Northwest Sportsman Mag - July 2023

Inside: Special Advertising Sections

Inside: Special Advertising Sections

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Volume 15 • Issue 10

PUBLISHER

James R. Baker

EDITOR

Andy “Holding The Agency, Er Region 6, Accountable” Walgamott

THIS ISSUE’S CONTRIBUTORS

Jeff Beyl, Jason Brooks, Scott Haugen, Jeff Holmes, MD Johnson, Buzz Ramsey, Dave Workman, Mark Yuasa

EDITORIAL FIELD SUPPORT

Jason Brooks

GENERAL MANAGER

John Rusnak

SALES MANAGER

Paul Yarnold

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Lucas Hoene, Mike Smith, Zachary Wheeler

DESIGNER

Lesley-Anne Slisko-Cooper

PRODUCTION ASSISTANT

Kelly Baker

OFFICE MANAGER/COPY EDITOR

Katie Aumann

INFORMATION SYSTEMS MANAGER

Lois Sanborn

WEBMASTER/DIGITAL STRATEGIST

Jon Hines

ADVERTISING INQUIRIES ads@nwsportsmanmag.com

CORRESPONDENCE

Email letters, articles/queries, photos, etc., to awalgamott@media-inc.com, or to the mailing address below.

ON THE COVER

Logan Smith holds up one of several Puget Sound pink salmon he caught during 2021’s return. This year’s run is forecast to be somewhat larger at just under 4 million, and pilot fish will be landed this month in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and San Juan Islands. (CHAD SMITH)

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Your Home Base For Adventure

For a list of hotel/motels, restaurants, and other attractions, visit www.tourmoseslake.com.

© Breanna Singleton

WARM-WATER WALLEYE

Summer months provide good fishing on the Columbia River above and below McNary Dam, where a wide variety of tactics will get the job done. Local waterfowl guru turned walleye enthusiast Bill Saunders offers up his three keys to the fishery.

ALSO INSIDE

58 CHINOOK OF THE HOOK

With a larger quota in the Strait of Juan de Fuca’s western Marine Area 6, Ediz Hook and other Port Angeles spots will be where to hit starting July 1. Mark Yuasa details the best areas to fish and what to work where.

113 KIDS ’N WARMWATER FISHING

True, the Northwest is the home of salmon and steelhead, but it’s the bass, panfish and catfish here that may make for the easiest, best species to hook youngins on angling. All-around outdoors mentor MD Johnson offers up his tips for introducing the next generation to our region’s copious spinyray fisheries.

TODAY! Go

134 HENRY, MORE THAN JUST LEVER-GUNS

Long known for its lever-action rifles, Henry Repeating Arms also manufacturers shotguns and now revolvers, but did you know it also makes charitable giving a company priority? Jason Brooks details the myriad ways and foundations with which Henry shares its largesse.

(BILL SAUNDERS)

NORTHWEST PURSUITS Get Ready For Pinkalooza 2023

Time to stock up on white flashers and a certain color of lures – nearly 4 million pink salmon are expected to return to Puget Sound this summer, starting this month! Jason previews some of the top spots and ways to catch ’em in the salt.

COLUMNS

83 BUZZ RAMSEY Bone Up For The Buoy

With a fall salmon fishery the size of the one at the mouth of the Columbia, it pays to prepare your gear and fishing plan well before season opens. Buzz gets us ready for Buoy 10 hatchery Chinook and coho with a rundown on rods, lines, flashers, baits, lures – you name it – ahead of August 1!

93 CHEF IN THE WILD Raw-ish, But Not Wriggling

With Chef Randy out of the office, per se, Jeff Holmes stepped into the kitchen this month, and he brought a summertime ceviche recipe that you can whip up with Northwest bottomfish fillets, freshly harvested veggies from your garden and a whole lot of lime juice to “cook” your diced fish.

147 ON TARGET Hunting For The ‘Perfect Bullet’? It Doesn’t Exist

Prepare for some heartburn, shooters: Our professor of projectiles Dave W. argues there’s no such as a “perfect bullet,” but he does have some thoughts on what are some of the best for hunting with a rifle or handgun.

155 GUN DOG Water Training In Transition

It’s summer, time to go full bore while training your waterfowl dog in our region’s lakes and rivers, right? Not so fast. There are hidden hazards to watch out for while fine-tuning your pup around water in July and August.

(JASON BROOKS)

DEPARTMENTS

23 THE EDITOR’S NOTE The hazards of learning new home waters

35 READER PHOTOS

Chinook, spring gobblers, shellfish, shad and more!

35 PHOTO CONTEST WINNER Monthly Coast and Kershaw prize-winning pic

39 WASHINGTON DEER KILL DOWN 2022 harvest lowest this century

47 THE DISHONOR ROLL

Cell trail cam pics help bag bear poacher; Springer anglers rack up citations; Jackass of the Month

51 DERBY WATCH

Summer king derbies kick off; More upcoming events

53 OUTDOOR CALENDAR

Upcoming fishing and hunting openers, events, deadlines, more

THE BIG PIC Fishing Is Supposed To Be Fun

The reasons why we fish are personal and may not always involve over-the-top emotional displays.

26

(ANDY WALGAMOTT)

THE EDITOR’S NOTE

“Hey, at least you caught something!”

So replied the kid walking by after I’d unhappily told him my catch so far that evening was “only a bass.”

“I like bass!” he added brightly as he and his pals continued on.

I had to smile. True, smallmouth weren’t my target – that would have been Willamette River spring Chinook – but it was a good reminder that my outing wasn’t a total bust and that the wonders of angling are myriad. Hell, I thought recalling days spent fly fishing for smallies on the Grande Ronde and yarding largies out of a number of Pugetropolis ponds, I actually kinda like bass too, kid.

I WAS FISHING new-to-me waters and struggling to figure out their secret. Retired West Linn springer fishing dock pro Liz Hamilton had given me some pointers; Ifish and the interwebs had revealed a few lure tips; Buzz had a little gear advice; and Ian, my new buddy on the pier, indicated I was generally on the right track with my rig.

Indeed, the Willamette Falls fish counts suggested that every now and then the various spinners I was hucking into the big eddy should come within … at least half a mile of a passing Chinook.

Still, and while there was definitely a certain twisted Walgamott pride in the unconventionality of catching a bass on said setup, what I really, really, really needed to do was catch a springer. I’d booked a trip with guide David Johnson, which yielded a very nice wild one we released, and then I jumped in my kayak and trolled 360 and triangle flashers and spinners under the Arch Bridge … and very nearly got run over by a guy in a flat-bottomed boat.

HMMM, I SAID to myself after that too-close call and getting the hint from a number of other solo springerless outings, maybe it’s time to try for something “easier,” say, shad. They had arrived in big numbers in the waters off Clackamette Park, which it turns out is The Official Beach For Filming YouTube Willamette River Shad Fishing Videos, so I loaded up on tiny chartreuse darts and 1-ounce cannonballs.

Thanks to a wee bit of drift fishing practice over the decades, I began to get the jist of shad. Oddly, it reminds me of angling for pink salmon in Puget Sound rivers. My darling humpies are what I’ll miss the most following our move last year from Shoreline to Oregon City. That and Puget Sound coho. And San Juans Dungeness. And everything San Juans. And Okanogan. Sigh.

Along with an unexpected smallmouth, bless its #$!#&*$& smolt-eating soul, I started to catch a few Willamette shad and began to feel pleased with myself for figuring out the fishery. Hell yeah, angling was on its way back to being fun again! Wait’ll I get my youngest into some shad!! Woo-hoo!!!

Then one evening a kid came along and asked how many I’d caught. I told him and he scoffed – “Only two?!?”

Serenity now. –Andy

Walgamott

The sun sets last month on anglers fishing for shad from bank and boats at the confluence of the Willamette and Clackamas Rivers. (ANDY WALGAMOTT)

Kiran Walgamott watches his line intently on the same Lake Washington dock that author Jeff Beyl’s story is set on. Just because someone is intensely focused on the fishing or isn’t giving off big YouTuber fishing video vibes doesn’t mean they’re not having fun. (ANDY WALGAMOTT)

Fishing Is Supposed To Be Fun

The reasons why we fish are personal and may not always involve over-the-top emotional displays.

By Jeff Beyl

“C

atch anything?”

The standard question. We’ve all heard it. We’ve all asked it.

“Yeah,” the kid said. “A few.”

The kid looked to be about 13, maybe 14. He sat at the edge of the dock with his legs dangling over the side. The dock stretched out into the lake. He held a short fishing rod; it was about 4 feet long and it held a small spinning reel that was about the size of a walnut. His line hung straight down into the green water about 4 feet below. There were a few strands of uprooted lake plants – duckweed, eelgrass,

pennywort – floating on the surface of the water. A section of a large tree branch angled up through the water, like a bent javelin pointing at the sky. The other end of it was probably buried deep in underwater muck. The kid told me that he had caught “a couple small bass and three or four bluegill.”

Not bad, I thought, but the kid looked and sounded bored.

AN OSPREY FLEW overhead. A kayaker glided by. The kayak was red, the oar blades were yellow and the kayaker wore an orange safety vest. The colors stood out bright against the olive-green of the shallow water. Further out in the lake, the

deeper water was cobalt blue. There was a young guy and a girl sitting together on a bench out at the end of the dock. They were both looking down at their respective cell phones. I looked at the kid. The kid looked at the water. I didn’t see a cell phone. I didn’t see a tackle box. I didn’t see any bait.

“What’re ya using?”

“Worms,” he said.

I didn’t see any worms. Maybe he kept them in his pocket. Maybe he thought he was Huck Finn. I didn’t see a bucket or a creel holding any fish, so I asked him, “Catch and release?”

“Yeah,” he said, staring down at the water. “Just for fun.”

I used to do that when I was a kid. But I didn’t fish off a dock in a lake. I grew up on the beach, so I fished off a large pier in the ocean. I considered telling the kid about how my friends and I used to jump off the end of the pier, cannonballing into the water about 20 feet below, and then swim, laughing together, back to the beach. Now, that was fun. More so, as far as we were concerned, because there were signs at the end of the pier stating that it was forbidden to do so.

I considered telling the kid how I used to fish with a dropline that I made from various lengths of discarded line that I had collected, knotted together and wrapped onto a popsicle stick. My tackle and bait were a rusty hook, a dented sinker and a glob of mussel guts, all of which I scrounged along the pier. When I caught a fish, usually some species of rockfish, I hauled it in hand over hand, like Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea. Later, my

mother would dip the fish in egg batter and bread crumbs and fry it up for dinner. And I thought it was fun. I wondered if the kid knew who Santiago was. I thought

about telling him that he should get himself a fly rod.

There is a stream flowing into the lake about 2 miles around the perimeter. It is within an easy bike-ride distance, although I didn’t see a bike. Surely there are trout in it. Rainbow. Cutthroat. That would be more fun than what he was doing. At least it seemed so to me. Instead, I said, “Well, good luck.” The kid said, “Yeah,” and I walked on.

At one point, as I wandered back along the dock toward shore, I glanced over my shoulder. The kid sat there, back hunched, staring down his line, looking bored and dejected. Maybe he was thinking about what he wanted to be when he grew up. Maybe he had a bully older brother and this was his way of getting away. Maybe he was mooning over unrequited teenage love. He did not look like he was having any fun, but maybe he was. I hoped so. After all, fishing is supposed to be fun.

I WALK ALONG that dock from time to time as part of a nice waterfront stroll near my home. The lake stretches away toward some rolling mountains in the distance and the sunlight sparkles on the expanse of water. Reflections of trees – pine, fir, cottonwood – quiver on the water around the edge of the lake. Once in a while a float

An effusive bunch of kiddos enjoy a day of fishing and water fun on the Mid-Columbia. (KNIFE PHOTO CONTEST)

plane takes off or lands. Now and then a water-skier carves into a turn, throwing up rooster tails of white spray. Sometimes a standup paddleboarder slides by on the smoother inside water. I frequently see bald eagles and blue herons.

Mallard ducks. Wood ducks. Grebes. Cormorants.

There are often fishermen scattered up and down the length of the dock. Sometimes they sit in fold-out chairs. One day, there was a guy asleep in his fold-out chair, his head nodding forward, his rod in a holder attached to the chair. If he had a fish on his line, he would not have known it. I imagined a fish, a bass or a bluegill, with a hook in its mouth, swimming away, towing the guy’s rod behind it toward deeper water.

Some of the fishermen have fancy tackleboxes that open and expand outward like stairsteps. When I amble past I sneak a peek at the array of elaborate, colorful stuff inside. Sometimes a guy has a bucket filled with water. I assume the buckets are to hold the fish they catch. But I have yet to ever see a fish in a bucket. If I ask the standard question, they typically just shake their head. Sometimes they merely glance at me and don’t answer at all. They squint and stare. Occasionally they reel in to check their bait, make sure it’s OK. Then they cast it back out and it plops into the shallow, pea-soupy water and they reassume the position, looking doleful and tired. They never look like they are having any fun either. But maybe they are. Fishing is supposed to be fun.

One of my neighbors takes his grandkids there to fish. He tells me that they usually catch several fish and that they have fun doing it. Although, he admits, he thinks he has more fun just watching them.

I GOT MY first fly rod when I was about the age of that kid on the dock. My father gave it to me to upgrade me from the dropline I made out on the pier. On the other hand, maybe he gave it to me as a way to get away from my older brother or to get my mind off unrequited teenage love. Either way, it expanded my realm of fun. I used to

Everyone has a different theory about why they fish, and across a lifetime it might change, but it will generally always include that it’s just fun to do. (JEFF

BEYL)

false cast it in the backyard, trying to land the tip of the line in one of my mother’s potted plants. She wouldn’t let me tie on a fly in case I hooked and tore a leaf on one of her plants.

Nowadays, I often contract a guide for a day or two and we drift down rivers in search of native trout. I never fall asleep in the drift boat and it certainly ain’t boring. Sometimes I go to a local stream or river alone and cast flies from the shore and if I fall asleep, it’s because I lay down next to some ferns and close my eyes. One time I was awakened by a rustling noise and opened my eyes to watch a family of five elk crossing the stream right in front of me. I wonder if that kid on the dock would notice if a family of elk wandered by. Or if a brontosaurus rose

up from the depths of the lake, like the Loch Ness Monster, water cascading down its long neck. Or hell, if Taylor Swift showed up in a bikini, laid a towel onto the dock and stretched out beside him.

Well, OK, he’d probably notice that.

IF YOU ASK 20 different fishermen why they fish, you’ll get 20 different answers, mostly based on having fun. And they’ll all make sense. Go ahead; try it. There are books, articles, essays, videos, discourses, commentaries, observations, analyses and treatises dedicated to the subject of why we fish. I read somewhere that more has been written about fishing than any other subject.

That kid on the dock said he was fishing “just for fun.” I think he had the right idea. NS

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Kaden Dechant discovered where some of those Lake Washington shad we wrote about in our May issue go to spawn – the slow-moving Sammamish Slough. He incidentally hooked at least four shad early last month while fishing a jig for panfish, landing two and losing the other pair, with one breaking his 6-pound-test in getting away. (IMAGE COURTESY KADEN DECHANT, VIA WDFW)

Traveling Chinook chaser Rick Itami hit Idaho’s lower Clearwater with a buddy for springers, catching this nice one.

(KNIFE PHOTO CONTEST)

READER PHOTOS

PHOTO CONTEST MONTHLY Winner!

For your shot at winning great fishing and hunting knives from Coast and Kershaw in our Knife Photo Contest, send your full-resolution, original images with all the pertinent details – who’s in the pic; when and where they were; what they caught their fish on/weapon they used to bag the game; and any other details you’d like to reveal (the more, the merrier!) – to awalgamott@media-inc.com or Northwest Sportsman, 941 Powell Ave SW, Suite 120, Renton, WA 98057. By sending us photos, you affirm you have the right to distribute them for use in our print and Internet publications.

