Fish with JD

The web's best fishing magazine

  • How-to Guides
    • The Ultimate Guide to Bank Fishing for Steelhead
    • Light Tackle Surf Perch
    • Light Tackle Delta Striper Secrets
  • JD’s Gear
    • Kokanee
    • River Salmon Trolling
    • Plug Fishing for Salmon
    • Light Tackle Surf Perch
  • Destinations
    • Where to fish
    • Endorsed Lodges & Outfitters
    • JD’s roadtrips
  • Gear
    • Boats/Watercraft
    • Clothing/Footwear
    • Electronics
    • Gadgets
    • Lures/Terminal Gear
    • Reels
    • Rods
  • News
    • JD in Print
    • River Restoration Projects
  • Photos and Video
    • Angling Records
    • Boating Videos
    • Cool Photos
    • Exotic Species
    • Fishing Videos
    • Pure Entertainment
    • Trophy Room
    • Underwater Photos/Video
  • Techniques
    • Bass
    • Boats & Boating
    • Cooking
    • Fly Fishing
    • Salmon
    • Saltwater
    • Shad
    • Steelhead
    • Stripers
    • Sturgeon
    • Trout & Kokanee
  • Fishing Report

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…

Share:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

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

Share:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

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…

Share:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

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?

Share:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

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

Why You Should Use Mike’s Brite & Tight Herring Cure

July 23, 2013 By JD 3 Comments

BRite & Tight and Herring
The ocean off Northern California has been loaded with king salmon all summer, so three of us took the ol’ skiff out of Bodega Bay the other day to try to get in on the action. We ended up hooking over a dozen kings and landing our limits (6) in what proved to be a very nice day on the creek.

While I wasn’t really intending to do any testing, a very interesting pattern developed. I brined half our herring & anchovies in Atlas-Mikes Brite and Tight the night before and left half of it “naked.” My uncle and I fished the brined baits, while our buddy, we’ll call him “Knucklehead Angler #3,” ran with the uncured stuff, laughing off my “silly little colored Swedish Fish-looking baits.”

Well, the final tally was all but two bites came on the cured baits: We fished all lines at 114 feet on the downriggers and the green cured stuff took top honors, followed by the red and then blue. Natural herring and anchovies came in dead last. Knuckle Head #3 only switched to the brined stuff at the end of the day…because he was sitting on only 1 fish!

Now, I’m not even sure the kings can discern colors down there at that depth, so I’m thinking the fact that the cure is UV-infused helped the fish locate it better. Also, it’s got a bunch of scent in it, so that probably made the cured baits easier for the fish to zero in on as well.

Dyed Herring
So, this is just a one-day, impromptu test but the results were pretty dramatic! The brined rods went off steadily all day while Knucklehead’s was silent pretty much the whole trip. In fact, take a look at the text I got from him just this morning…Apparently he is now a believer!

Text
The fish off California this year are nice and fat! They are apparently eating well and look almost like silver largemouth bass with that football shape!

JD &  Fat Salmon

More Salmon Techniques

Share:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

Filed Under: Lures/Terminal Gear, Salmon, Saltwater Tagged With: atlas mikes, bodega bay, herring brine, king salmon, ocean, trolling

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Guided Fishing Trips with JD Richey!

For guided info, go to www.thesportfisher.com

www.thesportfisher.com

JD’s Top Gear Picks

  • Kokanee
  • River Salmon Trolling
  • Plug Fishing for Salmon
  • Light Tackle Surf Perch

Top Posts

  • 10 of the World's Biggest King Salmon
  • Jig & Bobber Techniques for Steelhead
  • 3 Tips to help improve your outboard jet's performance
  • Light Tackle Surf Perch
  • The Ultimate Guide to Shad Fishing

Copyright © 2019 Richey Sportfishing

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.