With my nephew, Dan Warns home on leave from the Navy, the pressure was on to get this sailor’s rod bent! Petty Officer 3rd Class Warns has a serious smoked salmon addiction and once he got a whiff of my hard earned summer stash, it started disappearing fast! Faced with massive smoked salmon predation,…
It’s no secret that the Skagit is my “home river”. I literally grew up on it, guided on it and scattered my father’s ashes in it. After this weekend I will add another item to the list and that will be: Fishing Derby MC! I have been asked to host the 2009 Ray Reep Derby…
While the king fishing locally has not been stellar, I have been fortunate enough to soil the fishbox on each of our outings since the July 16th Puget Sound selective chinook fishery opener… until last week. I don’t know if it officially counts as a skunk when one doesn’t leave the dock until 9am,…
Every two years we are invaded. These pink invaders are unappreciated, looked down upon, insulted and even reviled in some quarters… And yet, they still come. "They", are the "Humpy Horde"… There are various salmon supremacist groups (the Anti-Pinkites, Humpy Haters) and even tee-shirts expressing disdain for the species! Even through all the negativity, the sportfishing community will come…
Was I was fired up about the Puget Sound chinook season? Let’s just say that I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep the night before… The 2009 opener was the third edition of our Marine Area 9 & 10 selective chinook opportunity and the first two openers featured epic chinook action! Flush with radioactive-hot…
The noon opener on Thursday, July 9 on the Skagit River allowed a guy to sleep in and enjoy a leisurely, carefree, mid-morning drive to the ol’ crick… Then the phone rang. “Hello.” “Is This Tom Nelson?” “Yup, who’s this?” “Hi Tom, Matt Markovich of KOMO 4 News here. Are you heading for the…
When we're not mooching for ocean fresh salmon here in Craig, Alaska we're banging the ocean floor for halibut, ling cod, yelloweye, and whatever else happens to climb on. Jigging is by far my favorite technique for catching halibut and bottomfish because it creates a commotion down below that fish can't resist. One of the…
At high noon on July 9th 2009 and for the first time in 16 years the Skagit river chinook return to their position of prominence in the regional salmon fishing scene. Having virtually grown up on this fishery, it feels like the return of a long, lost friend! Here's a shot of my father, Dr…
After having to listen -year after year- of my friends stories of the tremendous chinook fishing in the San Juans during the first days of the chinook season… I finally said “enough! I’m in! Jay Field of the Anacortes Salmon Derby and now “Dash One” Charters invited my son and I to raft up…
It started Saturday June 27 with the Neah bay and LaPush lid lifters in Marine Areas 3 & 4. We talked to John Keizer on air, on the opener and he had no less than three strikes in the nine minutes we spoke with him! Early word is that the coho are thick, almost bothersome…