A clam gun and a morning low tide made for quick digging for Filson Dailey, 3, and his father Brad at Long Beach’s Ocean Park access in April. They harvested 30 razor clams. (KNIFE PHOTO CONTEST)

Fisher Bell and his mom Kjerstin smile over part of the motherlode of spot prawns they hauled out of the San Juan Islands. (KNIFE PHOTO CONTEST)

Drano Lake was “great” this spring for Coleen and Paul Goulet, who landed a number of kings at the hatchery-powered Columbia Gorge fishery. (KNIFE PHOTO CONTEST)

A green pumpkin tube bait thrown under a dock got a tug out of this nice smallmouth for Bobby McDonald (KNIFE PHOTO CONTEST)

Samantha Gaudette has her own ideas about hunting spring gobblers and they work just fine, thank you! Boyfriend Brandon Jewett didn’t like their creek-bottom setup that day and he was antsy and wanted to move, but Sam stuck to her guns, and with a “Shut up! Don’t move,” she dropped this beautiful tom. (KNIFE PHOTO CONTEST)

The Benson bunch – dad Jeff, son Jack and daughter Carly – made good on their turkey tags, dropping this trio of Blue Mountains foothills birds. (KNIFE PHOTO CONTEST)

Washington Deer Harvest Hits New Low

Declining

By Andy Walgamott

Washington’s general season deer harvest tumbled to a new low last fall as hunters bagged just 20,281 bucks and does, down 2,600 animals from 2021, which otherwise had seen the lowest kill so far this millennium.

Harvest declined in important whitetail and mule deer districts such as Northeast and Southeast Washington, the Okanogan and Columbia Gorge, and in Chelan and Douglas Counties, as well as in blacktail country west of the Cascades, but it also held steady on the greater Palouse and in a few other management districts as well as individual game management units here and there, according to stats from the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s 2022 Game Harvest Report, posted in late spring.

The decline is likely due to a combination of factors, including nearly 7,500 fewer general season hunters taking the field than the year before (and 16,803 less than 2020), lingering effects from 2021’s massive disease outbreak in the eastern third of the state, and extremely unseasonable weather over October’s opening weekend of rifle season – the state’s most popular over-thecounter-tag hunt.

“In short, the high fall temperatures impacted harvest, especially for those districts on the east slope of the Cascades.

Deer simply stayed at higher elevation longer,” said Kyle Garrison, WDFW Ungulate Section manager.

A total of 18,780 bucks were killed by general season modern firearms, archery and muzzleloader hunters, also a new low since at least 2000. Including special permits – which fluctuate year to year with local herd populations or changing management goals – 21,413 antlered and antlerless deer were harvested, also down from 2021.

“Past disease outbreaks, fires and droughts also impacted population abundance or performance which, combined with district-by-district variation in hunter numbers, effort and weather,

integrate in a complex way to influence harvest,” Garrison added. “However, it does appear that high temperatures were playing a major role in driving deer habitat use and, consequently, harvest in 2022.”

Indeed, as I wrote on our blog last October after coming back home from Deer Camp in the Okanogan, it was early September bow season weather in midfall, so sunny and warm was it there and across the state, with records absolutely smashed on the Westside.

“I think the weather was the mildest I have seen in my career for the general season and I suspect that was a significant contributing factor,” confirmed Scott Fitkin, WDFW’s Okanogan County biologist.

hunter numbers, hot weather, 2021 disease outbreaks combine to drive down 2022 kill; biologists beginning to see possible predator competition for deer in some areas.

Notches from a Washington deer tag denote the month and day a nice mule deer buck fell to the rifle of biologist-hunter Eric Braaten last season. (KNIFE PHOTO CONTEST)

FITKIN’S DISTRICT 6, which is home to the migratory Methow herd, among others, saw general season harvest fall from 2,228 deer (2,022 bucks) in 2021 to 1,882 deer (1,690 bucks) last year. The 10-year average is 2,359 (high: 3,603 in 2015; low: 1,874 in 2018). Rifle and bow hunter numbers were actually up somewhat, but down for muzzleloaders, while success held steady for bow but declined for rifle and muzzleloader. Harvest drops were most noticeable in the Pearrygin Unit, which is more heavily dependent on the fall migration, and the Chiliwist and Alta Units. But rifle hunter numbers, success rates and harvest all rose in the Okanogan East Unit.

In District 1, Northeast Washington, general harvest fell from 3,544 to 3,161, a new low mark over the past decade, which otherwise has had an annual average kill of 4,950. Part of that is due to the continuing lack of antlerless opportunities, which have been completely curtailed – even special permits – as WDFW attempts to bring whitetail numbers back up after widescale bluetongue and epizootic hemorrhagic disease outbreaks in 2021 that killed an estimated 25 percent of the herd. Last year’s hunter numbers were down, but success rates were within a tick or two of 2021. For riflemen, it took 24 days of hunting to harvest a deer, the same as 2021 – but nearly five and a half days longer than the 10-year average.

Interestingly, while deer roaming the Palouse, Channelled Scablands and Snake River Breaks – WDFW’s District 2 – also suffered from those same disease outbreaks two years ago, overall general harvest there was actually steady relative to 2021 – 2,568 bucks and antlerless deer (2,476 and 92, respectively) two falls ago versus 2,562 (2,470 and 92) in 2022. The latter is, however, still a low mark over the past 10 years and well below the average harvest of 4,567 over that period, which, to be fair, was also fueled in part by large antlerless takes prior to 2021. While hunter numbers were down last year, success rates were actually up 3 percentage points for archers and riflemen.

But to the south in District 3, the Blue Mountains, harvest also dropped, from 1,797 deer in 2021 (1,566 bucks and 231 antlerless) to 1,567 in 2022 (1,359 and 208), also a low mark for the decade (average: 2,388). Hunter

numbers declined, while success dropped for modern firearms, but was steady for archers and rose for muzzleloaders. This area also saw “severe” disease dieoffs in 2021.

LOOKING AT THOSE four hunting districts – 1, 2, 3 and 6 – they’re very different landscapes, of course, but another distinction between them is predator populations. District 2 is mostly though not entirely bereft of anything bigger than coyotes, while 1, 3 and 6 are occupied by much of the Evergreen State’s wolves, along with cougars and bears, and there’s some interesting data coming out of the Washington Predator-Prey Project that touches on the wild dogs and big cats.

It shows that District 1’s cougars “rely overwhelmingly” on whitetails, the primary deer species in Northeast Washington and which also provide the bulk of wolves’ winter menu, meaning “there’s a fair bit of dietary overlap and at least the possibility of competition,” Dr. Aaron Wirsing at the University of Washington told WDFW’s Wolf Advisory Group in April.

The project is also looking at the Okanogan, where cougars and wolves rely “predominately” on mule deer.

“It’s really a one-prey, two-predator system, with both carnivores converging on the same species, so a higher possibility at least for competition for shared prey,” Wirsing told WAG members.

Overall, the Predator-Prey findings in both regions reinforce the “very high dietary overlap” between wolves in the

northern tier of Eastern Washington, which will raise the question for some of whether additive mortality is occurring.

“What that indicates is that there’s at least a high potential for competition, and I emphasize potential, because dietary overlap doesn’t mean that two species are actually competing for the same food,” Wirsing stated. “It depends on how superabundant the food is, right. There’s plenty enough to go around, you have very little competition. But what it does say is that when and where prey numbers are limiting, these carnivores could be hotly contesting for food, particularly in the Okanogan for mule deer. So we need to know something about prey availability and limitation. This trend also suggests that wolves do have the potential to add to cougar predation pressure on whitetail deer and especially mule deer in the Okanogan, but this impact depends on how much extra mortality they inflict.”

In Northeast Washington, moose serve as a possible “buffer against any added predation pressure (on whitetails) that wolves might generate,” he added. Rifle deer harvest and success rates in the Huckleberry Unit – one of the wolfiest in the state –actually rose in 2022 versus 2021, and days per kill declined from 19 to 18 last year. By comparison, average days per kill in largely wolf- and cougarless (and private-land-rich) District 2 for modern firearms in 2022 was 15.

Another presenter before the WAG was UW’s Taylor Ganz, who has been looking

A Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife graph shows twin declining trends in general season deer harvest and hunter numbers. (WDFW)

into ungulate population dynamics in Northeast Washington.

“Based on our models, it’s possible that a reduction in top predators may increase the deer population in the short term, but as there are more deer, there’s going to be the same amount of food available, and that forage effect would probably take over and be more limiting,” Ganz said, adding that where it’s been studied previously, predator reduction effects have been “pretty short-lived.”

One management tool in WDFW’s wolf plan is to remove – lethally or otherwise –wolves if the agency is able to document that an ungulate population is “at risk,” defined as “one that falls 25 percent below its population objective for two consecutive years, and/or one in which the harvest decreases by 25 percent below the 10-year average harvest rate for two consecutive years.”

Ganz told the WAG it was “unclear” if liberalizing predator hunting would impact deer survival because the density of carnivores wouldn’t necessarily change

as dispersing wolves or young lions moved into empty territories, and there was a chance that ungulate kill rates would be increased because of less stable predator population dynamics.

Ganz also reported that Northeast Washington elk numbers are growing by roughly 10 percent a year.

BUT BACK TO deer harvest data from WDFW’s 2022 Game Harvest Report.

District 7, which sprawls across two very disparate counties – Chelan, with its vast wilderness home to migratory deer herds; Douglas, with its vast wheat plateau and rugged coulees – saw kill drop from 1,800 in 2021 to 1,355 last year, also a 10year low (average: 1,706). Some units held steady overall – Swakane, Saint Andrews – while nearby ones – Chiwawa, Big Bend – declined. As elsewhere, hunter numbers were overall down, particularly for riflemen, who also saw their success rate drop the most, from 20 percent to 15.

The decline in District 9,

Gorge, which features a mix of blacktail and mule deer, was less precipitous, dropping from 2,003 in 2021 to 1,809 in 2022. Elsewhere in Western Washington, District 15 on the south, east and north sides of the Olympic Peninsula was down 255 deer, District 17 on the South Coast and Willapa Hills was down 234 deer, District 10 in the greater Cowlitz watershed was down 223, and District 11 around Mt. Rainier was down 96

District 14 in the North Cascades actually ticked up by six, while District 13’s islands – hard hit by disease in 2021 – and west-central Cascades was up five.

Overall statewide 2022 general and permit hunter success was 23 percent, down a point from 2021; average over the past 10 years is 26.6 percent. The 2022 general season success rate of 22 percent was similarly down 1 percent from the previous season; 25.7 percent is the annual average over the past decade.

Some 125,909 hunters purchased deer licenses in 2022, of which 90,873 went out during the general seasons. Both are new low marks over the past decade, a period that has seen notably declining satisfaction among Washington deer hunters, per a 2022 survey.

TRUE, LICENSE SALES and hunter numbers always rise and fall from year to year as they slowly decline over time as fewer and fewer sportsmen now go out after deer. Washington’s dropoff is particularly striking when looking at the past decade. In 2013, 147,119 tags were purchased and 119,277 general season hunters took the field. That period does include one of Washington’s best deer seasons this century, the remarkable 2015 hunt, when 37,963 animals were harvested, including 29,709 bucks during the general season. That occurred following good fawn production years, the four-point minimum for whitetails in the northeast was ended and the snowpack-starving Blob and largescale forest fires yielded to a series of fall atmospheric rivers.

This is just a theory from a nonbiologist, non-stats, non-maths major, but Washington’s deer harvest will continue to slide as fewer and fewer hunters head afield. That is, unless there’s a breakout season, it’s likely you’ll see this same story

the Columbia

Eastern Washington’s Districts 1, 2 and 3 – the northeast and southeast corners sandwiching the Palouse and upper Channeled Scablands – were all hit with a severe deer dieoff in 2021, but where District 2’s harvest drop leveled off, it is still declining in the other two. (KNIFE PHOTO CONTEST)

MIXED BAG

next year, the year after that, etc. Some of us will just always get our deer, that’s a given, but others are more dependent on having enough hunters in the woods to stir ’em up and send a few their way.

WDFW is trying to recruit new hunters to offset the aging out of the base, but it’s also facing headwinds from no less than the chair of the Fish and Wildlife Commission, Barbara Baker. She told state senators this spring, “Right now, we have so little truly wild areas left that we don’t need to be recruiting or retaining anybody to go out there.” It was both a preposterous and an astonishing statement, and her words are part of a lawsuit filed last month by Washingtonians for Wildlife Conservation against herself, four other commissioners and Governor Jay Inslee over the remaking of the citizen panel without input from organized hunting and fishing groups.

Garrison, the WDFW manager, said it’s possible that “most of the difference” between the 2021 and 2022 general

season harvests – the aforementioned drop of 2,600 deer – could be explained by the nearly 7,500 fewer hunters from one season to the next.

“If we use the across-the-board success rate from 2022 – 22.34 percent – the absent hunters in 2022 might have harvested approximately 1,666 deer,” he said. “The remaining ‘deficit’ could be attributable to other factors influencing deer abundance and/or harvest that we’ve discussed – e.g., disease mortality, uncharacteristic habitat use associated with warm weather, etc. I’m emphasizing ‘might’ and ‘could’ on purpose because we have limited information –outside of harvest stats – available, and using broad-scale summary stats masks a good deal of local variation – e.g., in hunter days and the number of hunters. Basically, simple calculations as above are best used to illustrate some of the factors and their relationships that ultimately dictate harvest, but we have to be careful not to overinterpret or make strong conclusions

on such a limited amount of information.”

Speaking of overinterpreting, I’m less afraid to do so than a government biologist. While I do think that the productivity of deer (and all ungulate) populations is most strongly governed by quality of habitat –from summer and winter range to the critical migratory corridors and stopover points between them, and how well watered those landscapes are – I also wonder about increased predator competition limiting some Washington herds’ ability to bounce back from real gut punches like 2021’s disease outbreak. Again, I’m no expert, but the differences in response between Districts’ 1 (down), 2 (steady) and 3 (down) deer harvest are curious to me. Could be something; could just be something I’m not thinking about or perceiving in Garrison’s “broad-scale summary stats” that can “(mask) a good deal of local variation.”

I do think that some hunters are purposefully not hitting the woods and fields as a way to help the deer herds rebound, and I also wonder if all the talk about wolves and cougars is also driving down participation in some way. I worry it might intensify and create a faster downward spiral of hunter numbers.

AS FOR WHAT all of this means for fall 2023’s hunt, that’s still to be determined and I’ll be looking at that in my annual deer season prospects article later this summer, but fawn recruitment in recent years will play a strong factor.

In the Okanogan, there was concern about the long winter’s impact on the mule deer herd. That led to a WDFW meeting with locals this spring about how the animals fared and the question of feeding them to help them through snow and cold. A presentation by Fitkin, the biologist, strongly suggests that supplementary feeding is full of drawbacks and 1997’s efforts during a bad winter were “largely ineffective,” including a rise in resident deer. That said, post-winter herd surveys this spring found 20 fawns per 100 does, the fewest back to 2007 and “significantly below” the 10-year average of 32:100. That will have ramifications in 2024, when those young bucks will likely first grow a third tine on at least one side, making them legal to harvest. NS

How the 2023 season shakes out remains to be seen, but by nature Washington deer hunters are optimistic. (KNIFE PHOTO CONTEST)

Cell Trail Cam Pics Help Bag Poacher

If there are enough game cams in the woods to make you think twice about having to go potty outdoors, hopefully they also help dissuade poachers from committing their crimes. It should, anyway, following a Southwest Washington case in which a person’s cellular trail camera helped in real time to bust a man illegally using hounds to hunt bears out of season.

