FishwithJD

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Catch a trout & win $10,000

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Your best bet for a record will probably come from a place like Santa Ana River Lakes, where they plant round tails well in excess of 20 pounds

If you happen to find yourself this winter staring down at a new California state record rainbow trout that you just caught, you’d better hope you caught it on a Pautzke’s product (Fire Bait, Liquid Krill, Fire Corn or the classic Balls ‘O Fire), because they’ll pay ya a cool $10K in cash for breaking the record.

Interestingly enough, the contest (which stared Dec. 1 and runs through April) is even open to anglers who fish those crazy Southern California lakes where they plant ridiculously large rainbow trout…some of which are actually larger than the current state mark of 28 pounds and change.

While I’ll happily take 10 large and a state record of any kind, I’d much rather break that state record with an anadramous rainbow rather than one that arrived in a truck. The contest is limited to the first 25,000 anglers that preregister at Pautzke.com

Why file photos are a bad idea!

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Have you seen this man??


This one’s dedicated to trusty sidekick Reilly, who I once threw under the bus in a Western Outdoors Magazine article about poaching on the Skagit River. While it wasn’t my fault, the editors threw a pic of Reilly holding a king (which was supposed to be in another article) next to poacher bit, making him look very guilty.

Well, the Los Angeles Times did it to me. Years back, I took one of their photographers out to go steelhead fishing on the American River…and I guess when they needed a file photo to go with this poaching article, they pulled my pic outta the vault. So, here I am, the transient poacher of SLO Creek!

The kid’s first-ever steelie!

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Took Coop down to the ol’ backyard late yesterday evening for a quick plug pulling session and he managed to go 2 for 2 on small steelies, the first two of his young steelheading career. Not the biggest fish in terms of weight, but so huge in other ways!

I knew there were decent numbers of these little “egg-eater” size fish around and I figured they’d be the perfect size for a 4-year-old. Though the little fish were pretty scrappy on kokanee rods, the little dude was able to crank ’em in all by himself. He was stoked! But not nearly as much as dad…

We were only out for an hour and the problem now is convincing him you don’t catch a couple steelies every time out!

You want big steelies? Better head to Idaho!

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It may just be time to call in sick for a few days...

To make you even less productive at work today, consider this: While you’re sitting at your desk, guys on the Clearwater River in Idaho are banging away at B-Run steelhead that are running 3 pounds heavier than normal this year. In case you’ve not yet been introduced to the double-stripe B-Runs, they are among the largest steelies on the West Coast and when they’re around, you’ve always got a really good shot at breaking the 20-pound mark. Especially this fall, when guys are seeing lots and lots of fish in that upper teen range and beyond…Do I feel a “sick day” coming on?

For more, click over to our pals at North West Wild Country

Reason for Living

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Our good friend and fellow member of the semi anti-social and fully masochistic Society of Steelhead Junkies (see if you’re one HERE), Roy Gray sent an email after his recent B.C. trip with this photo. There was no text or description. All it said in the subject line was “Reason for Living.”

Amen, brother!