehenge, a replica of the one in the United Kingdom.

There are several small rock islands within a few miles upriver of the state park. They create current breaks and often have shallow coves on one side or the other that hold fish. Smallmouth like waters in 5 to 20 feet this time of year.

Just downstream of Maryhill is the large Miller Island, a former 134 Northwest Sportsman

MAY 2015

If the Columbia Gorge’s notoriously strong spring winds blow you off the water, its banks still provide a good platform to cast for bass, as Chris Spencer of Longview found a few Mays ago. His smallie bit a gold 3/ -ounce spinnerbait at Horsethief 8 Lake. (DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST)

cattle ranch that is now a wildlife sanctuary. It has a shallow shelf on the Oregon side and a large cove on the Washington side with weedbeds. It is also large enough to create a wind break so you can avoid being blown around. But keep an eye on the main part of the river, as you will need to navigate it safely to get back to local boat ramps. If the waters get rough, it is time to head in.

JUST BELOW MILLER Island is the mouth of the Deschutes River, on the Oregon side. The calm waters at the mouth are great for bass fishing, but if you’re a Washington-licensed angler and enter the river’s mouth, under the I-84 bridge, be aware that you are now in Oregon waters and need an Oregon fishing license. Also be sure to check the regulations, as

the Deschutes is heavily regulated.

When fishing the main Columbia, a fishing license from either state is valid, but you must follow the state laws that you hold the license for and make sure to check the regulations for size and slot limits if you want to keep any. Most of those who fish for smallmouth like the challenge and fight of these aggressive fish and release them to catch another day.

In addition to another camping option, Deschutes State Park, there is also a rough launch just inside the river’s mouth for smaller boats.

Another option is to stay downstream at Columbia Hills State Park, which has a rough launch with no dock on the Columbia. It also contains Horsethief Lake, a great place to swim and relax or do a little bass fishing. NS

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136 Northwest Sportsman

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COLUMN Channel catďŹ sh are a long-lived species and can grow large in Southwest Washingtonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fertile lakes. This 30-pounder was caught in Round Lake, a part of Lacamas Lake, in 2005, more than 10 years after the last known release of the species there. After a pause in stocking, WDFW has begun putting channels into local lakes, including Kress Lake and Swofford Pond. (WDFW)

&DWĂ&#x20AC;VK /XUNV 9DQFRXYHU (GLWLRQ Part II of II Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s note: Last issue Terry wrote about catfish and bullhead opportunities on the Portland side of the Columbia; this issue he takes up whiskerfish ops on its north bank.

W

hile catfish may not be a major player on the local fishing scene, the STUMPTOWN species continues to grow more

By Terry Otto popular all the time.

The Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife has responded to that interest by increasing the stockings of whiskerfish in local lakes, and promoting the simple and fun activity that is catfishing.

Stacie Kelsey of the agencyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Inland Fish Program at the Vancouver office says that when channel catfish are stocked, people take notice. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Oh, yeah, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s huge,â&#x20AC;? she says of the reaction. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a lot of effort for catfish.â&#x20AC;?

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to see why. Catfish are eager biters, terrific fighters and they taste very good. In addition, channels grow quickly, reaching a size of 3 to 5 pounds in just three to four years. And they keep growing throughout their life. Catfish from 20 to 30 pounds are present in the state of Washington, and near Vancouver too.

BEST WATERS While cats can be found in many lakes and sloughs around Vancouver, the best fishing takes place in three lakes. A bona fide catfishery has been established at Kress Lake, and Kelsey reports that WDFW regularly stocks the 24-acre water just north of Kalama off I-5â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exit 32. Lots of anglers flock there to catch them. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is a lot of easy access there, and there is a really big hole in back of the lake,â&#x20AC;? she says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Three years ago I saw a 15-pound channel catfish that was caught there.â&#x20AC;?

Swofford Pond is another stocked catfishery, and Kelsey says the 216-acre lake produces less catfish than Kress, but it has some sizable ones. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Swofford kicks out a lot of big, big

catfish,â&#x20AC;? she says.

While camping is not allowed at the wildlife area surrounding most of the lake, which itself lies right alongside Green Mountain Road outside Mossyrock, Kelsey says it is legal to night fish there.

However, as good as these two fisheries are, there is another lesser known catfish hotspot much closer to Southwest Washingtonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main city. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Vancouver Lake is kind of our secret catfish lake,â&#x20AC;? Kelsey says.

She and the rest of her team are hoping to get the word out on this shallow, but excellent water.

It has a self-sustaining population, and since it is open to the Columbia, migrations into the lake from the river happen naturally. The fish must like what they find, for the numbers and size of catfish in the tidally affected 2,300acre lake are impressive.

Actually, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not that secret. Kelsey reports that anglers fish regularly for channels here. â&#x20AC;&#x153;People fish for them at the boat ramp, the flushing channel and off the beach at (Vancouver Lake Regional) Park,â&#x20AC;? she says.

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COLUMN GROWING WHISKERS A BIGGER DEAL FOR WDFW Catfish have become a high priority for Washington warmwater fisheries managers, according to WDFW’s Bruce Bolding.

Channels are now being stocked regularly in Eastside lakes, and a few select Westside waters too, as funding allows. A release of 50,000 8- to 11-inch catfish occurred three and a half years ago, and 2014 saw more let loose as well.

“Those stocked out in 2011 should be about in the mid-20- inch range by now,” Bolding says. “That means they are about 3 to 5 pounds. That’s a good-sized fish for catching, and for eating.”