Department of Fish and Wildlife game wardens say this spring they received a report of several GPS-collared dogs pursuing a bruin past a trail camera, followed about 20 minutes later by a rifletoting man. Fish and Wildlife Officer Lisa Ariss just happened to be in the area outside Cathlamet, on the Lower Columbia, and was able to quickly respond to the scene. There, she found a vehicle with a man and toddler inside. Upon questioning, the man said he didn’t know anything, so Ariss decided to wait and see what happened next.

After awhile, a 31-year-old Woodland man emerged from the woods sans rifle but with multiple collared hounds, three of which also carried fresh wounds on their muzzles. Initially, he told Ariss that he’d just been exercising his dogs, but in the end he

cooperated and took her to the bear and his stashed rifle and handgun.

Hunting black bears with hounds in Washington was banned by a 1996 initiative. While the Fish and Wildlife Commission infamously barred the limited-entry spring permit season the last two years, there weren’t any opportunities to boot hunt for bruins in the two game management units on either side of Cathlamet that time of year.

WDFW reports that the Woodland man’s pickup, his two firearms and his dogs’ GPS collars were seized and he faces charges of hunting bears during a closed season, wastage and trespassing. The first two are gross misdemeanors that could lead to a year in jail, $5,000 fine and $2,000 restitution each.

“The stars lined up on this case,” says WDFW Captain Dan Chadwick. “We were fortunate that this crime was captured by a cellular trail camera that alerted the owner, who then quickly called it in. We also had an officer only minutes away, and that is rare for our skeleton crew to be that close to an in-progress big game poaching.”

WDFW says it was also “grateful” for the trail cam owner’s cooperation. Tipsters

JACKASS OF THE MONTH

Talk about an automatic Jackass of the Month candidate. A bank angler camping last month at Crane Prairie Reservoir, a popular trout and bass fishery southwest of Bend, allegedly shot at three fishermen in a boat and then at a Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office drone before he was arrested and charged with three felonies that could lead to a lifetime ban on owning guns.

According to a press release from the sheriff’s office and local news reports, the three boaters were fishing near shore when some campers near the Deschutes National Forest’s Rock Creek Campground started “screaming” that they were going to run over their lines in the water.

The boaters reportedly couldn’t see

any lines, but one of the bank anglers then shot a shotgun in their “general vicinity,” leaving them “fearing for their lives.” They sped to the south end of Crane Prairie and called 911. There were no reported injuries.

Responding sheriff’s deputies sent up a drone to get a better visual on the camp from where the shot had come from and who was camped there, and while the device was flying it was shot at twice.

With help from an armored rescue vehicle and a SWAT team, the suspect –identified in the Bend Bulletin as Nicholas Clifford Ervin Fetters, 39, of Bend – was eventually taken into custody.

Officers reportedly found a number of legal guns in the camp and they seized the shotgun Fetters fired. He was charged with “unlawful use of a weapon, recklessly endangering a person, menacing and disorderly conduct,” according to the Bulletin,

By Andy Walgamott

whose information helps convict a poacher are eligible for a reward of up to $500 or up to 10 bonus special hunting permit points. The agency says that it annually pays out about $8,000, while around 90 people go for the points option.

which based its story off of court papers filed in Deschutes County Circuit Court.

If convicted, Fetters could lose his right to own firearms.

As a bank fisherman, it can be really aggravating when boat anglers decide to troll in close to shore or anchor up in a good spot within casting distance of the riprap or whatever I’m standing on, especially when they have the whole lake or river to work with and I’m stuck in one place or stretch. But it’s extraordinarily ridiculous, not to mention dangerous and idiotic, to get a wild hair and start shooting.

Warning the boaters there were lines in the area was the right thing to do; firing a warning shot was the dumb thing to do, and it got even dumber when shots were fired at the sheriff’s drone.

Pray tell, was alcohol involved? Anything else?

Washington Fish and Wildlife Officer Lisa Ariss hunkers next to a 31-year-old Woodland man suspected of illegally hunting for black bears with hounds and wasting one this spring. (WDFW)

2 Anglers Rack Up Citations

No doubt that this spring’s Chinook season on the Lower Columbia was slow, but a pair of anglers ran up a damn big daily count of citations one fine April day. Details come from the Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Division’s monthly newsletter, which states that a trooper based out of Astoria got a hot tip from an off-duty Washington game warden sergeant that a guy in a nearby boat had landed a springer while “two-poling.” That’s allowed on the Willamette River with the second-rod endorsement, but is a no-go on the Columbia, given its carefully watched fishery impacts on Snake River wild springers.

As the trooper responded, the sergeant reported that the angler had now landed a second Chinook, passing his first off to a person in a nearby boat, and then ran his lines back out. Meanwhile, the guy in the other boat had also caught a king and now was in possession of two, twice as many as the daily limit of one hatchery Chinook.

As you might suspect with such loose interpretations of the regs, once the trooper began checking the first boat, a bunch of issues turned up – barbed hooks, failure to validate catch card, lying about his catch. But told he’d been observed two-poling, the angler confessed, according to OSP.

Over on the second boat, that fisher also claimed to have only caught one Chinook, but had not carded his fish either. When he showed the trooper that fish, it turned out to be a wild king. Pressed about a second one aboard, the man eventually got it out of a bow compartment. As for the blood at the adipose fin, he stated he’d received the fish from the first boater that way.

In the end, OSP reports that the first angler was hit with criminal and violation citations for exceeding the daily limit, keeping a wild fish, using barbed hooks and failure to record his catch, with troopers also recommending prosecutors hit him with unlawful two-poling. The second guy was cited for keeping a wild fish and failure to validate his catch. The two wild Chinook were donated to Astoria’s Loaves and Fishes.

Oregon fish and wildlife troopers seized these two wild spring Chinook during a patrol of the Lower Columbia that yielded a number of citations for two anglers. (OSP)

Summer King Derbies Kick Off

There’s a $10,000 Chinook swimming off of the Washington Coast, but that’s not the only big-money Northwest king to try and catch this summer. July, August and September derbies from Brewster and Coeur d’Alene to Everett and Gig Harbor to Astoria will entice participants hoping to score cash and prizes.

The earliest to get going is the Westport Charterboat Association’s derby, which began last month with the opening of Marine Area 2 for salmon, and it features the aforementioned 10 grand for the heftiest Chinook. About two-thirds of the annual winners caught over the past 20 years have been hooked in August, but July has yielded six. All you have to do to enter is buy a derby ticket before hopping aboard one of the participating charter boats.

Meanwhile, there’s inland action to be had at derbies based in Wenatchee and Coeur d’Alene. The former is hosted by the North Central Washington chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association, the latter by the Lake Coeur d'Alene Anglers Association. Then there’s the sold-out Husky-boosting Dawg Derby on central Puget Sound.

August brings with it the Brewster Salmon Derby on the Upper Columbia and the Buoy 10 Salmon Challenge and Lipstick Salmon Slayers women-only tourney on the lower river, plus the Gig Harbor Chapter of Puget Sound Anglers’ annual Salmon Derby.

Lance Relyea won last year’s $10,000 grand prize for Chinook in the annual Westport Charterboat Association Derby with this 32.05-pounder (gilled and gutted weight) (WESTPORT WEIGHMASTER)

See the Upcoming Events listing for links to more information on all these derbies. Good luck!

By Andy Walgamott

MORE UPCOMING EVENTS

 Now through end of respective fishing seasons: Westport Charterboat Association Lingcod, Halibut, Chinook, Coho, Albacore Derbies; charterwestport .com/fishing.html

 Now through Oct. 31: WDFW

2023 Trout Derby, select lakes across Washington; wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/ contests/trout-derby

 July 8-9: Washington State Governor’s Cup Walleye Tournament, Lake Roosevelt; lakerooseveltwalleyeclub.com

 July 14-15: 10th Annual Pete Flohr Memorial Salmon Derby, Upper Columbia between Rock Island and Wells Dams; wenatcheesalmonderby.com

 July 15: 2nd Annual Dawg Derby, North Sound; dawgderby.com

 July 19-23: Lake Coeur d’Alene Big One Fishing Derby; lcaaidaho.com/derby

 Aug. 4-6: Brewster Salmon Derby; brewsterkingsalmonderby.com

17th Annual Brewster King Salmon Derby

August 4-6 at Columbia Cove Park

$20,000 in cash and prizes!

A Fun, Family-Friendly Fishing Event

Tickets on sale through August 1, 2023. Buy tickets online at brewstersalmonderby.com. No tickets will be sold at event. For more information visit brewstersalmonderby.com or call 509-686-1184 or 509-449-0605. Hosted by the Brewster Chamber of Commerce.

509-449-0605

brewstersalmonderby.com

brewsterwachamber.com

PRESENTED BY

CALENDAR OUTDOOR

JULY

1 Leftover big game tags go on sale in Oregon; Start of Oregon Youth First Time hunt application period; 2023-24 Washington fishing regulations pamphlet takes effect; Marine Areas 5-6 hatchery Chinook openers; Steelhead closures begin on Washington-side Columbia Gorge tributary mouths

8 23rd Annual Merwin Special Kids Day, Merwin Fish Hatchery – info: wdfw .wa.gov/fishing/contests/youth

10 Area 12 south of Ayock Point hatchery Chinook opener

10-16 Oregon Central Coast spring all-depth halibut backup dates (quota dependent)

13 Area 10 hatchery Chinook opener

13-15 Areas 7, 9 hatchery Chinook retention days

15 Deadline to purchase Washington raffle hunt tickets; Steelhead closures begin on Oregon-side Columbia Gorge tributary mouths

20-22 Area 9 hatchery Chinook retention days

24-30 Oregon Central Coast spring all-depth halibut backup dates (quota dependent)

27-29 Area 9 hatchery Chinook retention days

30 CAST For Kids event on Yaquina Bay – info: castforkids.org

AUGUST

1 Oregon and Washington fall black bear season openers; Columbia from west Puget Island line upstream to Highway 395 bridge in Pasco Chinook and hatchery coho opener; Steelhead retention closes on the mainstem Columbia from Buoy 10 to The Dalles Dam

1-20 Buoy 10 (actual buoy to west Puget Island line) fishery opens, hatchery Chinook and hatchery coho only

3-5 Oregon Central Coast summer all-depth halibut dates

6 2023 Washington State Duck and Goose Calling Championships, Sumner Sportsmen’s Club, Puyallup – info: facebook.com/

WashingtonStateDuckAndGooseCallingChampionship

17-19 Oregon Central Coast summer all-depth halibut dates

21-23, 28-30 Buoy 10 fishing closures

24-27 Buoy 10 fishery open, hatchery Chinook and hatchery coho only

26 CAST For Kids event on Lake Washington – info above

30 Idaho deer and elk bowhunting opener in many units

31-Sept. 2 Oregon Central Coast summer all-depth halibut dates

SEPTEMBER

1 Washington cougar and bow deer openers; Fall turkey opener in many Eastern Washington units; Oregon grouse opener; Steelhead closures begin on mainstem Columbia from The Dalles Dam to Highway 395 bridge; Oregon Central Coast nonselective ocean coho opener through Sept. 30 or until 25,000-fish quota met

2 Oregon general and controlled deer and elk bow openers

4 Last scheduled day Buoy 10 open for hatchery Chinook retention

5 Buoy 10 hatchery coho limit increases to three a day

9 Washington bow elk opener; CAST For Kids event on Henry Hagg Lake –info above

14-16 Oregon Central Coast summer all-depth halibut dates

14-17 Portland Fall RV & Van Show, Portland Expo Center – info: otshows.com

15 Washington grouse opener

15-25 High Buck Hunt in several Washington Cascades and Olympics wilderness areas, Lake Chelan National Recreation Area

23 52nd Annual National Hunting & Fishing Day – info: nhfday.org; Take a Warrior Fishing event on Lake Washington – info: castforkids.org/event/ twflakewashington

28-30 Oregon Central Coast summer all-depth halibut dates

28-Oct. 1 Tacoma Fall RV & Van Show, Tacoma Dome – info above

30 Washington early muzzleloader deer opener

DESTINATION CANADA HUNT • FISH • TRAVEL

Events Calendar

JULY 9-16

Perfect fishing for the “Grand Slam of the Rockies” (lake trout, pike, walleye, rainbow trout, bull trout & Arctic grayling). For details visit nradventures.com

JULY 10

Grand opening for Finn Bay Lodge at Rivers Inlet B.C. For details visit finnbaylodge.com

AUGUST 6-13

Prime fly fishing (rainbow trout, bull trout & Arctic grayling). Excellent pike fishing. For details visit nradventures.com

AUGUST 22-26

6th Annual Charity Fishing Derby For details visit joessalmonlodge.com

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Chinook Of The Hook

By Mark Yuasa

The northern Olympic Peninsula offers breathtaking beauty with its stunning landscape, pristine waters and snow-capped mountain peaks, and adding to its appeal is the area’s premier summer salmon fishing opportunities.

It is here, specifically on the eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca off Port Angeles, where you’ll find a treasure trove of salmon fisheries along this major intersection for migrating Chinook, coho and pink salmon.

“Port Angeles is the salmon gateway, with lots of fish heading

toward inner Puget Sound or northern waters in British Columbia and/or all points in between,” says John Beath, owner of SquidPro Tackle (squidprotackle.com) and a local resident who has fished these waters for more than 30 years. “We’re going to have a pretty good summer king fishery in Marine Area 6 if the forecast matches up to what actually arrives to the area.”

According to Beath, many anglers tend to zip right past Port Angeles – located on the northeastern side of Clallam County – on their way to more well-known destinations like Sekiu and Neah Bay, without

realizing PA is one of the preeminent jumping-off points for salmon fishing during the summer.

The excitement kicks off around Port Angeles when the saltwater opens from July 1 through August 15 for hatchery-marked Chinook and coho, as well as any pink salmon, west of a true north/south line through the No. 2 Buoy immediately east of Ediz Hook. The area east of that boundary is also open July 1 through August 15, but only for pinks and hatchery-marked coho. All of Marine Area 6 is then open August 16 through September 30 for pinks and hatchery coho.

Adding to summer’s zing in Area

With a larger quota, Ediz Hook and other PA spots will be where to hit, and here’s how.

6 is a liberal Chinook catch quota of 7,258 fish, up from 6,050 in 2022 and 4,769 in 2021. The daily limit is two salmon, but only one king.

These waters typically have a longer summer hatchery Chinook quotadirected season than other areas of Puget Sound and the Strait.

But keep in mind that just like other marine salmon fisheries driven by quotas, it is often best to go sooner than later. If you recall, Area 6 closed to all salmon fishing on August 2 in 2022, after the Chinook quota was achieved. It then reopened for a hatchery cohoonly fishery in mid-August.

Chinook catches usually start off

FISHING

good when fishing opens on July 1 and tend to drop off after the initial week, only to ramp up again as waves and waves of migrating kings (as well as coho and, in odd years, pinks) pass through from July through August.

SINCE MANY OF these Chinook have just moved in from the ocean, they’re usually actively feeding on baitfish such as herring and candlefish and they tend to be rather snappy when something is thrown in front of their face.

The first location to set up your troll or drift is west of the Ediz Hook No. 2 Buoy, then head due west along the massive sand spit/breakwater jetty to

just past the old Port Angeles pulp mill.

Some prefer to troll closer to the jetty at depths of 40 to 95 feet, especially right before daybreak. Fish can also be found off the deeper edge of water from 100 to 150 feet. Like any other fishery, locating the bait is key to finding fish. Keep in mind that this area tends to get crowded, since it is just a short boat ride from the Ediz Hook boat ramp.

