Episode II of JD & Khev’s Great Alaskan Adventure clearly shows that the boy’s aren’t exactly purist fluff chuckers!
Click here to the see the movie:
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From the monthly archives:
July 2008
JD, In regard to your video on how to sardine-wrap plugs, would it work if I glued a small piece of sponge on the bottom of a Kwikfish and put sardine oil on it rather than wrap on a piece of sardine?
–Jim D.B.
Jim, you can do that (it’s not as effective as a real sardine) but the main problem is your plug will have a serious case of stank on it (which the fish don’t like, by the way!) if you leave the sponge on there after the trip. You’ll need to peel them off after each outing and thoroughly clean and dry the plug.
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JD, can you please tell me what’s the best rod for light jigging — like for kokanee?
Thanks, George
Hey George,
While there are a zillion good sticks out there designed specifically for kokanee trolling, nobody makes a dedicated jigging rod for landlocked sockeye.
And such a beast is a bit of a designer’s nightmare because a koke rod needs to be light enough to give the fish a sporting chance, while also being fast enough to handle jigs up to an ounce or more in deep water.
At this point, your best bet is to go with a 6- to 7-foot light-duty bass rig like Shimano’s Clarus CSC60MLA or GLoomis’ CR722C. That is until some enterprising rod company comes up with a koke jigger…
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Our latest round of the Name That Fish So, this one even threw me a cureball…actually, it was more like a filthy slider on the black at the knees. Our pal MJP sent in this one from a recent trip to the Alagnak River in Alaska.
This bizarre little dude obviously has eyes bigger than his stomach because he tried to eat a K15 Kwikfish…or was he trying to date it??
For a full-body look at this thing click here:
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Not enough spare time to get all your hobbies in? How about mixing fly fishing with a little golf at Alaska’s Rainbow River Lodge’s excellent floating ball driving range, where the prevailing winds blow the balls back to shore! Don’t forget the awesome trout and sockeye fishing in the Copper River, which is just minutes away…
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What’s the best plug color for salmon? The one they’re biting…of course. Sorry — bad joke! Anyway, It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the Kwikfish and Flatfish color choices hanging on the wall at the local tackle mart, but keep in mind that you really only need a few to cover most of the bases.
The longer I guide, the more I find that I try to keep things simplified…a fellow could go crazy worrying about all the details! So, here’s my basic color selection guidelines for fishing for river kings: [click to continue…]
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What’s the best tasting freeze-dried to have with you out in the woods?
Well, of course, the real answer is any food tastes pretty good out in the sticks…especially if you’ve been out more than a few days. However, not all backpacking foods are created equal. On our recent 7-day wilderness float trip in Alaska, K-Dawg and I had a chance to put two of the main brands, Backpacker’s Pantry and Mountain House to the test…kinda of a cage match of backpacking food!
Taste Test
For our little impromptu test, we sampled only dinner entrées and ate a mix of classic Americana comfort food dishes, Italian staples and some Asian favorites.
Pad Thai was our favorite of the Backpacker’s Pantry (BPP) offerings and it had a nice spicy peanuty tang to it with a hearty finish.
But the overall flavor edge went to Mountain House (MH). The MH meals were constantly our favorites and for the trip’s top dinner, it was a toss-up between Sweet & Sour Pork, Pasta Primevera and Chicken Breast with Mashed Potatoes.
Incredibly, those whole chicken breasts (with grill lines, even!) rehydrated amazingly well though they come out of the package looking like a brick. The Sweet & Sour could have only been topped by replacing the “parts is parts” pork with that yummy chicken. The sauce in the Pasta Primevera was really tasty and the veggies helped us from getting scurvy since we didn’t have any Tang with us…
Ease of Preparation
I know, I know…all you have to do is boil some water to make a freeze-dried meal and any monkey can do it, but there’s still something to be said for a dinner that cooks up as quickly and easily as possible — especially when your blood sugar is about to crash because you’ve been rowing and fishing from dawn until midnight and the mosquitoes are as thick as black tire smoke.
Again, MH gets the nod in this department. Most of their meals were the simply add water variety while some the BPP dishes required a little more work…ie…add water, let stand, then add packet of other stuff later. The real bottom line here is the added step wasn’t that big of a deal; it was the extra time that it took. It was only a few minutes more to prepare the BPP’s but when you haven’t eaten for 15 hours…
In the End
Of course, we’re splitting hairs here…I mean, 7 days into an Alaskan trip, and stuff like leather gloves start looking tasty. But, based on our last trip, both K-Dawg and I agreed that Mountain House would be the only brand we’d take on the next wilderness mission…
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While live bait drifting has always been a popular method for hooking California halibut from Baja to Oregon, trolling is really gaining a good following and its easy to see why: it allows you to cover lots of ground quickly and locate fish…plus, it’s deadly!
Here’s how to do it:
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