Those fish marked the reignition of a program that had released cats at select lakes annually or semiannually up to 2005, but petered out except for a stray stocking at Sprague in 2008. Even so, for a 2011 article on nwsportsmanmag.com, Bolding said catfish let loose in lakes from 2005 and before were still turning up six years later.

“Channel catfish are hugely popular,” he says. “We’ve found out that if we stock them, they will come. And they’ll fish it like crazy!” –TO

WDFW stocks channel catfish out at about 8 to 11 inches. In one year’s time they will weigh a little over a pound, and three to four years out, 3 to 5 pounds. (WDFW)

Channel Catfish Stocking Locations, By Region Water Sprague Lake Bear Lake Liberty Lake Roses Lake Ping Pond Potholes Reservoir Stan Coffin Lake Whitestone Lake Columbia Park Pond Powerline Lake Scooteney Reservoir McCabe Pond I-82 Pond 1 I-82 Pond 2 I-82 Pond 3 I-82 Pond 4 I-82 Pond 6 Rotary Lake Sarge Hubbard Pond Green Lake Campbell Lake Gissburg Pond 1 Gissburg Pond 2 Fazon Lake Kress Lake Swofford Pond Lawrence Lake , Lake St. Clair 138 Northwest Sportsman

MAY 2015

County Lincoln/Adams Spokane Spokane Chelan Grant Grant Grant Okanogan Benton Franklin Franklin Kittitas Yakima Yakima Yakima Yakima Yakima Yakima Yakima King Skagit Snohomish Snohomish Whatcom Cowlitz Lewis Thurston Thurston

Acres 1,800 33 711 179 1 28,000 41 170 7 50 685 4 10 20 19 29 30 23 4 255 370 14 14 32 30 240 339 244

2014 stocking 3,500 1,043 3,144 2,500 111 3,000 811 2,025 533 1,033 3,033 102 202 403 403 603 603 502 102 4,300 5,500 500 500 1,000 1,500 2,500 4,000 4,500

2011 stocking 4,000 1,000 4,000 2,000 100 4,000 500 2,000 500 1,000 3,000 100 200 400 380 580 600 500 100 3,500 4,000 500 500 500 500 2,000 4,000 3,500

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Northwest Sportsman 139

And with a warm winter, those catfish should be friskier earlier.

“They get more active as the water temp rises to about 60 degrees,” says Kelsey.

The lake’s boat launch is at the south end, at the end of La Frambois Road, which is off Fruit Valley Road. The park is off Highway 501. Access to the flushing channel, or Lake River as it is also known, is via two public ramps in Ridgefield, off Division and Mill Streets.

Then there’s the Lacamas Lake system, on the east side of Vancouver.

The prehistoric channel of the Columbia is known for having produced some extraordinarily large channel cats – a 28-pounder in 2011 and a 33 in 2005 – but according to local outdoor reporter Allen Thomas, it may have been as much as two decades since the last release.

Lacamas also suffers from water-quality issues and these days is said to be “OK” for bullheads, but that’s about all.

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As the days warm into summer, channel cats turn nocturnal. This is especially true of the larger ones. They hole up in the day, and then go on the prowl for food once the sun disappears.

This often means that they move shallow to feed on small fish and crawdads, or anything they can scavenge.

Savvy catfish anglers know this, and local lakes can get pretty busy on warm summer nights. Fishermen line up along the banks with lanterns, throw out cutbaits and wait for Mr. Whiskers to come along.

Remember that catfish are opportunists, and if they aren’t feeding deep, they can often be found shallow.

Don’t be afraid to fish near shoreline cover, and sometimes baits suspended under a float will draw catfish.

They will bite on just about any kind of bait, but favorites at the aforementioned lakes include stinky cheeses, cutbaits, shrimp, crawfish and worms. Anything bloody will attract cats too, so give chicken livers or hearts a try. One angler uses dough balls infused with peanut butter. NS

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FISHING The author inaugurated his small-boat season with a shot at the smallies of Chief Timothy Park. Other backwaters of the Snake as well as Mid-Columbia offer good opportunities in May for bass, channel catfish, perch and walleye. (JEFF HOLMES)

Basaltland’s Backwater Bonanzas The sloughs and drowned river mouths of the mid-Columbia and Lower Snake are great places for small-boat anglers to hit for bass, catfish, more.

By Jeff Holmes

K

ayak angling continues to blow up in popularity across the entire United States, including here in the Northwest.

Kayaks are especially prevalent on the Westside, and it’s almost becoming uncommon to not see some being paddled and pedaled around the outskirts of popular salmon and steelhead fisheries on the Lower Columbia and Willamette Rivers, among others. The economy, mobility and stability of kayaks makes them the clear consensus craft amongst the nonmotorized crowd these days, including yours truly. I’ve owned several float tubes, a pontoon, a canoe and a small cartopper over the years, but none of them approach a good fishing

kayak for versatility. I watched friends and fellow anglers fish from kayaks with jealousy for a couple years until we bought our NuCanoe Frontiers in Bellingham last late spring. Now even my big bankand boat-loving butt can be seen regularly paddling around my local Tri-Cities-area fisheries, often with my wife. (FYI, fellas: Most women love to paddle, and love it when men take the initiative to do something new and active with them.) You won’t catch me trying to slip in with the sleds at Drano Lake and other combat fisheries, nor likely anywhere a large boat makes more sense for safety, comfort and good company, but I use my kayak where it makes sense to me and where my wife wants to paddle. There are fish waiting to be caught everywhere

in the Northwest, and they’re all susceptible to a kayak.

I’m looking ahead to a season of fishing around the edges, and not the edges of big-boat fisheries like many, but rather on the edges of most of the kayak fishing world’s consciousness.