If you have a weak tide and the current isn’t running hard, don’t be afraid to move away from the crowds and work out in deeper water toward the yellow Port Angeles buoy at depths of 120 to 240 feet. Keep an eye

When hatchery Chinook season opens in the western half of Marine Area 6, in Washington’s central Strait of Juan de Fuca, many anglers will launch at the Ediz Hook ramp and make the short run around the point to drop their gear in the nearshore waters. (WASHINGTON DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY)

Straits fishermen can look forward to 1,200 more hatchery Chinook in this year’s quota compared to 2022 – and 2,500 more than 2021. Rosalie Kearney shows off the quality of kings that sweep into these waters each summer. She caught these out of Sekiu, just to the west of Area 6, a couple seasons back. (KNIFE PHOTO CONTEST)

on your fish finder and you’ll see fish not only near bottom but suspended at various middepth levels too.

A second option is Winter Hole, an exposed area out in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where many will jig, although trolling is a viable fishing option at depths of 60 to 180 feet.

Try a Point Wilson Dart or Dungeness Stinger from 2¼ to 4½ ounces during an outgoing tide. Baitfish schools stack up in the deeper water and then get pushed up the steep ledge, ending on top of the shallow areas along the west end in 60 feet of water.

When the tide is running hard you’ll need to constantly back-troll to maintain a vertical angle on your mainline to the jig. Make sure your jig is constantly touching bottom and reel up a few cranks before dropping it right back down and up again. Many of the Chinook will be poking their noses in the sandy bottom seeking out candlefish and other baitfish prey.

If you drop your downrigger ball at Winter Hole, be sure to do a circletype trolling pattern up and down the shallow spots. Keeping your presentation hugging the bottom is key and requires you to constantly pay attention to the depth, raising and lowering your gear and downrigger ball to avoid any major snags.

The third option near Port Angeles is an area referred to as the “Humps,” an underwater shelf starting at Buoy 4, where the first hump is located, and continuing in a northwesterly pattern to the second and third humps. Most will work this area on an outgoing tide.

Like Winter Hole, if you plan to drop the downrigger ball near the steep ledges of the three humps, currents can swing into the ledge and tangle your other lines, creating a wretched mess. Follow the contour of the bottom; sometimes you’ll even find kings lurking in water as shallow as 60 to 80 feet.

Among the westernmost places to roll out the red carpet for Area 6 summer kings is Freshwater Bay, located off Highway 112 about 10 miles west of Port Angeles. There is

only a primitive boat launch – not ideal during big low tides – here, so the best option for bigger boats is to run from Port Angeles.

Usually, fishing here is off and on when it first opens on July 1 and tends to get better as the Chinook season progresses through July and up until it closes in mid-August. The scenic sights are spectacular, as the bluff above the bay is lined with western red cedar and fir trees nestled within a lushgreen landscape.

Most salmon anglers will jig or downrigger troll around the kelp beds or out in deeper water at Freshwater Bay. The trick when downrigger trolling is to fish with the tide and, once you hit the end spot of the bay, pick up your gear, run back and start the process over again.

LIKE CLOCKWORK EACH summer, the Strait of Juan de Fuca becomes a haven of sorts for schools of pesky dogfish and most salmon anglers will opt for hardware such as lures or jigs. Popular choices include Silver Horde Coho Killer and Kingfisher

Lite and Luhr-Jensen Coyote and Flutter spoons; plastic hoochies (2- to 4-inch squid imitations); and Silver Horde Ace Hi Flies in a purple haze or green splatterback. Be sure to add anise or herring scent to your bait, jig or lure.

The Yakima Bait Spinfish has been all the rage lately and comes in four different sizes and 30 color patterns. It also has an easy-fill chamber to add scent and comes with two pretied hooks on a 30-pound-test leader.

You can mooch bait like a cut-plug or whole herring, but again, be aware that the hordes of dogfish roaming the area will likely wreak havoc on fishing leaders and hooks and drain your wallet of money from the dozens of frozen green-label herring you’ll need to buy.

But if you really, really want to mooch, I’d pick Winter Hole or Freshwater Bay. A single or double 2/0, 3/0 or 4/0 octopus-style barbless hook with a 15- to 25-pound fluorocarbon leader works best. Your crescent sinker weight will depend on current strength and tidal

fluctuations. Bring a selection of sizes ranging from 2 to 6 ounces.

Work the cut-plug or whole herring from the surface to the bottom. When you hit bottom, reel a couple turns, pause, then reel up 20 feet and drop back to the bottom. Repeat the process and every few minutes reel all the way to the surface. Work the bottom as well as the entire water column.

WHILE THE STRAITS’ saltwater salmon fisheries garner the majority of attention, the Dungeness River from the mouth to Gray Wolf River at Dungeness Forks Campground is open October 16 through November 30 for hatchery coho only. Dungeness Bay is also open October 1-31 for hatchery coho only. For additional details and emergency rule changes, be sure to check the 2023-24 WDFW regulation pamphlet or website (wdfw.wa.gov). NS

Editor’s note: Mark Yuasa is a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife communications manager and longtime local fishing and outdoor writer.

One of the most unique aspects of Area 6’s Chinook fishery is that anglers work tight to the kelp beds from Freshwater Bay west to Tongue Point/Salt Creek. (WASHINGTON DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY)

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Get Ready For Pinkalooza 2023

NW

PURSUITS

By Jason Brooks

very oddnumbered year, millions of pink salmon head south from the North Pacific, making their way to the natal rivers of Puget Sound. The smallish salmon are decent table fare while in the saltwater and are easy to catch

Efrom a boat. Many fish will also pass close by beaches and fishing piers, where bank anglers await by the thousands, bringing an economic boom to local towns. Rivers begin to fill with so many pinks that you can barely cast a line without catching one, or another angler’s gear, as “combat” fishing becomes the norm while standing in glacial-silt streams. This is why your best bet in July and early August is to grab your

gear and head to a local beach or fishing pier if bankbound, or jump in a boat or kayak to pursue those further offshore. Saltwater pink salmon fishing is prime from now until the leaves first start to turn color and county fairs are in full swing.

ALSO KNOWN AS humpies for the hump that grows on the backs of males, these salmon may not be the most prized fish in

Now’s the time to stock up on white dodgers and pink hoochies – nearly 4 million pink salmon are expected to return to Puget Sound this summer, and July is when the first ones will be caught, as the odd-year fish begin filtering into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. (JASON BROOKS)

the Pacific Northwest but they are some of the most fun and exciting to catch once you locate a school. Aggressive and always on the bite, pinks are not hard to hook, but with their soft mouths and acrobatic fight, landing the smallest of the Pacific salmon species can be frustrating.

Saltwater anglers in the Strait of Juan de Fuca will get the first opportunity to catch what’s expected to be a return of 3.95 million back to Washington’s Puget Sound and Hood Canal, a figure that is similar to 2021’s run of 3.77 million. Fishing in the wide waters between British Columbia’s Vancouver Island and Washington’s Olympic Peninsula also gives anglers a shot at some of the pinks heading to the

Fraser River; this year’s median forecast is for 6.1 million and many of those will actually come down BC’s Strait of Georgia. Other popular Puget Sound spots include the beaches along the west side of Whidbey Island, Humpy Hollow off Mukilteo and just past the deadline markers of the Hoodsport Hatchery.

TO CATCH THEM in the saltwater, look for points and beaches. The fish will run close to shore and kelp beds, staying close to the surface. Downriggers are not necessary, but they do help when fishing traditional salmon gear such as dodgers and squid skirts. The most popular dodgers are all white. Trail a pink squid skirt 12 inches

behind the dodger with double 1/0 red hooks. Fill the squid with krill bait oil, as pinks are primarily plankton eaters. If you don’t have downriggers or don’t want to mess with a Deep Six-style diver or large banana weight to get your trolling gear down in the water column, throwing pink Buzz Bombs or trolling pink spoons behind a 1-ounce mooching sinker flatlined on long and limber rods can create a bit of excitement when there is a hook-up.

Another way to catch saltwater pinks is to find a beach or inlet near where there is a river or stream that has a run of these fish. That includes places like West Point at Deception Pass, Fort Casey, Keystone Spit and other places along western Whidbey

Where most saltwater fishing for Chinook and coho is done by boaters, pinks provide a great opportunity for bank anglers to get in on the bounty. Beaches along the west side of Whidbey Island are great, as are points that jut well out into Puget Sound – like the Tacoma area’s Dash and Browns Points. (JASON BROOKS)

Island, West Point and Lincoln Park in Seattle, Browns Point Park and Dash Point State Park near Tacoma, and the shores of Hood Canal from Hoodsport north. If you have a small rowboat, kayak or even a float tube, make your way just offshore, within 100 yards, and look for schools of approaching pinks. They tend to stay near the top of the water and often splash and jump as they move through.

You can pitch spoons and Buzz Bombs or – even better – twitch a small pink jig or soft plastic bait. Be sure to cast well past or out in front of the school of approaching fish, as they will scatter if you cast right into them. Then give the jig a light twitch so it dances along in front of the fish. Fly anglers can swing pink Bunny Leeches or streamers like a pink Clouser Minnow and do well, since the fish are near the surface.

Puget Sound has more than 60 public fishing piers and many will see pink salmon swim by. When fishing the piers, the tides will determine when it is best to cast a line. Most fishing is done during

Along with beaches, Puget Sound’s myriad piers are great platforms for pinks, but given their height above the water they require a crab ring and good coordination between the angler fighting the fish and whoever is positioning the makeshift net to haul up the catch. (JASON BROOKS)

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high tide, when the fish are on the move and close to shore. Since the piers are well above the waterline, anglers have learned to improvise a landing net by using a crab ring. The hardest part is to coordinate between the angler fighting the fish and the person helping to scoop it up, then haul it up to the high deck of the pier. Even if you are not catching fish, just going to a pier and watching pink salmon anglers is an experience to behold. Again, pitching pink Buzz Bombs and jigs is the topproducing technique.

ODD-YEAR PINKS WILL be making their way back to Puget Sound this summer, starting as early as July in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and San Juans, then crescendoing in August from Admiralty Inlet south past Everett, Seattle and Tacoma. Thousands of anglers will make their own way to the waters to intercept them. From the strait to the rocky beaches and fishing piers, pink spoons, jigs and lures will be the ticket to getting humpies to bite. NS

Buzz Bombs and Rotator diamond jigs are old standbys for pinks, but don’t overlook leadheads with a pink swimbait or even oversized steelhead-style jigs with a strip of herring. (JASON BROOKS)

Bone Up For The Buoy

My first trip to fish for salmon at the Columbia River mouth is scheduled for August 8. This early-season adventure has become an annual

one for me and friends in which we fish the river or ocean with guide friend Bill Monroe Jr. of Bill Monroe Outdoors (503702-4028). This year’s trip will likely include Bill’s father, retired-but-still-contributing Oregonian outdoor writer Bill Monroe, retired fishing tackle rep Randy Woolsey, Trey Carskadon, who works for O’Loughlin Trade Shows, and Tony Amato of Salmon

Trout Steelheader magazine fame.

Depending on in-river fishing reports, our plan is to perhaps fish the ocean (depending on how rough), as that morning’s flood tide will likely make the bar crossing easy. If the ocean outlook is unpleasant, this same morning tide might push decent numbers of early-returning Chinook into the river. Fishing in the ocean

The waters on either side of the mouth of the Columbia River can produce fat salmon. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

BUZZ RAMSEY

Some anglers are using rods as long as 12 feet at Buoy 10, but author Buzz Ramsey’s are from 8 to 10 1/2 feet long, with the shortest reserved for use off the back of the boat by the trolling motor. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

As for inline flashers used to attract salmon, the triangular ones like Yakima Bait’s Fish Flash continue to be popular when chasing salmon in the ocean or inside the Columbia River mouth. However, a number of guides and anglers are employing rotating flashers, like the popular Pro-Troll (top). New on the 360 market, Brad’s Lures has a new attractor called Evolution (bottom) that features a built-in “bungee” break-away system. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

Some anglers like fishing guide Chris Vertopoulos (503-349-1377) are rigging a hoochie squid in combination with their SpinFish. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

If you are fishing in the river where treble hooks are legal (unlike the ocean), you might try rigging your SpinFish or Brad’s Cut Plug using one trailing treble. The author places his SpinFish and bearing beads 2 1/2 inches above the hook via a separate length of monofilament tied on his leader with a uni knot cinched down tight and with the tag ends trimmed close. He’s found that his hook-to-land ratio goes way up when rigging this way. Fishing guide Bob Kratzer (360-271-7197) showed him this trick. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

Since you really need to know what depth your gear is running and be able to return to the one producing the most salmon, levelwind baitcasting reels equipped with line counters are what nearly every angler uses at Buoy 10. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

While it might be easy to remove a herring or anchovy fillet from your SpinFish at the end of the day, removing tuna can be a challenge. What Ramsey did was epoxy an eyed wire into an old file handle, which works great for removing canned tuna and other difficult-toremove baits from SpinFish. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

Ramsey often tips his spinners with the heads of herring that he plug cuts. He’s also known to attach a plastic worm tail to a treble hook. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

off the Columbia mouth can produce easy limits of fin-clipped coho and Chinook too, as one of your two-fish limit can be a king, fin-clipped or not, in saltwater.

WITH THIS TRIP and others planned to fish the Columbia mouth, I’m already checking my gear to make sure I’m ready, and you should too.

In case you don’t know, the fishing rods used at Buoy 10 are long, ranging in length from 8 feet to 10½ feet for most people, and of a fairly stout action to handle cannonball-style sinkers that might vary in size from 8 to 16 ounces or more. A few anglers, wanting to achieve as wide a trolling swath as possible, are using rods as long as 12 feet.

When it comes to trolling sinkers, most anglers – including me – run the heavier sinkers on the front rods. My normal setup is to run 16 ounces of weight on the front rods and 12 ounces on the lines trailing out the back of my boat. How much weight you might need depends on how deep the salmon are running and whether or not you are trying to keep your gear at or near bottom. Keep in mind that not all salmon are on the deck, as they will often suspend at middepth, especially when the tide exchange is minimal or flooding.

Of course, due to the hard pull of big sinkers, I’ll go with less weight when fishing shallow water or when tides are soft. It’s then that I might switch to 12 ounces on my front rods and 8 or 10 ounces on the back. Some anglers and fishing guides use even more weight, especially when fish are holding near bottom in deep water, than what I have described here. For example, fishing guide Eric Linde (360-607-6421) normally uses 16 or 20 ounces of weight when trolling for salmon at Buoy 10. That’s the ticket when salmon are holding near bottom in water depths in the 40- to 60foot range.

What many anglers do is run their front rods out 20 to 25 feet on their linecounter reels when fishing over deep water, and their back rods out the same distance or more, sometimes enough to occasionally hit bottom – providing it’s not too deep – and let the fish tell them what depth to focus on after that.

One of the Northwest’s OG hook-and-bullet writers and his son – Bill Monroe and Bill Monroe Jr. – show off a Chinook caught off the mouth of the Columbia early last August. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

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WHEN IT COMES to fishing line, the majority of anglers employ high-tech braid. Most spool 50- or 65-pound-test super braid, which is way thinner than even 25-poundtest monofilament and mostly eliminates the threat of an unexpected breakoff. This is something that can happen when using mono, especially if it has been heavily used and on the reel for more than one season. However, if you prefer mono, I would suggest picking a tough one like Berkley Big Game or Maxima in at least 25-pound test.

