We didn't catch a lot of monsters on the 'Nush, but this was clearly a beast...that we released.
During the last week of June and into the start of July, it’s hard for my thoughts not to wander up to the incomparable Nushagak River in remote Southwest Alaska. Before I was a papa, I spent 7 seasons guiding on the word’s greatest king salmon stream…which always seemed to peak about this time of year.
The ‘Nush is simply one of those places you must fish before you turn into fertilizer…there’s just no other place like it. You won’t find better king fishing anywhere. Looking back over all those seasons, I can clearly recall my worst-ever day of fishing, which still resulted in 18 kings to the boat! And the best of days were well into the triple digits, though after a dozen or so you kinda lose count. I’d say the average day during the meat of the season saw each of our boats hooking 20-40 per trip.
Most of my photos from those days are all on slide film, but I recently found a few digitals. So, here we go a little walk down memory lane… [click to continue…]
If you're a Kwikfish, you don't wanna end up here!
The old cardboard box in the corner of my garage…if you’re a salmon or steelhead plug and you end up there, you can rest assured that your career is over.
It’s amazing how you can buy 20 identical plugs and typically only 1 or 2 of them will ever prove to be certified All Stars. Sure, several will catch fish from time to time, but not frequently enough to be on the A Team. A few others will catch fish with some tweakage (after you do things like replace the line attachment screw, drill out the rattles and mess with hook configurations). Others still will be totally worthless… [click to continue…]
Yakima Bait Co’s MagLip has been selling like hotcakes in the Pacific Northwest lately, but is that just a case of everybody rushing out to buy the newest thing on the market or does this plug actually catch fish?
Recently, we spent a couple weeks thoroughly testing the MagLip to find out. Read on for the full review.
You know that old saying that “if it ain’t broken don’t fix it?” Well, I kinda figured that was going to be the case with Luhr Jensen’s new K15x Kwikfish. More to the point…if it’s not broken, don’t break it.
After all, why take the world’s greatest salmon plug and change it? I just don’t get it, but then again, the company was recently purchased by Rapala, who, if you’ll recall, also bought out STORM Lures and took the perfectly good Wiggle Wart lineup and completely re-tooled it to the point that no steelhead angler worth his salt would ever buy one. But I digress… [click to continue…]
So fall is just around the corner and that means that Chinook salmon are, or will soon be, pointing their noses up into their natal streams. Unfortunately, there are lots of rivers up and down the West Coast this season that are running very low.
Of course, early season kings are notoriously big fans of backtrolled, sardine-wrapped plugs like FlatFish and Kwikfish, but low/clear water conditions can make things tough. Luckily, there are some things you can do to help improve your odds… [click to continue…]