In other words, I’ll seek out the vast opportunities all over the Northwest where you’ll scarcely see someone in a kayak. I like solitude and exploration of all kinds of bodies of water, big and small, and May offers a wide range of possibilities to fish before the season’s jet- and waterskiier hatch occurs. Here are a few Eastern Washington options worthy of mention for kayakers and those with small boats.

SNAKE RIVER BACKWATERS I opened up kayak season 2015 just

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FISHING

The rocky shores of the Snake provide good habitat for bass. While smolt imitations are a good bet in spring, this one bit a crawdad imitation for Jamison Meeks, who was fishing at Lewiston. (DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST)

downstream from Clarkston on a big Snake River backwater at Chief Timothy Park near the mouth of Alpowa Creek. I towed my Thunder Jet over to Clarkston on a beautiful late March day to have a radar arch welded on my boat and thought to toss my kayak on top of the truck in case the urge struck me to fish on the way home.

Duh, it struck.

I enjoyed 80-degree weather and almost complete solitude as I looked for early smallmouth concentrations moving out of the main Snake into the backwaters to feed and spawn. I was early and visibility was only a foot, and I got blanked, but I had a great time and confirmed that it wasn’t my fault when I talked to two anglers in a bass boat who were also getting blanked. Suntan lotion, warming sunshine, and a little exercise made the skunking more than worth it.

144 Northwest Sportsman

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But the potential to catch something here increases rapidly as water temperatures rise throughout April and into May. Smallmouth, largemouth, catfish, crappie and perch are all present in the many backwaters and marinas along the Snake. Check out the marinas in Lewiston and Clarkston, Chief Timothy and Wawawai Parks, and various small backwaters along the river that allow entry under small railroad bridges. The Snake itself here is impounded and kayakable too, and the main river often yields even better fishing than backwaters.

Further down the Snake at Central Ferry, Lyons Ferry and backwaters all the way to the Columbia add lots of nice walleye to the potential bag.

Catfish are everywhere in the Snake, but the Palouse River across from Lyons Ferry is the best bet. Lots

May will find channel catfish in the heat of the spawn, and the lower ends of tributaries such as the Walla Walla, Yakima and Palouse – where Sam Stuart of Moses Lake landed this nice one a few Mays ago – should provide good action for boat-in anglers. (DAIWA PHOTO CONTEST)

of large cats stack up here to spawn, and May is the best time to find them concentrated and snappy.

LOWER YAKIMA RIVER AND DELTA Many thousands of mature smallmouth enter this Central Washington tributary in spring to spawn, and most of them are still in the river throughout May. As

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Northwest Sportsman

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summer moves along, most large fish retreat back to the depths of the Columbia to gorge, so May is a great time for numbers and size.

It’s important to note that moving waters and stillwaters are different beasts for beginner kayakers. There are many places on the lower Yakima that would be irresponsible to send beginners, due to swift currents, sharp corners and some rocks to dodge. That said, the river is a treat to fish from the I-182 bridge in Richland all the way to the mouth at Bateman Island on the Columbia.

There are occasional power boats here, but avoiding them is relatively easy since it’s best to fish along the edges anyway.

Treat the lower Yak like a trout stream: pull over or anchor up in soft shallow side water and fish seams, eddies and slots like you’re looking for rainbows or cutts. Also make sure to bring a variety of crayfish and minnow imitations in different colors. Crayfish are usually the main meal ticket in May. Along with smallmouth, channel catfish and walleye are also common, and a tight-lipped cadre of walleye anglers won’t like that I mentioned this.

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146 Northwest Sportsman

MAY 2015

LOWER WALLA WALLA The first time I floated this western Blue Mountains river, I watched my friend and “guide” dump his kayak 200 yards into our trip, but that was upriver, in the tiny Touchet River a few hundred yards upstream of the Walla Walla. That was 100 percent operator error, but the river does require maneuvering and is best tackled only by intermediate kayakers with a sense for mild adventure. There are some corners and swift, rocky portions that could easily dump a newbie or an inattentive paddler. Take a pontoon or a raft if you don’t have the kayaking chops, or access the river from Wallula Junction and paddle the lower river and the edges of the delta.

Like other Columbia tribs, lots of

smallmouth and channel cats move into the river in spring and offer sometimes-spectacular angling.

I wrote about floating the Walla Walla last spring in my pontoon, and I’ll be back on it this month in my NuCanoe. The wildlife viewing is right up there with the fishing, which can be frenetically paced. I caught two smallmouth on one cast on my last trip, one of which was over 20 inches.

PATERSON SLOUGH This large backwater of the midColumbia near the Washington town of the same name houses giant numbers of spawning smallmouth bass in spring. With a warm, lowwater year, much of that spawning probably occurred in April. But those bass – as well as great numbers of walleye – remain in the protected slough until waters get too warm, when they return to the depths of the big river for summer.

Bass and walleye are often concentrated in big numbers around rocky patches of bottom.

Use electronics or a long section of 1-inch PVC to probe the bottom in search of rocks, and use marker buoys when you find structure or, better yet, fish. A variety of jigs, cranks, dropshot rigs and other plastic-bait set-ups will take plenty of fish here.

Small numbers of very large largemouth live here, tucked deep into the maze of backwaters. Look for deep pockets in the shallow slough with heavy cover, including beaver lodges. Some large crappie have historically come out of Paterson and other sloughs, but carp, as elsewhere, have degraded habitat for panfish. Still, there are some large perch and crappie, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a better place to catch carp, both on rod and reel and with a bow. Erika caught two last time we fished the slough together, one topping 20 pounds!