A tip when spooling up fresh line (which I have mentioned in a previous column) is to make sure the line is spooled tightly on your reel spool; otherwise, the line could knife into itself should you hook into a big salmon with too tight a drag. And although this can happen with mono, it’s much more likely to occur with super line. If knifing does happen, it could mean no drag and result in a breakoff, especially if the fish you have on is a big one. No matter how hard I try, I cannot get super line wrapped on my reels

BE AWARE OF BUOY SEASON TWEAKS

If you are preplanning a trip to chase salmon at the Columbia River mouth, realize that this year’s fishing regulations are different than in the past. In an effort to ensure the fin-clipped-only Chinook season will last through Labor Day, state agencies have closed all salmon fishing in the Buoy 10 fishing zone for five days late next month. Those days are August 21-23 and August 28-29. You should also know that no steelhead can be kept, fin-clipped or not, should you encounter one while prowling Buoy 10. Managers expect a record-low summer steelhead return to Idaho and other inland areas. –BR

tight enough when first filling up. To get it spooled tightly so that there is no possibility of knifing, I attach the end of my line to a stationary object and walk 80 or more yards away and then reel myself back, holding tension on the line with the rod tip as I go. Only after doing this do I feel that I’m ready to tackle a big salmon with a reel filled with fresh super line.

LIKE MANY ANGLERS, I usually have four friends with me when fishing Buoy 10, meaning we are fishing a total of five rods. Although it varies depending on what the fish are biting and the area we’re trolling, I generally run 5 1/2 or 6 1/2 size spinners in combination with Fish Flash on the two rods near the bow of my boat, and herring or anchovy on the rods positioned to fish out the stern of the boat. It’s on those stern rods that I might run baits or bait-filled plugs in combination with Pro-Troll flashers. Make no mistake, spinners can produce at Buoy 10, especially when fishing the upper estuary eastward of the western tip

Fishing for Walleye, Trout, Pike, Pan

Fish, Bass, Stripers, Salmon and Whitefish with Bay de Noc Lures

of Desdemona Sands. What you might also discover, like we have, is that the majority of big Chinook come on the spinners. The idea behind running bait, or bait-filled lures like SpinFish or Brad’s Super Bait, on the stern rods is to encourage salmon that pass up our spinners or arrive late to our gear into biting due to the scent trail produced by bait or bait-filled lures.

As for my rod, I once ran it between the two stern rods and had it rigged with the same amount of weight as the other rods fished out the back of the boat. Doing this meant my rod was mostly in line with the others and rarely got bit, as fish attracted to our flashers got to the side rods first. What changed my rate of success was when I started trailing my outfit out behind the boat 50 to 100 feet. A 4- or 6-ounce sinker is what I often use on my rod. There is just something about having a lure trailing out behind the other gear that fish respond to.

AS FOR BAIT, most anglers rig a herring or anchovy on a two-hook leader to spin.

There are two options here: One is to purchase frozen bait; the other is to buy fresh-caught herring or anchovies, which you will likely have to preorder the day before your trip from one of the Astoriaarea vendors. One source for fresh or frozen bait is Astoria Bait and Tackle (503741-1407).

Fishing guide Jack Glass (503-260-2315) uses Pro-Troll flashers when pursuing salmon in the ocean and when the tides are soft at Buoy 10. As Glass explains, ProTrolls work best in the river when the tides are soft or flooding, but the strong currents associated with big tide exchanges can make it difficult or impossible to maintain the right trolling speed while using 360 flashers. It’s during big tide exchanges that Glass will use triangular flashers on every rod to attract salmon.

Most anglers rig their herring or anchovy on a 5- to 6-foot leader when used in combination with a triangular flasher. Rigging a swivel halfway down your leader can reduce or eliminate line

twist. Hook sizes vary depending on the size bait, with 4/0-3/0 and 5/0-4/0 hook configurations being popular choices. Leader test for bait is normally in the 25- to 30-pound-test range, as using too heavy a leader can tear the bait when rigging up.

Leader lengths are generally in the 30-inch range when fishing bait, baitfilled lures or small 3.5 size spinners in combination with a Pro-Troll. If using a flasher, keep in mind that using too big a bait or spinner won’t allow the flasher to impart its pulsating action into the trailing lure or bait. Most anglers employ 30- or 40-pound-test leaders when using spinners or scent-dispersing plugs like Super Baits or SpinFish. NS

Editor’s note: Buzz Ramsey is regarded as a trout, steelhead and salmon sport fishing authority and proficient lure and fishing rod designer. He has been honored into the Hall of Fame for the Association of Northwest Steelheaders and the national Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame.

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TROLLING MOTOR MOUNT

The #MK02 Trolling Motor Mount accommodates some Minn-Kota, Garmin, and Lowrance bow mount trolling motor’s installation in any of the LeeLock Quick Change Bases. Simply slide your Motor Mount on the base and lock it in with the pin. The #MK-02 Motor Mount will fit in the LeeLock #QB-01 Quick Change Base, the #QBR-01 Quick Change Bow Roller Base or either of the bases that are sold with the Large Anchor Can Assemblies (#LCA-02 and #LCA-03

LEELOCK CRAB CRACKER

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Raw-ish, But Not Wriggling

Cured by fresh citrus and salt, summertime ceviche made with Northwest bottomfish weds the very best of land and sea.

GUEST CHEF IN THE WILD

By Jeff Holmes

I’ve been saltwater fishing for 41 years, fishing for 44 (I’m 47, gulp). Over that time I have finally made clear to myself that while I don’t at all dislike freshwater fish – and, in fact, love some – I find saltwater

fish infinitely more desirable to my palate. I spend a disproportionate amount of my income gorging on saltwater fish. I’ll eat some crazy stuff from the sea in many states of doneness, but my approach to freshwater fish is pretty vanilla whereas others’ approaches are sometimes … not.

I hate to judge, but these Pacific Northwest psychos frying up and eating

yellow perch egg sacs online need help, as do the deranged sperm-eating monsters who allegedly fry up salmon and steelhead milt sacs. But it isn’t just the gonads of freshwater fish that don’t excite me as table fare; even walleye fillets are only pretty good. They are a fine carrier for artisanal tartar sauces and other fats and are a good medium for a fish sandwich or

Our Pacific Northwest coasts are home to robust rockfish, lingcod, halibut and surfperch populations, all of which make amazing ceviche when prepared properly. Add ceviche to your Bubba Gump list of favorite recipes for bottomfish. (IAN CHUN, ODFW)

taco, but they taste a little like cardboard, albeit unfishy, very moist cardboard. I find fried perch, bluegill and crappie a lot more delicious. Similarly, before I yearn for crowd-pleasing walleye fillets, I crave burbot and even fat rainbow trout and kokanee from places like Lake Roosevelt, or brook trout from mountain streams. But give me even a previously frozen black rockfish fillet or a redtail (pinkfin) surfperch, and I will take them over any freshwater fish.

LIKE ALL OF us, I have my preferences when it comes to Northwest fish species and preparations, and my favorites have evolved over time to include albacore

tuna, spring and summer Chinook, and sockeye. My favorites, however, have remained lingcod, rockfish, Pacific cod and halibut. I first encountered fried bounties of firm, white bottomfish as a small child and still love them fried, but my preferred preparation has changed 180 degrees.

Ceviche, an approximately 2,000-yearold Peruvian dish, is the practice of “cooking” fish with citrus, which is actually denaturing the proteins, not cooking. Good god it is tasty, and it offers utility. Before refrigeration, ceviche offered the ability to quickly cure and slightly extend the shelf life of fish in warm weather, while simultaneously making it totally delicious. Ceviche spread throughout the former

global footprint of Spanish colonial power and resulted in regional approaches to ceviche that call on the acidity of citrus to cure fish. Ceviche today is popular throughout much of South and Central America, Mexico, Spain, the Phillipines and in American popular food culture. It is now one of my top five favorite overall foods, and I eat it often and year-round.

Over the years I have dialed in safe, easy, inexpensive and extremely delicious approaches for making ceviche at home. Ceviche from restaurants and stores can be very unpredictable in freshness and safety, inconsistent in ingredients and lacking in overall quality. Ceviche can also be exorbitantly expensive, especially when it’s good, because good seafood is expensive, and making ceviche and doing a good job at it is time-consuming with all of the knifework involved. I have had experiences with extremely raw tilapia (gag) and farm-raised, gross shrimp (wretch) in restaurant ceviche. I have similarly had friends and acquaintances serve me ill-conceived and utterly raw ceviche, usually with farm-raised shrimp and fish that lived in a slurry of scum and that required bleaching before being sold to be eaten.

AS IS THE case for many, the idea of eating a “raw” fish was something that disgusted me growing up. Although I ate bugs and my favorite book was How to Eat Fried Worms, I simply could not understand why a person would choose to eat raw fish unless in a grim survival situation. So I avoided the practice of eating raw fish until downtown carousing and feminine influence won out one night. I was apprehensive, even when in my liquors, but I drowned a wide variety of nigiri (raw fish and rice) in soy sauce that night and began an expensive addiction to the unmatched fresh flavors of good sushi.

Two medical doctor fishing friends of mine told me for years that I was crazy (for many of my behaviors) and regaled me with horrid tales of the ocean’s parasites and those in the Pacific Northwest’s lakes and rivers and what they could do to my body. Their stories were discomforting, but they didn’t totally work. I continue to

Redtail, aka pinkfin, surfperch are great ceviche candidates and are incredibly accessible. Perch can be easily landed from sandy beaches in Oregon and Washington and are best targeted in the first couple hours after low tide. The editor landed this one on a salted clam neck while in Newport last month. (ANDY WALGAMOTT)

If you like ceviche already, you will love this. If you have not yet tried ceviche or aren’t sure about past experiences, try this one. If you don’t like it, you don’t like ceviche. In that case, retire from ceviche eating or consider the kind made with imitation crab if you still like the idea but can’t get over starting with raw fish. This recipe relies on white-fleshed fish, but it could also be made with albacore or even salmon if you freeze it appropriately first. My favorites are yellowtail rockfish, halibut and Pacific cod, although I just tried surfperch and found it exceptional.

When I first started making these huge batches of ceviche, I would marvel at it in these jars and think “Oh my god, this is going to go to waste unless I give some of it away!” I routinely give away ceviche made from this recipe, but I do so mostly to protect myself from eating all of it in a really disturbingly short amount of time.

ALL-PURPOSE, HIGHLY ADDICTIVE CEVICHE

STAGE ONE: ‘COOKING’ THE FISH

• 1 pound fillets of recently unfrozen cod, rockfish, lingcod, halibut or surfperch that have been held at your chest freezer’s coldest setting for a full week, welltrimmed of brown skin, fat and any visible parasites, and cut into roughly ¼- to ½-inch diced chunks (¼ inch is better)

• 1 pound cooked Oregon bay/salad shrimp, or larger wild spot or Argentinian prawns, cooked and cut into pieces approximately the size of salad shrimp

• 12 ounces fresh-squeezed lime juice from ripe, juicy limes

(JEFF HOLMES)

• 2 teaspoons kosher salt

• 2 crushed but intact garlic cloves

In a tall glass or ceramic bowl (plastic works; metal doesn’t) like a 2-quart (8-cup) measuring cup, mix fresh-squeezed lime juice and salt until dissolved. Drop in the garlic cloves to infuse gentle garlic flavor into the lime juice. Add diced fish and ensure fish is submerged. Allow to sit in fridge for at least one hour, stirring midway. Test the biggest chunk you can find to make sure the texture and appearance has changed all the way through the small

cube of fish, indicating denaturing of the proteins. Remove garlic and fold in the cooked shrimp. Thaw and fully drain frozen cooked shrimp, or cook raw shrimp and cool just before making this recipe.

STAGE TWO: PREPPING THE VEGGIES

• 4 medium-sized tomatoes (grocery store Romas or garden heirlooms both work) with all seeds, juice and pith removed and discarded and the exterior walls of the tomatoes cut into a ¼ inch or smaller dice

• 4 serrano and 4 jalapeno peppers (8 total) with all seeds and pith removed and cut into tiny dice no larger than 1/8 inch; more or different varieties may be used to moderate heat up and down

• 1 English cucumber, seeded, skin on, cut into ¼ inch dice

• 1 large bunch cilantro*, with half of the leaves picked and reserved for Stage Three and the rest of the leaves and most of the stems very finely minced and added here in Stage Two

• 1 shallot, very finely minced

• 2 to 3 green onions, thinly sliced

• 2 tablespoons olive or avocado oil

• Salt and pepper

In a large nonmetallic bowl capable of holding all Stage One and Stage Two ingredients, combine tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, cilantro, shallot, green onion, olive oil, and salt and pepper. Once well incorporated, season further with salt and

pepper to taste. Very precise cutting here is not needed but is preferable. At the very least, keep all of the pieces small (see suggested sizes).

*About ¼ cup very finely chopped fresh Italian parsley is an acceptable but sad substitute for those afflicted by hating cilantro. If you like cilantro, don’t worry and instead celebrate that this recipe asks you to add way more than ¼ cup of chopped cilantro, plus leaves.

STAGE THREE: COMBINING THE GOODNESS

• 4 (or more) medium avocados, ripe but slightly firm, cut into roughly ½ inch dice

• Reserved cilantro leaves from Stage Two

Pour the bowl of fish, shrimp and lime from Stage One into the large bowl from Stage Two. Once mixed well, next gently fold in the avocado chunks and cilantro leaves until incorporated. At this stage –since I always at least double this recipe – I portion the huge bowl of ceviche into 16-, 32- and 64-ounce Mason jars and get them quickly into the fridge to cool down and for the flavors to meld together. Like soup, ceviche tastes even better the second and perhaps third day as the salty lime juice and the fish and veggies come together.

This recipe will not yield especially spicy ceviche despite the number of hot peppers included. I add many more peppers to mine. A popular and safe approach when first making it is to make it mild and add Tapatio or other favored bottle hot sauces while gorging on it. –JH

This summer, don’t forget to combine fresh locally grown produce with your catches. Why? It’s an amazing time of year to enjoy the best of land and sea. I will definitely be mining my elaborate garden and its 15 varieties of heirloom tomatoes (below), four varieties of cucumbers, nine varieties of peppers, and cilantro for summer ceviches. (JEFF HOLMES)

You have never seen anyone get as excited as me when a nontarget species such as Pacific cod comes up from the depths on halibut or deepwater ling trips. I have always loved Pacific cod and continue to prize it, particularly so for ceviche. The good news is is that the species is regularly commercially available. This big one was caught while sitting on anchor for halibut out of Ucluelet, British Columbia with Kerry Reed of Reel Adventures (reeladventuresfishing.com).

(JEFF HOLMES)

exhaust my financial resources at a rapid pace due to my sushi addiction.

The stories did, however, root out any chance of me eating any Northwest freshwater or saltwater fish raw, except for albacore. I also do not generally make ceviche from fish I have not first held at -5 degrees Fahrenheit for a week. I mean, I have, but I try not to because this practice pretty much precludes any possibility of acquiring a parasite.

My obsessive nature, love of ceviche and trial and error resulted in my threestage approach and simple principles for making safe and extremely delicious ceviche. The three stages are based on the main premise that the fish should be prepared in a safe and delicious manner:

Stage One: Many people do not use enough acid to appropriately denature the proteins in the fish they select, while others water down the acidity by adding vegetables and fruits simultaneously to the acid. Stage One eliminates this problem by directly curing your small-cut cubes of fish in salted, garlicky, fresh-squeezed lime

juice. I sometimes do a 3:1 ratio of limes to lemons, but I leave the sweet citrus at the grocery store so as not to dilute the acidity.

Stage Two: Separating the vegetables and fruit prep from the fish prep and creating this whole other pico de gallo-ish hemisphere of ingredients allows additional attention to knifework in advance of combining the fish and vegetables in Stage Three. In this stage, I make sure none of the cut veggies is as large or larger than my fish cubes because I like it that way. But you can do just about whatever you want in this stage, since in Stage One you took care of denaturing the proteins in your properly frozen fish.

