our gorge
person of interest
Buzz Ramsey The lure of landing the Big One By don campbell / photos courtesy of buzz ramsey
B
uzz Ramsey says you only need two tools in your tackle box to catch fish: Persistence and a really sharp hook. Ramsey has had an abundance of both in his near 40-year fishing career. A self-made fishing expert, he’s spent most of his life on Northwest waters learning the intricacies of pulling salmon and steelhead out of our rich fisheries. What began as a boyhood fascination with the finned and slippery denizens of our deep waters he turned into a career that over the decades has involved the study of fish and water behavior (and the nearly infallible ability to get them on a hook), the design and manufacture of all manner of innovative fishing tackle and gear, sales, promotion, brand-building and fisheries activism. In his trademark cowboy hat and riverboat-gambler goatee, Ramsey is both legend and good-ol’-boy in these parts. He worked early on for the now-defunct G.I. Joe’s, where he learned the retail side of the industry, before spending many years at Hood River’s popular Luhr Jensen company. He’s promoted the sport on televi-
12 the gorge magazine // fall 2014
sion and radio, and written for Salmon Trout Steelheader, Northwest Sportsman and Alaska Sporting Journal. He has his own line of Air IM-8 graphite fishing rods at Berkley and has been lionized by the Association of Northwest Steelheaders and the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame. Ramsey, who lives with his wife and kids up past the town of Klickitat on the Klickitat River, is celebrating his five-year anniversary at Yakima Bait Co., where he continues to have an influence on how we fish in the Northwest. “Right now,” says Ramsey, “fishing is growing. At least recent sport fishing statistics say it’s growing. Overall, though, fishing hasn’t kept up with other industries. There is a growth curve, and that’s good. In the Northwest, though, participation ebbs and flows as fish runs ebb and flow. Salmon and steelhead are cyclical. On the Columbia fish are coming back. There’s a lot of participation.” The sport has come a long way since Ramsey tossed his first Spin-n-Glo lure into the Columbia near the Interstate Bridge in Portland. He spends a good deal of his time these days helping design, test and market lures that attract big fish. Where you might not think there’s too much new to innovate in fishing tackle, Ramsey says the sport is all about technique. “It’s interesting,” he says. “There are some basics to fishing—non-weighted salmon spinners, weighted casting spinners—it’s all part of the fabric of fishing. And once in a while there’s a little new twist. Lures have to work. In a lot of cases, they all work. But at Yakima Bait, we have the challenge on the plug side to get them to work the best they can out of package.” And that’s the trick. Many lures, Ramsey says, require tuning before they