Access is through the refuge and off Paterson Road. NS

MAY 2015

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MAY 2015

Boyhood And Bluegills

COLUMN

I CHEF

IN THE WILD

By Randy King

cannot actually remember the first fish that I caught. It is not something that I regret, really, because I have been fishing since before I can remember. But if I had to bet, I would wager it

was a bluegill.

These diminutive fish are native to the Mississippi River drainage and upper Midwest, but have been transplanted to just about every park pond, lake or slow-moving stream in the West. For good reason, mind you. They are prolific breeders, taste great and are an easy-tomaintain fish population. In my opinion, they are the perfect “practice” fish for young anglers.

Like most fishing, getting to the larger ones can be a challenge, and one I accept with my feet. Much like the deer hunting rule that states “one ridge back you lose 50 percent of the hunters, two ridges back you lose 80 percent, so hunt on the third ridge back,” the same theory applies to fishing country ponds. The more isolated the location, the bigger the bluegill.

My go-to location for big ‘gills is Halverson Lake, near Murphy, Idaho. It requires a 1½-mile hike across a boulder field – terrain that looks like Mars. But the area is isolated enough that most folks ignore it compared to suburban ponds.

AS DARTH VADER to three Lukes, I almost always have one or more companions on my fishing adventures. But more

One of the boys from the block, Ethan Schliep, shows off his first fish, a bluegill caught from a backcountry pond outside Boise.

(RANDY KING)

and more frequently, in order to get my 12-year-old to participate, I have to bring the neighborhood. On my last trip to Halverson we had the Tahoe full of three extra preteen boys, bringing the gaggle of kids under my direct supervision to a record six, a foolish move in my estimation.

The littlest of the group, my youngest son Jordan, rode in one of those “carry your kid” packs, while the older boys had their own messhall worth of snacks, water and candy. When we reached Halverson, I set down my backpack full of boy, unbuckled the little one and set him free onto the landscape. I corralled the others, giving them the marching orders for the day.

No cliff faces, no swimming, no throwing rocks and stay within sight of the water.

Other than that, have at it. Take in nature, build swords, build bows – develop siege engines for the total destruction of Mordor. Basically, be a boy and be away from a video game and screens.

Eventually I fished out my backpacking rod, grabbed a worm and cast out, drop-

shot style. No fancy set-up, nothing technical. I found a branched stick, drove it into the sand and did my best to relax amid the chaos, hoots and hollers of six boys.

I waited for the bump that I knew would come. In about five minutes, just enough time for my 3-year-old to get bored and wander away to explore, I watched the rod tip bend slightly. Then it got hammered and the pole nearly fell out of its Y-stick holder. I leaned forward and set the hook with a quick jerk. Fish on!

Quickly I called to my youngest, put the rod in his hands and begged him to reel. He grabbed the pole and simply held it. He looked at me for instruction.

Only then did I realize that he had never caught a fish before. He had no idea what to do – no clue on how to reel, how to hold the pole, how to stand. He was a tabula rasa, a blank slate for me to mold into a fisherman.

I took the rod back, reeled in a little to make sure the fish was still attached and then squatted. I called Jordan closer

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COLUMN to me and let him stand between my spread legs. Then, still holding the pole for support, I showed him how to reel.

Slowly but strongly he started cranking the line toward shore. Something that he could not see was pulling him toward the water – and it was all this pole’s fault!

He kept looking at me like I was lighting one of his Thomas the Trains on fire. But he did not stop. Soon, the fear turned into determination.

THE OTHER BOYS began to gather near the bank as Jordan beached the first bluegill of the day, a nice hand-sized eater. Jordan was all smiles, but refused to touch the fish. I put it on a stringer for supper.

As bluegill often school up, I cast back to the same spot and waited. With

a bump and bounce of the pole I set the hook again and hollered “Who’s up?”

The neighbor kid – a tall, skinny redhaired boy – quietly raised his hand. I waved him over, and asked, “Have you ever caught a fish?”

“Nope,” he said shyly.

“Keep the tip up, reel and have fun,” I said, loosening the drag a little and handing the pole off.

The fish on the other end made my reel scream, but not really because of size, though it was a nice fish, but because of loose drag. I wanted the boy to have a fight and he did. Every time the fish came close to shore, it would shoot back to open water, making the kid grimace with determination and reel all that much harder. Soon, the prize-

BLUEGILL ESCABECHE Even as long as I’ve been cooking professionally, every now and then I’m shown a dish that I had no idea existed before. Case in point: escabeche.

I grabbed my copy of Jesse Griffiths awesome book, Afield: A Chef’s Guide to Preparing Wild Game and Fish, and started examining the recipes. Eventually I landed on his escabeche. I was blown away – it was like a cooked fish ceviche with lots of cool flavors and textures.

This is a classic dish in many cuisines; it has roots in Spanish cooking, but can be found basically anywhere that that culture has influenced. I have seen recipes for Filipino, Portuguese, Jamaican and Mexican versions. It is a culturally diverse concept, one I will be adapting soon.

The basics involve making a fish pickle and serving it lukewarm or cold. Boil some vinegar and vegetables, then pour the hot mix over the fish. The hot liquid cooks it and then pickles it. Yum. I like to serve it like a ceviche, with some salty corn tortilla chips. (Don’t make freshwater fish ceviche; it might not hurt you, but it might – why risk it?)

The recipe below is a variation of Chef Griffiths’, with a little Northwest flare in the ingredients.

