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I hate the North Wind!

March 28, 2019 By JD Leave a Comment

Cursed you, North Wind…you howling, cold, harbinger of poor fishing! Go away you foul scoundrel and take with you your red faces, bad attitudes, skunk days and white-capped water!

There’s just nothing good about a north wind. It blows stuff all over my yard, it makes people nuts and…even worse…fish don’t like to bite in it.

And why do the fish care? I mean, after all, they’re underwater. Why do they give a rat’s furry behind if it’s windy if they are more than a couple feet below the surface?

To be honest, not all wind is bad. In fact, it can be really good for fishing. It gets baitfish moving around and pushes them up against structure where the predators can easily find ’em. Wind also ruffles up the surface of the water, which keeps the light from penetrating so deep. Predatory fish like to hunt when there is less light so their prey can’t see them coming.

And along the Pacific coast, NW wind generates upwelling, which brings nutrient-rich waters up from the depths…which is critical for the food chain.

Yes wind can be a good thing.

But at least inland, it has to be the right wind!

And as far as I’m concerned, just about any wind is the right wind…as long as it’s not coming from the North!

So, just what is it about the North Wind that makes fish not want to bite? Well, it’s just straight up evil that’s what! Okay, sorry…I was getting a little fired up there.

Actually, I think the only logical explanation has to do with the fact that North Wind, in my area at least, often signals a dramatic change in the barometric pressure – usually a

strong high is moving in with it. Fish bite great in high-pressure periods, but that transition zone beforehand can be a bit of a bugger. I guess there’s just something that the fish just don’t care for about that.

As a kid I remember an old timer from Oregon telling me his little wind mantra that went like this:

Wind from the West is Best, Wind from the East, Fishing is Least and Wind from the North, Go Forth.

Go where? When the wind is blowing from the north, I’m thinking about “going forth” to lunch and a movie…not to the lake! Heck, I’d rather go to the dentist, build some IKEA furniture or do my taxes. That’s how much I dislike the North Wind!

Now, that’s not to say I haven’t caught my share of fish on days when the wind was howling down from up north, but the crappy days far out-number the good ones.

I’m thinking I need to take up kite flying, windmill building, sailing…something to make me better appreciate the North Wind because as it stands now it just irritates the heck out of me.

How about you?

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Filed Under: Pure Entertainment Tagged With: Bass, boating, fishing, ocean, on the water, Salmon, trout, wind

Life and Death in Wild Alaska: The Salmon’s Story

November 30, 2014 By JD 1 Comment

Here’s a beautifully filmed video of how the salmon fits into the Big Picture in Alaska. Lots of nice scenery and wildlife! Cool sounding soundtrack too…

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Filed Under: Pure Entertainment Tagged With: alaska, bears, chum salmon, eagles, ocean, river

Catching Atlantic Salmon in the Salt

June 11, 2014 By JD 2 Comments

Atlantic Salmon
You read plenty about catching Atlantic Salmon in freshwater, but I’ve always wondered if there’s an ocean troll fishery for them somewhere. Yes, these are the random things I think about when I can’t sleep. But anyway, apparently there are some offshore fisheries, including at least one in Denmark. A quick Google search led me to these these pix of absolutely gorgeous salmon on the Shark Cannonballs FB site, but there wasn’t a ton of info about the fishery. In fact, there was very little about catching Atlantics in the sea anywhere that I found on the internet.

Sure, I’d rather catch ’em in some beautiful river flowing through an enchanted forest, but these fish are so stinkin’ pretty, it makes me wanna catch one offshore too! And by the way, this is what an Atlantic Salmon is supposed to look like…not the round finned mutants from the net pens!
Atlantic Salmon

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Filed Under: Cool Photos Tagged With: atlantic salmon, ocean, trolling

It’s a BIG Ocean out there: Top 6 Ships vs. Giant Seas Video

February 12, 2014 By JD 1 Comment


As a boat guy, I’ve always been fascinated by giant seas…and let’s fact it, crazy-big waves are what make Deadliest Catch so compelling to watch on TV, right?

Well, here’s a video that makes me happy to be a freshwater guy! There’s some really amazing stuff about 5 mins into the thing…

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Filed Under: Boating Videos Tagged With: big surf, ocean, waves

Faces only a mother could love

September 7, 2013 By JD 6 Comments

20130907-213649.jpg
Chinook salmon are amazingly beautiful animals but there are a few that look like maybe they, through genetics or misfortune, fell outta the Ugly Tree and hit every branch on the way down.

Take the one above for example. It was taken this summer in the ocean off Eureka, CA and looks like a classic case of some bad genes.

Capt Tony Sepulveda of the six-pac charter boat Shellback said this about his catch:

“I’d guess it was hatchery related when he was but a wee minnow,” he says.

Or maybe the ol “he was dropped on his head when he was a baby” theory applies. Kidding of course…

Now, look at this one I caught 200 miles up the Sacramento River a few days back… My best guess is this one tangled with some commercial gear out in the ocean…

20130907-214606.jpg

And, finally, here is one we caught on the Sac River this morning…

20130907-214732.jpg
I’m not sure what happened to this buck’s snout but since it’s healed over, I’m thinking it had a near-miss with something hungry in its younger days.

Maybe a great blue heron? River otter? Seal? Sea lion?

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Filed Under: Cool Photos Tagged With: chinook salmon, ocean, river

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