I’m always looking for an excuse to purchase new toys to satisfy my hunting and fishing fix and this time it just so happened that I “needed” a new low-recoil rifle. I needed one because of a recent hunt for Sitka blacktails in Southeast Alaska and a daughter that just turned two. She seems a…
The rivers are nothing more than a trickle here in Western Washington right now so why would I be blabbing about three new Kwikfish colors from Luhr Jensen? Because one of these days the skies will open up and the rivers they will rise. And when they do you’ll wish you had these plugs in…
I just got back from a week long hunting trip in Southeast Alaska with Mike and Dory Schoby who were filming Mike’s new hunting show Border to Border. Mike had a couple of totally bitchin’ Cogburn mountain bikes strapped to his camp trailer. I promptly yanked one off the trailer and jumped aboard the fat…
The annual gathering known as Buoy 10 at the mouth of the mighty Columbia River is a special event every year but this year’s forecast of 1.6 million chinook and nearly a million coho added even more anticipation and participation! Evidence of the “participation” aspect of this year’s Buoy Ten fishery was evident at ol’…
This year’s edition of The Outdoor Line’s annual Sitka trip was a very special one. We had some Alaska “first-timers”, (I was going to say “Greenhorns” but…) some of our wives made the trip for the first time in several years and 2014 marked the Alaskan arrival of the 710 ESPN flagship, the Weldcraft 280…
With a damp, dreary Memorial Day weekend in progress, it’s time to look north for the first indications of our actual chinook returns. So why do we look north and what are we looking for? GREAT QUESTION!!! To answer that question, let’s have a quick review of what the University of Washington School of Fisheries…
I’ve seen Lowrance’s new Sonarhub in action on Nelly’s boat and on the Salt Patrol boat and the Chirped sonar images are ridiculous. This new technology allows you to actually see the fish feeding in dense schools of baitfish and it clarifies the sonar images immensely. The next time you see the Salt Patrol boat…
Every year I have a helluva time keeping all my special hunt applications for Washington sorted out. With the deadline coming up here on May 22nd the time to work on your special hunt units was actually a couple of months ago. If you’re like me, however, you’ll be getting things organized and submitted between…
If there is a more popular fishing “rite of passage” than the lowland lakes trout opener, I sure don’t know what it is! The Nelson Clan at Perrygin Lake in Okanogan County a few seasons ago… I would venture to guess that more “first fish” are caught on this final weekend of April than at…
On the heels of a record smelt run in the Columbia River there’s a new record, of sorts, being set by California Sea Lions on the lower Columbia River. Yesterday there was an astonishing 1420 sea lions hauled out on the floats of the East Mooring Basin in Astoria, Oregon. It’s the highest number of…