1 pound skinless bluegill fillets, about 10 or so hand-sized panfish Salt and pepper 1 tablespoon olive oil 6 garlic cloves, crushed and sliced thin Zest of one orange Zest of one lime Zest of one lemon 1 tablespoon brown sugar 1 red onion, sliced thin 2 jalapeños, coin cut thin 150 Northwest Sportsman

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fighting-caliber bluegill was spent and came in skimming across the top of the pond.

“I’m next!” shouted one of the other boys. I cast out, handed him the pole and relaxed for the next hour watching a group of boys be entertained with one fishing pole and some worms.

Not an Xbox in sight.

When we got back to the house, I sent each home with their catch, reminding them that if they kill it, they have to eat it. In the end, I know the red-haired neighbor boy will always remember his first fish, even if my youngest does not.

And that is OK – it doesn’t matter if you know when you started fishing or you don’t. It only really matters that you have gone fishing. NS

Bluegill escabeche. (RANDY KING)

1 red pepper, sliced thin 1 teaspoon dried oregano 8 sprigs thyme, fresh 2 bay leaves 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated 1 cup white wine 1 cup rice wine vinegar (Optional: 1 tablespoon sriracha) Line a 9x13-inch pan with the bluegill fillets, a single layer thick, if possible. Next add the olive oil to a 2-quart saucepan and heat on medium low for three minutes.

Add the garlic and cook about one minute, until very fragrant, but be very careful not to burn. Next add the remaining ingredients to the pot. Bring to a simmer.

When very hot, almost boiling, remove the pan from the stove. Carefully pour out the vinegar mix onto the bluegill fillets.

Let stand for 10 to 15 minutes to cool. Cover and refrigerate. This will allow the flavors to meld with the fish.

Serve lukewarm or completely chilled.

For more fish and game recipes, see chefrandyking.com.

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Northwest Sportsman 151

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HUNTING

A Good Hunt Bruin?

Spring’s early arrival could have boars on patrol for sows in estrus much sooner than usual.

The author and his cousin Justin Falk pose with the nice boar harvested last spring

by Justin. (TROY RODAKOWSKI)

By Troy Rodakowski

YONCALLA, Ore.—Spring

came early to the Northwest this year. Warm weather encouraged Mother Nature to awaken from a short winter’s nap, and she got right to work: turkeys were hammering out gobbles in March, ducks and geese jumped onto nests, and sleepy-eyed bees emerged from hives to find flowers all ready for pollination.

Bears came out of their dens early too, and this month they’ll likely be looking for a little love. That’s great

news if you’ve got a spring tag in your pocket, because conditions are prime for big mature boars to be even more active in May.

BREEDING BEAR MOVEMENTS Boars typically begin seeking out sows in late May, scouting mountain ridges and coastal swamps for sows in estrus, and over the following weeks and months they travel miles to breed and maintain their territories. How much ground they cover greatly depends on the number of sows within their territory.

This year, more of that patrolling could occur during the spring hunt, which ends May 31.

“It is possible that bears could breed earlier in years such as this,” says Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Nicholas Leonetti at the Newport office (541-867-0300).

“It depends on when the sow came out of the den and how healthy she is. Typically, a sow’s reproductive tract does not start preparing for estrus until March, and won’t be ready to be bred until May (if she does not have cubs of the year). Since some sows were

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HUNTING

probably active early this year, it could cause them to begin the cycle early.”

Bears normally breed between late May and early August, with the peak of activity from mid-June to mid-July.

“Timing is about three to four weeks ahead of normal, so early May could be a likely bet this year for bears to begin breeding,” says Leonetti.

Breeding boars will remain with a sow in estrus for several days, breeding numerous times before seeking out a new mate. Mature males will breed several females through the season.

“One boar we ear-tagged while doing research in the Southern Cascades traveled over 20 air miles from where we caught him during breeding season to where he was killed during the fall season. I can’t say that was all from movements during breeding season, though, since we did not have a radio collar on him,” notes Leonetti.

Sows need to have a healthy body weight in order to activate their breeding cycle. They can be found feeding on grassy slopes, early berries and succulent marsh greens such as skunk cabbage and sword ferns. Deer 154 Northwest Sportsman

MAY 2015

Young reprod growing in steep coastal canyons provides a chance to glass for bears on the move or feeding on greenup. (TROY RODAKOWSKI)

fawns, elk calves and carrion are also spring favorites.

That means food sources and openings along steep canyons are where you will find bears this month.

They will be moving at all hours, but mainly from dawn until midmorning and from about 3 p.m. until dusk.

Oftentimes they will take a midday siesta in the sun to rest and recoup from their ravenous feeding and breeding activities.

Later in the spring, once lowland and creek-bottom forage begins to dry out, bears will move to higher country. Even if there was hardly any snowpack, the hills and mountains will still intercept clouds and hold onto fresh grass and other foliage longer.

These are also places where bears can root through old logs and stumps, and turn over rocks in search of insects and grubs. And it’s not just hunters walking old logging roads: Bruins use them for traveling and searching for other bears too.

TACTICS FOR SUCCESS My cousin and I have had the most spring success behind sets of field

glasses and spotting scopes. They’re a great way to dissect parcels of forest, clearcuts, young reprod and ridgelines in search of feeding or moving bears, and when combined with patience, are a hunter’s best bet in the late season.

We also search logging roads for bear scat and look for locations to set up and watch or use predator calls such as rabbit squeals, calf elk and fawn-in-distress bleats. These seem to work best in locations surrounded by heavier cover. Gary Lewis and Lee Van Tassell, authors of Black Bear Hunting Expert Strategies for Success, remind hunters that late spring is when bears will feed most heavily on helpless young ungulates. They are quick to add that bears will constantly be on the move and can cover a lot of ground in a hurry, but will usually stay in the same general area for most of a single day.