Stage Three: Combining fully cured fish with perfectly assembled, seasoned vegetables makes for a safe, delicious and balanced set of flavors. Gently folding in whole cilantro leaves and good-sized chunks of avocado simultaneously ensures the avocado chunks won’t wear down into oblivion, while at the same time helping to dress the ceviche with avocado-y fatness.

FOLLOWING THE BASIC principles in this article – especially the threestage approach – can lead to delicious, safe ceviche for those exploring with ingredients. But for those who prefer a specific recipe to get started, this article features a truly delicious one I make yearround using Pacific cod fillets from Winco or Costco when I run out of ocean fish.

I often riff on this recipe in Stage Two (“Prepping the Veggies”) by adding additional diced peppers, a puree of seeded habanero pepper and cilantro root, a cup of shredded cabbage, lemon juice and zest, or even by adding chopped razor clam diggers in Stage One (“‘Cooking’ the Fish”).

While this recipe makes amazing tacos de ceviche and is perhaps best sampled with tortilla strips or on a fresh tostada shell, I am especially fond of gorging on it using a spoon or fork in one hand and Tapatio in the other hand. I like to eat it while summer salmon fishing and tend to drink/toss it into my mouth out of a cup while trolling. Ceviche lasts for several

days, though it rarely survives that long. I recommend trying this exact recipe if you haven’t made ceviche before, particularly if you have concerns about the raw aspect of making ceviche. Denaturing the proteins does not truly cook fish, nor does it 100 percent assure the elimination of all parasites. However, in the same manner that sushi fish is frozen at -4 degrees Fahrenheit for seven days to assure parasites die, this recipe asks you to dial down your chest or standup freezer to its lowest setting (-5) and wait a week.

The recipe in these pages is a major crowd-pleaser resulting in a gateway drug that may lure some folks into more daring fish consumption, like eating sushi. I’m currently trying to lure myself into embarking on my first freshwater foray and have moved some yellow perch fillets into the extra-cold freezer for my next batch. NS

Editor’s note: Longtime regular Chef in the Wild columnist Randy King took the month off to travel with his sons.

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Warm Up To Walleye

By MD Johnson

If you’re exclusively an angler, then the name Bill Saunders might not register; however, if you hunt, it should. If you’re a waterfowler and don’t know the name, well, there’s this rock with your handle on it.

Saunders, as many might know, is a long-time duck and goose call maker here in the Pacific Northwest, working under the banner – wait for it – billsaunderscalls.com. Now 50 years old, the one-time competitive caller and Wisconsin native is as synonymous with waterfowl hunting,

and geese in particular, as anyone on the planet, past or present.

But what many might not know about this man, whom I believe falls into the category of Legendary Goose Guru, is his love, nay, his deepseated, perhaps even frighteningly intense infatuation with walleye. Ah, Saunders would mention the wonderful walleye – note: remember, I’m originally from Ohio and grew up fishing Lake Erie, thus the “wonderful” moniker – from time to time whenever we talked about ducks and geese, but it wasn’t until we had the following conversation

that I fully understood the depth of his ’eye problem.

MD “You going up to Canada to guide again this September, Bill?”

Bill “Not this year. I’m done going up to Canada in September.”

MD “Really? Why no Canada?”

Bill [without hesitation] “It gets in the way of my walleye fishing.”

Uh … huh. Brutal honesty. I’m OK with that. And that was three or four years ago, if memory serves. More recently – and by recently I mean the first week of June 2023 – Saunders sends me a text. “Had a day yesterday,” he wrote. “Two (walleye) 29 inches,

Summer months provide good fishing on the Mid-Columbia, where a wide variety of tactics will get the job done.

Bill Saunders, who has gravitated from the waterfowl marshes and fields to the walleye-rich waters of the Mid-Columbia, says you can catch the tasty species many different ways in the warm waters of summer. (BILL SAUNDERS)

FISHING

and five others over 24 inches.”

Now, to put this in perspective, I know men who have fished for decades on Lake Erie, the so-called “Walleye Capital of the World,” and never caught a 29-inch ’eye, let alone two in one morning, followed by another 125-plus inches of said fish. A day? Yeah, I’d say a day, Bill.

Thanks for bearing with me, y’all, because all this lead-in does have a point, that being walleye and warm water, which seeing now that it’s July and, with any luck, fixing to be August, is the fishing period we find ourselves in. Past history – or rather, past rumor –has it that walleye can be awfully tough to find and catch during warmer water. They spread out. They stop eating. Or, if you’re from Minnesota and liken ’eyes to northern pike, their teeth fall out. No kidding; it’s a widely held theory in the Land of 10,000 Lakes about why the fish stop eating. Look it up.

Anyway, back to Saunders and warmwater walleye. Impossible fish during the summer? Not according to the ’fowler-turned-Percidae pro. First, however, let’s define warm water as it relates to walleye, and more specifically, to Saunders’ home turf, the Columbia River from, says he, the “John Day Dam to the Priest Rapids Dam, and the tributaries.” He offered no more, and I didn’t ask. I know better.

“A lot of it depends on where you’re at,” he begins. “Where I live (Kennewick), you have the Snake River dumping in. The Yakima River. The Walla Walla River. The Umatilla River. Typically, those rivers coming in are going to be warmer, so the areas where they’re dumping into (the mainstem Columbia) are going to be warmer.”

“But then again,” he continues, “it’s going to vary. Where are you?

Are you in that shallow free-flowing stuff, or down deeper?”

Early June, he explains, and the water temperature is 57, but he says temps could climb well into the 60s and even the low 70s.

NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK?

So – newsflash – water temperatures in the mainstem Columbia rise throughout the summer. Gotcha! But what effect, if any, does this have on the walleye population, and how should anglers improvise, adjust and otherwise adapt to these changes?

Again, do the fish disperse widely? Go deep? Shallow? Fast current, seams, or slack water?

“It’s where (the fishes’) food is,” Saunders says. “They’re hunters. They’re killers. They’re looking for food, so wherever that food moves, those walleyes are going to follow.”

OK, so the next logical question, at

Pulling worms on a ‘crawler harness is a sure-fire way to put walleye in the boat on the big river. (KNIFE PHOTO CONTEST)

least in my mind, is that of defining “walleye food.” Walleye are – as good friend and former Columbia River guide Ed Iman is fond of saying –nomadic ambush predators, to which I’ll add, that eat essentially anything they can get their fish lips around. This menu, Saunders tells me, includes smaller yellow perch, young walleye, shad, lamprey and, interestingly enough, a nonnative invasive species, the Siberian prawn. The 2-inch-long freshwater shrimp introduced into the Lower Columbia via dumped ship ballast are now found in huge numbers as far up the Snake River system as the Lower Granite Pool.

Makes finding walleye easy then, right? Find the food. Find the fish. But this varied menu covers a wide array of species, as well as habitat preferences; thus, walleye are where the food is, which is where you find it. Clear as mud?

Here, Saunders throws another

variable into the “where” equation.

“Winter, spring, fall,” he says, “I feel like these walleyes are harder to find and (may be) narrowing down to some areas. But in the summer and with warmer water, you can still find fish in 50 to 60 feet; however, I know where I can find fish in 5 feet of water. In a river system like the Columbia, it’s two things. It’s food, and it’s current speed.”

Variable two, then – current speed. But for the most part, there’s current everywhere in the Columbia to some degree. What’s right? What’s wrong? Good? Better?

“Current,” Saunders begins, “is where it’s at (for walleye). I have to find the right current, and there’s a window I look for. I find that current ‘window,’ and I find the walleye.”

What is this mysterious current “window,” or speed, Saunders is searching for?

“Understand there are exceptions,” he says. “Sometimes you’ll find fish

in no current. Other times, it’s fast current. But for the most part, I’m looking for current in that 0.8- to 1.5-mile-per-hour range.”

Done? Almost. Now we have variables 1) food and 2) proper current speed; still, there’s No. 3 – structure.

“A lot of times,” Saunders says, “where you find that (0.8 to 1.5 mph) current speed, you’re going to find some type of structure because the river channels … they’re moving pretty good. And walleyes will always relate to some type of structure. It may be as simple as a little point sticking out from the shore. A stick. One stick! I’ve gone into areas, and it’s been nothing more than one stick that all the fish are relating to and getting behind.”

PUTTING ’EM IN THE NET

By now, you’ve narrowed the Columbia or one of the tributaries, e.g. the Snake, down to a much smaller area of water that features our three walleye-holding variables – food, current speed and some type of structure. Step one. Step two, then, is catching ’em, which according to Saunders, offers up as many possibilities as there are stars in the sky.

“Warm water,” he says, “and almost any technique works. You can throw jigs. You can pull (’crawler) harnesses. You can pull plugs. You can snap Jigging Raps. You can snap blade baits or spoons. Big plugs. Little plugs. Hard blades. Smile blades.”

Oh, no, it didn’t end there.

“You can target fish in shallow water. You can target fish in deep water. The summer, warm weather and warm water,” he went on. “The doors just open up for a ton of different techniques and areas.”

Still, I wanted Saunders to narrow the field a bit more, per se. What I asked him then was this: If he could use one – and only one – fishing method throughout the summer months, what would that be, and why? No hesitation here.

“If I want to catch fish, and big fish,” he says, “I’m pulling worms. During this warmer water time, it

Solve the forage, current speed and structure variables, and you’re well on your way to catching mid-Columbia walleye. (KNIFE PHOTO CONTEST)

just seems like pulling worms gets me more bites and I get bigger fish. I can pull a worm in so many different situations. In 40 feet of water. In 4 feet of water. I can figure out how to pull a worm in any type of situation.”

Mack’s Smile Blade. Hard blade. Five or six beads and a Smile Blade, or a size 3 to 6 Colorado-style blade; a lot of times, Saunders says, it doesn’t matter. He’ll match the harness –beads, blade, hooks, length – to the water situation and current speed, and have at it.

ON WALLEYE AND CONSERVATION

Oh, yeah. I read the forums. Kill ’em all, write the walleye haters. They’re non-native. And they’re eating the salmon and steelhead.

Hold on, hold on. I’m not going to get on a soapbox, but I’ll say this: Brown trout aren’t native. Ringneck pheasants aren’t native. Chukar partridge aren’t native. Just sayin’. And as far as walleye eating Chinook, coho, sockeye and summer-run smolts, virtually everything eats small salmonids, including predators living in, on and above the river system in question. If you don’t like walleye for whatever reason, that’s fine. There’s no denying, however, that Washington and Oregon share what many, including myself, believe to be THE premier – the blue ribbon – walleye fishery for big fish on the planet.

Walleye are here to stay in the Columbia, no matter how many that anglers harvest or bonk for eating salmon and steelhead smolts, but some fishermen practice catch-and-release to conserve the resource. (JULIE JOHNSON)

Insert “drop the mic sound” here. That said, “You don’t have to kill everything,” Saunders says. “It’s OK to let the little ones go. It’s OK to have a self-imposed limit. People go walleye fishing (in most cases) ’cause they want to get them and eat them. I get that, but how much walleye can one person or one family really eat?”

The Washington Department of Health recommends eating up to only two meals a month of walleye caught out of the Mid-Columbia.

Walleye don’t fight. I heard it a million times growing up not far from Erie. I’ve heard it here in the Northwest. Saunders has too. Me, personally? I think that’s a load of –er, family magazine, MD – bunk.

“Walleyes may not be the best fighters in the world,” Saunders admits, “but if you’ve ever hooked into a 30-incher … yeah, it gets your blood pumping. They just fight differently. They pump. They have a few runs in them. You get them in current, and they sure can fight. You get ’em in shallow, and they sure can fight. I like to let the big ones go, thinking I might catch her next year and she’ll be even bigger.”

You do what you want. Me? I’ll keep a handful of 14- to 17-inchers for the fillet table and let the big Mama Walleye go. That’s me. Why? ’Cause I want something to catch next go ’round. NS

Kids ’N Warmwater Fishing

By MD Johnson

June 22, 1964: As the story goes, Mom and Dad were fishing at the dam at Dow Lake just outside of Athens, Ohio – go Bobcats! – the afternoon before I was born. Now, this isn’t your park-and-walk-8-feetto-the-fishing-spot kind of thing. Oh, no, not for my folks. At the Dow Dam, you parked, walked up a long winding sidewalk, then up the backside of the dam to the top before dropping over the crest, down the boulder-strewn face, and to the water’s edge. What were they fishing for? I don’t know – planter trout, crappies, bluegills, maybe a channel cat. All I know is Mom, bless her heart, was as big as a tick, but trooper that she was, still went fishing with the Old Man.

And that, I’m told, is the reason I like to fish. Oh, yeah – Grandma Verity always insisted Mom carry a wicker basket with a soft blanket, just in case I came early and Mom needed something with which to tote the newest addition to the family back to the parking lot. Now I don’t know if that part’s true or not, but it makes for a good story.

What’s my point? Kids ’n fishing go together like, well, kids ’n fishing. In my case, I was out there the day

True, the Northwest is the home of salmon and steelhead, but it’s bass, panfish and catfish that may make for the easiest, best species to hook youngins on angling.

Camila, author MD Johnson’s granddaughter, smiles over her first-ever fish, a bluegill. The 7-year-old also caught a mix of panfish that day with a Zebco spinfishing combo and red worms under a bobber. “It was incredible!” reports Johnson, who is at that stage on the sportsman spectrum where passing along the knowledge to the next generation of anglers, duck hunters and others is what it’s all about. (MD JOHNSON)

FISHING

before I was hatched, and I’ve been at it, I reckon, ever since. Today, and having been officially a grandpa for the past 15 years, my number one responsibility in my role as “Poppy” is to take my grandchildren, all six of them, and their classmates, cohorts and partners in crime, as I was the day prior to my being assigned a Social

Security number, down to the water’s edge for the purpose of casting a line and catching a fish.

Simple enough, right? Truthfully, I’d have to answer that with a response midway between “maybe” and “no … not really.” Taking a kid or kids fishing and actually teaching them the fundamentals of

angling, not to mention hooking and successfully bringing an aquatic lifeform to hand, can be a challenge. Huh? Challenge? Yes, sir, a challenge, and for any number of reasons, as we’ll discuss in this first section titled Your Mindset as Teacher.

YOUR MINDSET AS TEACHER

Let’s pretend for a moment here that for reasons unbeknownst to you, you’ve agreed to take your neighbor’s son Billy fishing. (Yes, girls fish, too, and are, in my experience, much better students than are boys simply because they listen. So, yes, this could have been the neighbor’s daughter; I just chose to have it be their son. Why? Because it’s my story, that’s why.) Billy is a typical 8-year-old, smart and eager; sometimes overly enthusiastic, but a good kid. He knows absolutely nothing about fishing, but that’s OK. You have the knowledge, the place and the gear, but do you have what it takes to take an 8-year-old fishing?

• Must. Have. Patience: This is the biggest thing – patience. Even if you can recite The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – the book, not the movie –word for word, it doesn’t mean a thing if you have no patience. While you’re out, things are going to go wrong. In fact, your fishing trip from time to time may be more clown show/ circus than anything else. That’s OK. Everything, no matter how seemingly tragic, can be turned into a learning experience. A “teachable moment,” as Jeff Rooklidge, the biology teacher at Wahkiakum High School, likes to say. You can do this. Take a deep breath – maybe several – and walk into that classroom with confidence. No, wait. That’s for me when I’m on substitute teacher duty. But seriously. It’s all about patience.

