“Selective” Summer (So far…)

August 9, 2011

One of my favorite regional salmon fishing opportunities is our local summer chinook season. The Marine Area 9 & 10 selective harvest opportunity dates back to 2007 when, after several years of closures, the north central Sound again got to fish for summer kings. “I hope anglers remember how we got here”  states Tony Floor, […]

Fun, Sun and Fish in Florida!

June 25, 2011

One of the great things about fishing is that there is something for virtually everyone.  Nelly has his annual trip to Sitka and I have Florida.  One of the things that I love about fishing in Florida is the variety that it offers.  In two and a half days of fishing this past week, we […]

Washington’s Freshwater Bonefish

May 22, 2011

Pacific Northwest anglers looking for something new should turn their attention to the carp of Eastern Washington. That’s right, I said CARP! I’ve hooked these things incidentally while fishing for trout and smallies on the Snake River years ago and either got spooled or came close to it every single time.  Gary Thompson, manager at […]

Go-To Techniques For Taking Stocker Rainbow Trout

April 28, 2011

The biggest fishing event of the year will occur this weekend as a quarter million plus anglers hit the lakes of Washington in search of easy limits of stocker trout and perhaps a few of the jumbo-sized trout that are planted along with them. There are a lot of opening days in Washington, but this […]

Now’s the time to target Potholes Walleye

April 26, 2011

Walleye are coming off their full-moon spawn in Moses Lake and Potholes Reservoir in Eastern Washington, which means the best walleye bite of the year is upon us. Walleye will congregate where the water spills out of Moses Lake into Potholes Reservoir, at Frenchman’s Wasteway, and in Lind Coulee as they cruise back into the […]

Rags to Riches on the Quinault River

March 4, 2011

If you remember my Salmon River blog back in January where I mentioned that you'd better get to the Quinault River after it comes back into shape. It's in shape folks and now is the time to be there. Like…right now! The Quinault gets it's far share of gagger-sized steelhead in the 20 pound range […]

Hookin’ up on the “Hoochie Hook”!

January 20, 2011

Marine Area 9 opened up on Sunday January 16th and the weather forecast was calling for south winds 10-20kts. Instead of pushing the forecast I decided to stay home and watch the Seahawks playoff game. In retrospect, it would have been less painful to ride whitecaps in a cartopper. Monday was a national holiday and […]

Bogachiel River Brat Festivus

December 3, 2010

  Forks, Washington Guide Mike Zavadlov with a chrome Bogachiel River winter steelhead I've been watching all the coastal steelhead reports lately like a cat staring at a bird. Reports of hammer-time steelhead action were pouring in with regularity. By last weekend my tail was switching back and forth in anticipation of batting some steelhead […]

Lose Less Gear, Catch More Bottomfish!

May 20, 2009

It’s no secret that bottomfish associate with structure on the ocean floor.  When dropping gear onto submerged structure like pinnacles, rock piles, and elevated plateaus it’s easy to spend more time tying on new gear than working productive water and actually catching fish.  I ran into a gentleman in the tackle shop the other day that was loading up […]