Here are some more tips to become more successful hunting spring bruins: Scent control: Hunters tend to overlook cover scents and scent eliminators during bear season, but a bear’s greatest sense is its ability to

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HUNTING smell and detect food or danger.

Patience: Hunters with just about any game tend to call it quits too early. Find a comfortable location and wait a fair amount of time. This is crucial especially during prime hours of movement.

Mix it up: If you have been glassing for a couple days without success, go for a hike, set up and do some distress calling. Check out new areas and explore a bit.

Go where few have: Late in the season, look to locations away from roads or well-used trails. Bears will be drawn to these isolated zones.

Stay optimistic: For me, it seems that oftentimes I see bears when I least expect to. They are quiet and shy, for the most part. Try to keep that in mind while pursuing them.

This spring season we have a unique opportunity to be more successful. Boars should be on

Mountain bikes are a great way to access nonmotorized public and private timberlands. (TROY RODAKOWSKI)

the move earlier, so make sure to take advantage of the abnormally warm weather, and enjoy the high mountains, lush coastal canyons and the chance to harvest a bear of a lifetime.

“If this spring stays warm and mildly wet, like we have seen so far,

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it should be great for bear hunters,” says Leonetti. “With the longer days and great growing conditions, bears should be very active come May. As long as it does not get too hot and dry, the bears should be out taking advantage of the abundant greenup.” NS

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HUNTING

The author harvested this Rio Grande gobbler using the ambush approach. (CHRIS GREGERSEN)

3 Ways To Grind Out May Gobblers The back half of spring season is tougher hunting, but there are ways to notch that tag this month.

By Chris Gregersen

L

et’s face it: Chasing late-season turkeys can be a grind. But just because the birds in your area have wised up to hunters or calmed down from the excitement of the breeding season doesn’t mean you can’t be successful as the spring hunt draws to a close this month.

Chasing gobblers in May can be tough for many reasons. Hunting pressure over the first couple weeks of the season not only thins out the most eager birds, but after a few

weeks those toms have heard just about every call out there, as well as seen all sorts of decoy ploys. Chances are that by this time turkeys have already been pushed out of their normal routines, putting them even more on edge when it comes to aggressive calling approaches. Also, as the late season rolls around, those gobblers’ interest and aggression towards calling will start to decline as flocks of hens break up and transition to nesting.

But while there’s no doubt it can be a challenge to bag a late-

season tom, there’s no reason to hang up the decoys just yet. Here are a few clutch tactics that might save your season.

LESS IS MORE If the birds are acting shy and wary, nothing will put them off even more than the sounds of an overly eager hen. If you want to bring in a wary late-season bird with calls, you’ll need to sound like, well, a wary lateseason bird. Patience is key at this time of the season, so start by setting up and settling in as close as you can to where you expect a tom to be working through.

When using this approach, you’ll

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HUNTING want to call far less often than during the early season, while sticking with your set-up for longer as well. I’ll generally stay put for a couple of hours if I know there are toms in the area. Rather than employ the long, drawn-out yelps that you might use often in the early season to evoke frantic gobbles from hundreds of yards away, tone your calling down to soft and short clucks and purrs.

Turkeys have excellent hearing, so don’t worry about broadcasting the sound. At this time of season, it’s more important to focus on finesse than worrying about whether or not you’re being heard.

Aside from calling, lightly raking leaves or other ground clutter to mimic feeding in conjunction with soft purrs and clucks is also a good way to mimic a shy turkey. Be persistent and attentive with your set-up. Toms this time of year will usually take their time coming to

your calls, and more often than not they won’t make a sound as they approach.

THE AMBUSH When calling approaches and decoy set-ups aren’t working, it’s time to get creative. Setting up an ambush takes preparation and tact, but can be very successful if you’ve done your homework. Start by locating and patterning a tom or two; while this may mean foregoing a hunt to simply observe the birds from far away, it will pay off in the end.

First, you’ll want to know where the birds are roosting. Chances are you’ll already know where this is, but if not, it usually isn’t difficult to find. You can get a general idea of what area they use by observing their morning and evening activity from a good vantage point – turkeys tend to make quite a bit of noise when going up and coming down from a roost.

Spotting and stalking may be more associated with fall turkey hunting, but that’s how Emily Pawul took her first gobbler. While far fewer hunters will be afield in May, it’s still important to make sure you don’t bust someone else’s set-up on a bird when using this tactic. (CHRIS GREGERSEN)

Then hone in on exactly where they’re roosting by looking for fresh droppings near the bases of trees.

Next, see where the birds are going to feed when they come down. Turkeys feed throughout

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the morning and late afternoon, so knowing what food sources they are keying in on will help you stay one step ahead. As turkeys feed to and from roost, pay attention to their travel routes; they often follow defined features such as field edges, shrub lines and ridges.

Once you have an idea of the travel routes and feeding areas turkeys are likely to be using, set yourself up in a well-concealed area well before daylight and wait. Hold off on the decoys and focus on keeping your set-up as inconspicuous as possible.

Be careful not to approach roosting areas too closely, as the birds’ keen eyesight and hearing can blow your cover before you know it. With some preparation and a little bit of luck, an ambush is an excellent way to tag a wary old tom.

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spot-and-stalk approach (probably because sloppy attempts have ruined many a set-up of those who have done their homework and were otherwise patiently working a bird) there’s no doubt it can be effective when done right. This technique is all about strategy and implementing a well-devised plan to outsmart a wary late-season tom after patterning and calling have failed. I rarely use the spot-andstalk approach as a go-to technique, instead using it as an opportunistic late-season backup plan when the chance presents itself.