• What to fish for: This one’s actually easy. Not salmon. Not steelhead. Not sturgeon or tiger muskies or walleye. What you’re looking for are panfish. Little fish, and lots of ’em. Bluegills. Stunted crappies or yellow perch. Rock

After just a bit of casting instruction, the editor’s niece Vivy soon caught a Lake Billy Chinook smallmouth bass, the first of several that camping trip. (AMY WALGAMOTT)

bass. Maybe planted trout, but lest we forget, we’re talking warmwater species here.

Fortunately, the Pacific Northwest is full of places where spinyrays have, more or less, taken over. Bad news, sure, for fisheries biologists; great news for you and young Billy, who wants to – nay, needs to – catch a fish every minute.

• No fishing for you: Unless Billy turns out to be an exceptionally wellminded pupil – attentive, patient, relaxed, observant, meticulous, eager, blah, blah, blah, which he isn’t – get it out of your head that you are going to be doing much in the way of fishing. Your role is to instruct; Billy’s role, therefore, is to fish. It’s tough, trust me, to tie knots, string poles, swap poles, bait hooks, untangle things, cast, provide casting instruction, recast, rebait – see what I mean? –while simultaneously trying to wet a line of your own. This is his time. Remember that.

• Try to take just one kiddo to start: I bet you Billy has a buddy – Randy – who would just love to go fishing. And you’re happy to take him, but you know you’re going to have your hands full with one, let alone two young anglers. So, short of soliciting the help of a second adult teacher, it’s typically best to work one on one with these new anglers. That way, and because you’re not trying to fish – remember? – you can devote 100 percent of your attention to him and his aquatic education.

• Attention span of a kumquat: Just because you and your fishing pal can sit in a small boat for 12 hours, never saying a word, and be completely happy with the entire situation doesn’t mean young Billy can. Eightyear-olds, as the subhead suggests, have the attention span of a kumquat, a smallish fruit that resembles an orange. What’s that mean? To you, it means you fish until you see the signs – fidgeting, bellyaching, throwing things in the water and, the most obvious, the announcement “I’m bored” – then you do something

Target fish-rich waters. Even if they’re filled with stunted panfish and bass, the fast action will have ’em wanting to come back for more. (ANDY WALGAMOTT)

CONNECTICUT

Connor’s and O’Brien Marina Pawcatuck, CT connorsandobrien.com

Defender Industries Inc. Waterford, CT defender.com

O’Hara’s Landing Salisbury, CT oharaslanding.com

MASSACHUSETTS

Action Marine & Watersports Inc. Holyoke, MA actionmarineholyoke.com

Bill’s Outboard Motor Service Hingham, MA billsoutboard.com

Captain Bub’s Marine Inc. Lakeville, MA captainbubsmarine.com

Doug Russell Marine Worcester, MA WorcesterBoating.com

Essex Marina LLC. Essex, MA essexmarinallc.com

McLellan Brothers Inc. Everett, MA mclellanbrosinc.com

Merrimac Marine Supply Methuen, MA merrimacmarine.com

Nauset Marine-Orleans Orleans, MA nausetmarine.com

Obsession Boats East Falmouth, MA capecodboatcenter.com

Portside Marine Danvers, MA portsidemarine.us

Riverfront Marine Sports Inc. Salisbury, MA riverfrontmarine.com

South Attleboro Marine North Attleboro, MA www.sammarine.com

Wareham Boat Yard W. Wareham, MA wareham-boatyard-marina.com

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Dover Marine Dover, NH dovermarine.com

Winnisquam Marine Belmont, NH winnisquammarine.com

RHODE ISLAND

Billington Cove Marina Inc. Wakefield, RI bcoveyc.com

Jamestown Distributors Bristol, RI jamestowndistributors.com

different. You dig through the tackle box. Dissect a nightcrawler, however rudimentary. Skip rocks. Take a walk down the shoreline. Eat some lunch. You did bring food, right?

• Get them involved from Step One: Here’s the mistake I often make when fixing to take young people fishing. To put it simply, I do everything. I choose and ready the gear. I procure the bait. I pick the location. I load the truck. And on and on. Instead, what I should be doing is involving Billy from the get-go. Use this time as that now familiar teachable moment. Walk through the gear with your young charge. Answer questions. Let them fiddle around with it. Catch ’crawlers the night prior, or dig garden worms that morning. Tell them about where you’ve decided

to go, and “ask” them if that’s a good decision. Note: They won’t know, but they’ll say yes. Fishing isn’t just fishing; it’s everything leading up to and including fishing, and there’s no better time to bring this to light than now.

• Don’t forget to have fun: This one, I believe, ranks right up there with having patience. This isn’t life or death, folks. This is fishing; it’s supposed to be fun. Sure, when you’re removing the second No. 6 snelled hook from behind your right ear, it’s difficult to remember that it’s supposed to be fun, but it is. That’s why you’re there. To take young Billy, even for a couple hours, away from screens and school and everything/ anything else that might be troubling him because, believe me, even 8-year-olds have worries nowadays.

He loses a fish. Doesn’t matter. He gets snagged. Doesn’t matter. He goes in over his mud boots. Same same. This is about outside time, so keep it about outside time.

WHERE TO GO

I grew up in the Midwest, where there seemed to be a farm pond, along with a landowner happy to give a kid and his dad permission to access said pond, on every corner. Never can I think of a time we lacked for places to fish.

The situation is a bit different out here in the Northwest. Oh, I’m sure there are ponds to be fished, but the small drops of water brimming with eager ’gills, crappie, bullheads and stunted largemouth are a bit tougher to come by. Fortunately, all is not lost, as Washington – as well as Oregon and Idaho – ain’t without kid-friendly

No, you will not troll up many fish with a kid clanging around on the oars and spinning the boat in circles, but it’s all part of involving them in the experience as much as possible, and much better than having them go home thinking fishing is boring. (ANDY WALGAMOTT)

FISHING

fishing opportunities. Going by just the memory banks, which admittedly aren’t what they used to be, I can think of several within an hour’s drive of our home in Cathlamet here on the Lower Columbia, including:

• Silver Lake (Lewis County): Bluegills, crappies and perch, along with bullheads and largemouth. Some bank access, but better with a small boat.

• Kress Lake (Cowlitz County): Assorted sunfish and bullhead, with the occasional largemouth and stocker trout. There is a walking trail circling the entire lake, making access, even for young ones, relatively easy. Kress is one of the, if not the premier channel cat fishery in Southwest Washington.

• Lake Sacajawea (Cowlitz County): This 45-acre pond in Longview was formerly a channel of the Cowlitz River and today holds a good population of crappie, perch, largemouth and bullheads. Shoreline access is excellent

and the park itself is extremely wellmaintained and pretty.

• Battle Ground Lake (Clark County): Crappie, bullhead and largemouth, with various panfish, as well as trout. Shoreline access is somewhat limited, but doable.

• Black and Loomis Lakes (Pacific County): Located on the Long Beach Peninsula, these popular waters offer good to excellent crappie, ’gills, perch and largemouth fishing, both with relatively good shore access, particularly on Black. For those willing to knock on doors, the peninsula harbors dozens of freshwater ponds of different acreages, many of which support good populations of spinyrays.

This is but a sampling and most state fish agencies do a wonderful job via their websites educating the public on where to go angling. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, for instance, supports an excellent Places to Go fishing section online (wdfw

.wa.gov) that includes lake details, water-specific regulations and fish species available. Oregon’s agency does as well (myodfw.com/articles/startfishing), and so to Idaho’s (idfg.idaho .gov/fish/family-fishing-waters).

GEAR UP FOR SUCCESS

Chances are good you already have what you need to take Billy fishing at, say, Lake Sacajawea, but just in case you’re wondering:

• Rod and reel: I keep a supply of garage-sale outfits on hand for just such an occasion, the common denominator with all being the word “inexpensive.” How inexpensive? In 2019 at Cathlamet’s PIGYS, or Puget Island Garage and Yard Sale, I found a stack – a big stack – of rods and reels, along with a mountain of tackle, leaning against a tin building with a sign that said $20. So I asked the gentleman, “Sir, I don’t mean to be disrespectful here, but you mean

FISHING

$20 a rod, right?” He looked at me and smiled. “Son,” he said, “if you take all that stuff, you can have it all for $20.” Guess what? I bought it all. After sorting and cleaning, I found I’d bought a dozen very serviceable trout/panfish outfits, some complete with decent enough line, for my two tens, along with enough gear to keep several of my younger school kids fishing for the summer.

When it comes to rods, reels and kids, keep it simple and keep it inexpensive. Finesse is not your goal here; neither is casting distance or

accuracy. Put the bait in the water, and you’ve accomplished the task. Define simple? How about the quintessential Zebco 33 spincasting reel spooled with 6-pound test and a (somewhat) matching 6-foot rod? Pick ’em up used for next to nothing or, lacking that, buy a ready-to-fish outfit for $10 at Walmart. Again, the key is to keep it simple. And because something’s going to get broken – it comes with the territory – best it be a $9 spincasting outfit than your $150 Lamiglas rod and/or spendy spinning reel, eh?

• Tackle: As with rod and reel, it’s

best to keep tackle simple. Remember the basics: A small selection of snelled hooks, split-shot and bobbers is a God’s plenty to get the show started. Some Berkley PowerBait to complement the ’crawlers and redworms there in your fiberboard bait canteen. A tray of 1/16-ounce jigheads and three or four colors of 2-inch twist-tail grubs; some tiny snap swivels and a trio of Mepps or Panther Martin spinners. I’m including these artificials in case Billy shows promise – which they all do – or starts to drift away from watching his float. Tie on a jig, and let them have at it. Snap on a spinner, and turn ’em loose. Position them (ideally) where they can’t snag anything on their backcast, including their instructor, and let them flail the water. It’s all in the name of fun, remember?

THE AFTER-ACTION REVIEW

Congratulations, sir and/or madam! Your trip was a success! Billy caught his first fish; several, actually. No one was seriously injured, blood loss was minimal and you should recover psychologically in an hour or so. And

The joy of the catch was still shining on Colton Dekker’s face as he got ready to dip some fish fillets in sauce. He’d tried all summer to catch a bass from a kayak and when he finally did, he “insisted on eating it immediately.”

(KNIFE PHOTO CONTEST)

When it all comes together, it’s priceless. Sevenyear-old LB brought his own fishing rod and tackle to his grandparents’ house for the express purpose of going fishing, and when he used it to land his first bass, it was time for a “happy dance” – the first of many, no doubt. (KNIFE PHOTO CONTEST)

a Blue Ribbon or two.

If Billy’s asleep, let him sleep. Tomorrow’s another day. If he stayed awake for the ride home, let him help clean and stow the gear, explaining why if taken care of, his fishing rod should last a long, long time. If he insisted on keeping a halfdozen of those hand-sized crappies, now’s the time for a fish cleaning and biology lesson. Let him watch. Let him help. Get him involved. No one wants to be The Universal Spectator. Answer questions. Explain how fish “breathe” underwater.

What you’re doing is building a foundation. Ensuring the future. Not to sound soapbox-ish, but it truly is up to us, the experienced anglers, to introduce these younger generations to something we might have, without realizing it, taken for granted – The Great Outdoors. So do your part.

And don’t forget the snacks. For heaven’s sake: Don’t. Forget. The. Snacks. NS

And don’t forget to bring snacks! But if you do, have the common sense after the trip to get a treat for your little trooper. (ANDY WALGAMOTT)

DESTINATION ALASKA

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Henry, More Than Just Guns

By Jason Brooks

Henry Repeating Arms is a company known for more than just quality leveraction rifles, shotguns and – new –revolvers. From its inception more than 25 years ago, Henry has had a strong commitment to giving back to the community. In the years since, it has established itself as a leader in the firearms industry via charitable contributions. From supporting children’s cancer research to assisting veteran organizations and youth shooting programs, Henry is always looking for ways to make a positive impact.

The company takes its name from Benjamin Tyler Henry, the inventor who patented the first successful repeating rifle in 1860. To be clear, there is no affiliation or lineage to Benjamin Tyler Henry or the New Haven Arms Company, which manufactured the original Henry rifle from 1862 to 1864. Anthony Imperato secured the trademark to the Henry name in 1996, which is when the current company was formed. Henry (henryusa.com) is a company that prides itself on craftsmanship and

innovation, with a commitment to American-made products, as reflected in its motto – “Made in America, Or Not Made At All.”

In recent years, the company has made charity work a priority and has made significant donations to various organizations. In fact, Henry’s Guns for Great Causes program – a charity branch of the company –benefits a variety of organizations, with a primary focus on pediatric cancer. Henry provides financial relief to families of sick children and makes donations to children’s cancer hospitals.

In addition, Guns for Great Causes benefits military veterans, law enforcement and first responder organizations, particularly those assisting the wounded, injured and the families of those who lost their lives in the line of duty. Wildlife conservation, preserving and promoting America’s shooting sports traditions, firearm safety education and Second Amendment advocacy are all additional beneficiaries of the Henry program. One hundred percent of all Guns for Great Causes firearms sales are donated. Since its inception, the firearms company has donated nearly $5 million through

Long

known for its lever-action rifles, firearms company also manufactures shotguns and revolvers, while making charitable giving a priority.

Since forming Henry Repeating Arms in 1996, cofounder Anthony Imperato and his company have manufactured and sold millions of leveraction rifles in a wide variety of calibers and styles. As recently as 2021, Henry produced the eighth most firearms in the U.S. – the fourth most in terms of just rifles. (HENRY REPEATING ARMS)

Guns for Great Causes.

“This past year was the 25th anniversary of the Henry Repeating Arms Company and we set out this silver anniversary with a goal to donate $1 million in one year,” states Dan Clayton-Luce, Henry’s vice president of communications. “We accomplished this and more, making the ‘million dollar pledge’ a top priority.”

The future of the company is very bright and Clayton-Luce was excited to talk about the new line of revolvers Henry is coming out with. These wheel guns will complement the Henry leveractions as a way to “tame the West,” with the Henry Big Boy Revolver and Big Boy Lever Action both being chambered in .357 so a shooter only has to carry one caliber of ammunition. It will also open up the options for companies and programs that use Henry firearms as their choice when

it comes to fundraisers, retirement gifts or commemorative items. Henry can help any company or person come up with a logo-specific firearm; Clayton-Luce mentioned how he was just in Missoula at Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation headquarters to drop off yet another check for the organization’s fundraising programs to help elk and elk hunters.

HENRY REPEATING ARMS was founded in Brooklyn, New York, by Louis Imperato and his son, Anthony Imperato. They aimed to fulfill a demand for high-quality, Americanmade firearms. Henry’s first rifle, the Henry H001, was an instant success, and the company quickly grew in popularity.

Today, Henry has manufacturing facilities in Wisconsin and New Jersey and produces a wide range of firearms – around 200 different models of

rifles, shotguns, lever-action pistols and more. The company produces a broad range of lever-action rifles in both rimfire and centerfire calibers in a variety of finishes, including blued steel, hardened brass, color casehardened, and “All-Weather.”

The company’s flagship model is the Henry Golden Boy, a rimfire lever-action with the tagline “the gun that brings out the West in you.” Henry has sold over 1 million of its model H001 Classic Lever Action .22 rifle, which has become a staple of the firearms industry.

Some of Henry’s other popular models include rifles, shotguns and lever-action handguns, each with unique designs and features. Some of their most popular models include the Big Boy, Mare’s Leg and Golden Boy rifles, as well as the Lever Action Axe. The company also offers a variety of accessories, including scopes, slings and

Through the charitable arm Guns for Great Causes, Henry is making“significant” donations to organizations providing relief to families with children afflicted by cancer, among other giving. (HENRY REPEATING ARMS)

HUNTING HUNTING

magazines. Resurrecting the original Henry rifle, today it is offered in .4440 and .45 Colt in various finishes. The Henry Lever Action .410 bore is the only lever-action shotgun on the market.