To execute a successful spot-andstalk, you’ll need both appropriate terrain and cover to sneak within range, as well as an idea of the turkey’s behavior. Keep in mind, most turkeys you’ll “spot” aren’t appropriate for this technique.

You’re looking for calm birds close to or moving towards some terrain feature that you can use to your advantage. Turkeys can cover miles in a day, so you’re also looking for birds that are slowly feeding or posting up for a mid-day break.

When the right opportunity presents itself, you’ll want to close the distance as fast as possible, while being especially respectful of other hunters in the area. Approach from any way you can to keep the bird from hearing or seeing you.

Using terrain like a ridge, creek draw or steep bank is the best, since it will both block your appearance and sound. Turkeys are very good at evading ground predators, so use the same care you would if stalking a deer.

Spring turkey seasons in the Northwest run in excess of six weeks – through May 25 in Idaho and May 31 in Washington and Oregon – so there’s no need to limit yourself to the times when toms are most susceptible to calling. By adding a bit of variety and strategy to your approach, you can find late-season success when most others have all but given up. NS

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COLUMN

Let There Be Light – And More Bang

T

ramping around the Northwest in the fall invariably will put you somewhere in poor light conditions, and if you don’t have ON TARGET

By Dave Workman a good flashlight, you better develop radar or X-ray vision.

My daypack has spare food, matches, spare ammunition, a couple of sharp knives, some rubber gloves and at least two good lightweight flashlights. I like smaller flashlights because they tuck well into side pockets, out of the way unless they’re needed.

Ever try cleaning a buck in the dark?

Shoot one at last legal light and you’ll have the kind of experience one only finds amusing while swapping stories of the hunting season, huddled with your pals at the fireplace during the holidays.

Over the years, I’ve had experience with all kinds of flashlights. I’ve used the so-called “tactical” models that seem to devour the expensive CR123 lithium batteries. More recently, I’ve had the chance to tinker with some brand-new models from Coast, headquartered in Portland. Their assortment of ED flashlights covers all the bases, and their newer models, made from Polysteel, which is a poly-nylon shell over an inner body of stainless steel, are tough as nails.

At this point, you’re probably thinking, “Flashlights?!? Borrrrrrrrrr-ing.”

Evidently, you’ve never been stuck in a power outage. Maybe you’ve never had to change a tire on some backcountry gravel road 20 miles from nowhere and 10 miles from camp, in the dark, maybe when it was raining or beginning to snow, or never had to crawl out of a tent at zerodark-thirty for a trip to the outhouse.

Or how about the biggest fun of all: spending a night in the woods.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, Coast has been a leader in flashlight development for the simple fact that instead of building these

Small, high-powered flashlights that operate on conventional battery power rate highly with the author.

(DAVE WORKMAN)

models to operate on expensive lithium batteries, one simply powers up with AA or AAA batteries. A couple of models are rechargeable, and they come with accessory plug-ins that allow you to charge them up on the road by plugging them into the cigarette lighter receptacle.

BUT IF BORED by the subject of illumination,

perhaps a session at the loading bench can cure that. Oh, you don’t reload? Let me help change your mind.

As this column noted in February, there’s good news for the reloader this year, and now is a good time to seriously consider getting into the game. Recall the ammunition shortages over the past couple of years? This shooter didn’t

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COLUMN experience that problem because my loading bench was a busy place!

One outfit that has helped thousands of shooters break into reloading is Dillon. Their line of presses has legions of fans. They also have new accessories, including the Square Deal B Toolhead Stand and the Super 1050 Short Trim Die toolhead, both unveiled at the SHOT, or Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trade, Show in January. The Super 1050 is a specialty toolhead for use on smaller cartridges, such as the .300 Blackout.

Reloaders must use a short trim die toolhead when using the Rapid Trim 1500 case trimmer. It allows for the proper trimming and preparation of short rifle cases on the 1050.

Lyman has a new Ultimate Case Prep Kit with small and large primer pocket reamers, nylon case neck brushes in several calibers, an extra-large deburring tool, a bullet puller with two collets, an outside chamfer tool and dry case neck lube.

Hornady’s Lock-N-Load 1911 Auto Primer resembles a Government Model pistol and is used to fill primer tubes quickly. (HORNADY)

The design includes a bottom-pour valve system and a universal mould guide that adjusts for popular blocks from several popular makers.

The company’s newest Turbo Case/ Media separator features improved sifting to get media out of clean brass cases. It has a solid latch to keep dust

and media inside the container during operation, and it features a rotating basket that holds empty cases inside.

I happen to use a Lyman tumbler and electronic scale, and both are top-notch pieces of equipment. I also have a few sets of Lyman dies on my bench, plus a Lyman case trimmer, and they have all

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COLUMN helped me put together hundreds of rounds of ammunition, for both rifle and handgun.

Why mention this? As noted earlier, during the ammunition shortages of the past few years, I stayed well-supplied by loading my own. A good powder scale allows you to measure precise charges.

Once your brass has been tumbled and resized, all it takes is the right propellant and bullet, and you’re in business.

Once you settle on a powder, stick with it. Indeed, here’s something of an unwritten law about handloading: Stick with what works.

I SHOP SMARTLY, hitting gun shows for deals on primers and bullets, or watching for sales in some of the retail stores. A glance at my loading bench would reveal bullets from Nosler, Hornady, Speer, Sierra and Rainier Ballistics, as I load for a lot of different calibers, from .257 Roberts on up to .45 Colt.

One tool that many reloaders will

Redding is now offering dies in several new calibers, including 26 Nosler. (REDDING)

find indispensable is a priming tool, and Hornady this year introduced one of the cleverest gadgets I’ve seen. It’s the Lock-N-Load 1911 Auto Primer to fill primer tubes. It looks like a Government Model pistol and is powered by a couple of AAA batteries. It can fill a 100-count primer tube in about 15 seconds, which

definitely speeds up the process.

If you’re not too keen about scrounging brass from a gun range or gravel pit, Hornady offers unprimed brass in several calibers.

Last month I mentioned the 26 Nosler, and Redding has introduced dies for that sizzler in Standard Full Length, Standard Neck and Deluxe versions.

Say you want to start handloading for your pistol or revolver. Redding has a new Micrometer Adjusting Profile crimp die for .38 Special/.357 Magnum and .44 Special and .44 Magnum. Both versions feature knurled micrometer-type heads that adjust to within plus or minus 0.001 inch, according to Redding, and a freefloating hardened-steel internal sleeve to form the crimp.

Whether one loads for handguns or rifles, and whether the challenge is paper targets, steel silhouettes or live game, reloading your own ammunition has many benefits, not the least of which is a steady supply! NS

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Darcy & Verna know their local fisherman, fish, and bait: • Full service tackle shop • Wide variety of fishing gear and bait • Rods, reels and tackle perfect for local rivers and streams • 240 different sizes and models of reels • Stock over 400 rods on the floor • Fishing licenses

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Northwest Sportsman 171

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MAY 2015

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MIXED BAG Continued from page 20 mouth is, working closely with BC to document and track caribou movement in the U.S. and Canada.

Once a staple winter food for the Kalispels, the tiny remaining band of Selkirk mountain caribou isn’t close to huntable, nor will it be in any foreseeable future for anyone. That matters not to a true hunter, however, nor any true lover of wildlife and of a healthy, managed landscape. Protecting caribou is important to Tribes and conservation-minded hunters alike. The only hunt that’s being allowed on these iconic animals today is by government-mismanaged wolves.

Without intervention south of the border comparable to the work of BC biologists, that hunt will draw to a close when the last caribou is brought down in the night by a wolf pack, smacked by a truck on Salmo Pass or pounced on by a cougar.

There’s never been much margin for

error for caribou during recovery efforts, but unchecked wolf populations in their recovery zone all but assure their demise.

Canis lupus was consciously allowed to populate the fragile caribou recovery zone by federal and state wildlife managers and the preservationist environmentalists who continually bully managers and politicians with threats of lawsuits and other political leveraging. The results have been pathetic, and the hypocrisy from the environmental community continues to disgust anyone with a conservation ethic. Although they cloak themselves in name and spirit as conservationists, environmentalists and their hoodwinked followers instead cling to the misguided notion of preservation, not conservation. It is obvious to an overwhelming percentage of scientists and rational humans that preserving without actively managing is not possible in today’s world, not even in a museum.

The end result of the environmental community attempting to influence

museum management of our landscapes will inevitably be disastrous for Selkirk mountain caribou and many other species, unless the debate shifts to exposing not just traditional, extractive right-wing forces that are destructive to wildlife and landscapes, but also to the hypocrisy and predator-favoring fantasies of the left that hurt our ecosystems.

LATER THIS YEAR I’ll follow up on caribou, wolves and the efforts of Canadian wildlife managers to remove wolves from the proximity of Selkirk herds. I’ll attempt to interview WDFW and USFWS managers, and will go in depth with BC and tribal biologists actively working to keep caribou in these mountains. NS Editor’s note: The author grew up in Northeast Washington, is passionate about its wildife, hunting and habitat issues, and performed conservation work in the area for over a decade.

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Honda. Built to Last.

U2000i • 2000 watts (16.7 A) of Honda Inverter 120V AC Power • Eco-Throttle – Runs up to 15 hrs on 1 gallon of fuel EU3000i Handi • 3000 watts (25 A) of Honda Inverter 120V AC Power • Eco-Throttle – Runs up to 7.7 hrs on 1.56 gallons of fuel EU3000is • 3000 watts (25 A) of Honda Inverter 120V AC Power • Eco-Throttle – Runs up to 20 hrs on 3.4 gallons of fuel WASHINGTON ANACORTES Sebo’s Hardware 1102 Commercial Ave (360) 293-4575 www.sebos.com

HOQUIAM Harbor Saw & Supply Inc. 3102 Simpson Ave (360) 532-4600 www.harborsawandsupply.com

ARLINGTON Rex’s Rentals 525 N West Ave (360) 435-5553 www.rexsrentals.com

SPOKANE Spokane Power Tool 801 E Spokane Falls Blvd (509) 489-4202 www.spokanepowertool.com

VASHON Vashon Ace Service Center 9715 SW 174th St (206) 463-4019 http://www.vashontruevalue.com/ ServiceCenter.aspx WENATCHEE Wenatchee Honda 3013 GS Center Rd (509) 663-0075 www.doghouse-motorsports.com

ISSAQUAH Issaquah Honda-Kubota 1745 NW Mall St (425) 392-5182 www.issaquahhondakubota.com

Please read the owner’s manual before operating your Honda Power Equipment and never use in a closed or partly enclosed area where you could be exposed to carbon monoxide. Connection of a generator to house power requires a transfer device to avoid possible injury to power company personnel. Consult a qualified electrician. © 2012 American Honda Motor Co., Inc.

174 Northwest Sportsman

MAY 2015

EU7000is • 7000 watts, 120/240V • Fuel efficient - runs up to 18 hours on 5.1 gal of fuel • Perfect for home back up power, RVs, outdoor events, and more