The Henry Single Shot Shotgun is available in hardened brass or steel in 12-, 20- and .410 gauges. The Henry Single Shot Rifle is also available in hardened brass or steel in over 10 centerfire calibers.

Then there’s the Henry US Survival AR-7, an updated version of the US Air Force AR-7, a takedown .22 ideal for all outdoorsmen. All of the rifle’s components fit into the buttstock. The Henry Mini Bolt is the ideal beginner’s rifle, a stainless steel single-shot .22 that is also the official youth rifle of the USA Shooting Team. Henry Repeating Arms is the official firearms licensee of the Boy Scouts of America, and several Henry Boy Scout editions are available.

In addition, the company has a line of tribute rifles honoring many deserving constituencies, including those serving in the military, first responders and American farmers. The Henry Corporate Editions program allows companies to place their logo on a Henry rifle for employee retirements, dealer rewards and corporate milestones.

“The future is all about building on the foundation laid so far,” Anthony Imperato said early last year in an interview commemorating his company’s 25th anniversary. “We have a strong message, a strong desire to be the best gun maker in the country, and a strong group of people to keep the wheels moving. It is exciting to think about the direction that we are heading.”

IN ITS MISSION statement emphasizing commitment to quality, innovation and responsibility, Henry also includes dedication to charity work. The company’s website states, “We believe that our success gives us a unique opportunity to give back to

our community, our veterans, and our country.”

Henry has a long history of supporting charitable causes, with a focus on organizations that support veterans and their families. In recent years, the company has made significant donations to organizations such as the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, the National Rifle Association, and the USA Shooting team.

Guns for Great Causes raises money for various charities with a mission to make a positive impact on society through firearms-related fundraising events. It hosts auctions and other fundraising events to support various charitable organizations and has partnered to support organizations such

as the NRA Foundation and the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. Henry has donated unique firearms for auction, with proceeds going to these organizations. These donations have helped raise significant funds for these causes, making a positive impact in the community.

Henry has also donated to several veterans’ organizations, including the aforementioned Special Operations Warrior Foundation, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Foundation and the American Legion. These organizations help support veterans and their families by providing financial assistance, education and support services. Henry’s contributions allow these organizations to continue to make a difference in the lives of those

The gun it all began with, the Henry Classic Lever Action .22, of which more than 1 million have been sold. It can be loaded with up to 15 .22 Long Rifle cartridges or 21 .22 Shorts, making it great for plinking. (HENRY REPEATING ARMS)

who have served our country.

And Henry actively supports youth shooting programs across the United States – as of February 2022, it had donated “somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 guns” towards that end, according to Imperato. The company’s aim is to provide young people with the education and skills needed to safely handle firearms, while instilling a love and respect for the shooting sports. The company supports the Youth Shooting Sports Alliance, the Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation, and the Boy Scouts of America Shooting Sports Program. These programs offer training and competitive opportunities to young people interested in learning about firearms and shooting sports.

By supporting these youth shooting programs, Henry Firearms has helped to introduce young people to the world of shooting sports, potentially sparking a lifelong

Henry’s new wheel guns, like the Big Boy Revolver (pictured), are meant in part to complement rifles such as the Big Boy Lever Action. Both are chambered in .357, so you only have to carry one caliber of ammunition. (HENRY REPEATING ARMS)

passion. They have also helped to promote safety and responsible handling of firearms, ensuring that future generations of shooters are educated and knowledgeable.

Indeed, over the years, Henry Firearms has donated millions of dollars to various charitable organizations. In 2019 alone, they donated over $1.1 million to organizations such as the National Wild Turkey Federation and RMEF.

The impact of Henry’s giving can be seen in the many organizations and individuals they have supported. From youth shooting programs and Second Amendment causes to conservation organizations and veterans support services, Henry’s charity work continues to make a positive impact on the broader shooting community and beyond. Henry is always looking for new ways to give back and is open to exploring potential partnerships with organizations that align with its mission and values. NS

Along with supporting venerable conservation groups such as the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, some of Henry’s Guns for Great Causes giving goes to organizations teaching gun safety, such as the NRA’s Eddie Eagle Gunsafe Program. (HENRY REPEATING ARMS)

Hunting For The ‘Perfect Bullet’? It Doesn’t Exist

ON TARGET

By Dave Workman

This may cause heartburn to some people: The “perfect bullet” doesn’t exist, so stop looking and instead work on your marksmanship. However, I’ve got a bit of advice, based on years of experience and experimentation, that may get you closer to the next best thing.

In the hunting and shooting world(s), perfectionists are invariably looking for the best bullet, powder, case and primer combination to consistently deliver what we call “minute of angle” groups (1 inch maximum spread). If you have reached this goal, fold up the tent and go home because, all things being equal, you may tighten a group here and there, but just how dead can you kill a buck, bull or ram? A good bullet that strikes within an inch of where you want it is going to knock over whatever it hits.

There are so many bullet designs and types, we’re going to skip over most of the boring details and just talk about a couple of things.

BOATTAILS BEAT ALL other projectiles in terms of ballistic coefficient, or BC; that is, as defined in the Speer Reloading Manual No. 14, the “ratio of the sectional density of a bullet to its coefficient of form used to estimate the projectile’s ability to overcome air resistance in flight. The higher the BC, the easier the bullet slips through air, resulting in higher retained velocity and less drop.”

Translation: It’s a bullet that shoots “flatter” and retains more energy, which means you’re more likely to hit that at which you are aiming. (My longest shot on game as confirmed by rangefinder was 355 yards, across a canyon and the buck was moving. I was using a Marlin

Two .30-06 cartridges with different projectiles. Which one do you think has the better ballistic coefficient? (DAVE WORKMAN)

MR7 bolt-action rifle in .30-06 Springfield, loaded with my handloads pushing a 180-grain Nosler AccuBond bullet ahead of a maximum recommended charge of Hodgdon’s Hybrid 100V propellant.)

Spire points/spitzer-type bullets with a flat base come in usually a close second and they sail through the air almost as well as the boattail designs.

In brush country, I might opt for a roundnose bullet, which typically has

a much lower BC but is less likely to be deflected by a branch, and you’re typically not shooting at ranges much beyond 100 yards, if that. I’ve shot blacktail bucks at 35 to 40 yards using a .32 Special Winchester Model 94, and they were no less deceased than the long-shot buck reported above.

Runner-up for good BC is the flat-base spitzer-type bullet, and I believe every bullet manufacturer has these in their lineup of projectiles. Such bullets cut

through the air pretty well. Years ago in southern Utah while hunting with a couple of fellows from Marlin, I used factory ammunition from Speer topped with their ever-reliable Grand Slam 165-grain pill in my ’06 to clobber a mule deer buck at about 150 yards, and he moved a couple of steps before dropping stone dead.

WHAT’S MORE IMPORTANT than hunting around for the perfect bullet is making the most out of the bullets you have, or the factory ammunition topped with a decent bullet you bought at the gun shop or hardware store, knowing what you know about velocity (it’s often printed on the cartridge box), your rifle’s capability and caliber, whatever scope you’re using, or factory metallic sights, and your own capability and limitations.

I’ve seen people shoot their rifles until the barrels were painfully hot to touch and it would surprise me if they ever notched a tag. I have counseled often in this column about how to zero a rifle; fire no more than three shots in a string, open the action and rack the rifle. Allow the barrel to cool. Trust me on this: When you squeeze that trigger, you’ll be making a cold-bore shot. There won’t be any heat signature rising from your barrel’s surface. It may be bitterly cold weather, or maybe it is raining or just

Four popular bullets and what do you notice? All have polymer tips, and the one on the left is a lead-free projectile. Also, they’re all boattail profiles. (DAVE WORKMAN)

On the left is a softnose bullet Workman uses in his lever-action rifle for hunting brush country, while the bullet on the right is a boattail spitzer, which has a much higher BC. (DAVE WORKMAN)

On the left is a softpoint .25-caliber bullet and on the right is a .25-caliber match-grade hollowpoint. Author Dave Workman would invariably select the softpoint for deer or elk. (DAVE WORKMAN)

misting where you’re hunting. It won’t be in the middle of a firefight where you’re blipping off rounds by the bushel.

If you’re spending these long, mild summer evenings at the range, make sure you practice with the very same ammunition you’ll be taking to camp this fall. If you’re using, say, a .243 Winchester or .257 Roberts, there are lots of great bullets in the 100-grain realm. Out of my .257, I run either a Speer softpoint boattail or a Nosler Ballistic Tip (a blue-colored polymer tip in this case) ahead of a charge of IMR 4895, and it has worked well enough to put a couple of deer in the cooler.

In my .300 Savage, my bullet choice is a 150-grainer, while the .308 Winchester carries cartridges topped by 165-grain pills, and I like the 180-grain projectile in the .30-06.

If you don’t load your own ammunition, be sure to buy two boxes of ammunition of the same brand, with the same bullet weight, when you go shopping. You’ll have 40 rounds for checking zero, and for hunting this fall. If you have some left over, use them to clobber coyotes this coming

DITTO HANDGUN AMMUNITION. Having been one of the main proponents for legalizing handgun hunting in Washington some 40 years ago – and using two different revolvers to anchor three different bucks – I can say choosing the right bullet for your sidearm is just as important as what you pick for a rifle load. Should you use softnose, hollowpoint or hard cast lead for hunting? The only way to choose is to try them all and determine which bullet type works best and is consistently accurate. For years, I’ve carried loads in my .41 Magnum Ruger or Smith & Wesson sixguns topped with either Nosler or Sierra 210-grain JHPs ahead of a midrange charge of H110 or Alliant 2400 propellant. I’ve also tried Speer Gold Dots, but I admit to having preferred that company’s discontinued half-jacketed 200- and 220-grain semi-wadcutter-type bullets (I still have one box of each on my loading bench!).

Recently, I’ve been loading a 215-grain hard cast semi-wadcutter from Rim Rock Bullets over in Polson, Montana. Ahead of

a charge of 2400, I get just over 1,200 feet per second over my chronograph, and that is going to get some buck’s attention.

I prefer the .41 Magnum to the more popular .44 Magnum because it shoots slightly flatter, recoil with comparable loads is slightly better and there really isn’t that much difference, since the .44 actually launches a .429-caliber bullet, where the .41 Magnum is a true .410-caliber projectile. You’re talking about a .019-inch difference, which is negligible when it comes to tissue disruption in live game.

However, for serious big game handgunning, my best counsel is to load up with jacketed softpoints or jacketed hollowpoints and spend time at the range making sure your handgun delivers the goods.

JULY’S A GOOD time to start getting in shape for fall. I’ll be walking more, trying to eat less, drinking more water, adding a little weight to my pack, and did I mention walking uphill?

One good place to toughen up the leg muscles is to walk up and down the bleachers

Whether you like a bullet with a polymer tip like the Nosler AccuBond (inset, left) or a Speer softpoint (inset, right), the most important thing is to practice using the same ammunition you plan to hunt with in the fall. You can bet that the author is now spending more time at the range, making sure his rifle shoots true. Come fall, he doesn’t care to miss. (DAVE WORKMAN)

winter and save a fawn.

or grandstand at the local high school. If you’re near a hiking trail, visit it frequently from now until September when upland bird hunting and early-season bowhunting will get a lot of people outdoors.

You will be amazed at how fast the next 60 days passes, and we’ll be right back at it again, trying to put grouse in the cooler, notching a tag and burning powder. NS

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Look at these .45 ACP loads, a 230-grain plated bullet on the left and a 230-grain JHP on the right. Both rounds deliver a punch, but the handgun bullets perform differently. (DAVE WORKMAN)

Workman’s .41 Magnum loads include one topped with a 215-grain hard cast lead semi-wadcutter (left) and a 210-grain Nosler JHP. For serious hunting, he prefers the JHP bullet for expansion. (DAVE WORKMAN)

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Water Training In Transition

Dimportant if air temperatures are hot, because you could misinterpret it to mean the cold water is soothing for your dog.

GUN DOGGIN’ 101

By Scott Haugen

epending on where you live, water training in July can still find dogs working in cold water. But as the month progresses, the transition to training in warmer water might take place. Both have their advantages, and dangers.

Echo, my 9½-year-old pudelpointer, loves the water, no matter how cold or warm it is. She’ll break ice all day long to get ducks. She’d honestly work herself to death in warm-water situations if I didn’t closely monitor her. Kona, my younger male, is more self-regulatory.

IF THE WATER is still cold where you’re training, be careful. This is especially

“There are signs to look for during this transitional time of the year in water training,” notes Jess Spradley of Cabin Creek Gun Dogs (cabincreekgundogs .com) in Lakeview, Oregon.

He is one of the country’s top trainers of versatile gun dogs and where he lives, the water stays cold for a long time.

“Pay close attention to your dog and if it starts to shiver, stop sending it into the cold water,” Spradley advises. “A dog’s drive can be so extreme, you’ll often mistake its shaking for intense anticipation. They’re not the same thing.”

Spradley also advocates short training sessions if the water is cold.

“Work on achieving a few crisp water

entries, and keep the distance the dog is swimming relatively short,” he says. “This will keep the dog from getting too cold, while still achieving the training you desire. In cold water, a fun, brief bumper session might be a better approach than instructional training time. In fact, if the water is cold, I typically don’t try to teach anything to a dog because if they need more repetition to remedy a situation, forcing it into cold water quickly becomes counterproductive.”

Spradley also warns against forcing a puppy into cold water, as it may quickly lead to avoidance issues. I’ve seen this many times, and in some cases it was so severe, the dog never liked going into water again. Such a traumatic shock to a pup can ruin it, so be patient.

AS SUMMER HEAT intensifies and water

Yes, it’s summer, but long, extended swims should be avoided in both cold and warm water. In these cases, keep sessions short and have fun with your gun dog. (SCOTT HAUGEN)

warms up, the flip side of water training concern takes place. This has to do with a dog overheating because the water is too warm for them to actually cool off. In other words, their body is generating more heat than it can dissipate, and this can lead to hyperthermia. Unlike hypothermia, hyperthermia is when the body temperature is greatly above normal.

In driven hunting dogs, overheating is a real concern, even when training in warm water. If the water is warm, ease your dog into it. Don’t just toss bumper after bumper, as the physical exertion of swimming in warm water can quickly wear out a dog. Instead, start with a short run to get your dog warmed up and acclimated to the air temperature. Doing this early

and late in the day, when air temperatures are cool, is a must. Start slow in the water with short retrieves and don’t push things.

Look for signs of heat stress, like excessive panting, cheeks that are pulled back to the point that the molars are showing, and a flat or widened tongue. If you see any of these, immediately stop training for the day and soothe the dog by applying cold water to the paws, belly, behind the ears and between the front and back legs. Rinse its mouth with cold water. Be sure to have plenty of cold water when training on hot days. Should the signs persist, consult a vet, as heat exhaustion or – worse yet – heat stroke can result.

IN THE LEAD-UP to fall’s hunts, July and August are important training months for your gun dog. Pay attention to water and air temperatures at all times and watch your dog closely. Remember, hunting dogs are much different than nonhunting dogs, and their drive and ability to hide pain is mind-boggling. Go in prepared, be sure your dog is drinking more water during the summer months, train smart, and you and your dog will be fine. NS

Editor’s note: Scott Haugen is a full-time writer. See his basic puppy training videos and learn more about his many books at scotthaugen.com. Follow his adventures on Instagram and Facebook.

If the water you’re training in is too cold –say, it’s a snowpack-fueled stream, tailwater below a dam or other area influenced by cool inflows – move the training session to land.

(SCOTT HAUGEN)

Jess Spradley works one of his prized pudelpointers on a warm summer morning. Spradley stresses the need to pay close attention to your dog when training in water, looking for signs that they’re too hot or too cold. (SCOTT HAUGEN)