Floatfishing Tip: Fly Line Floatant for Better Mending

November 7, 2012

This is an old school floatfishing tip that I’m surprised more people don’t know about. If you do any amount of floatfishing for salmon or steelhead then you know how much of a pain in the arse it can be to mend the last thirty to fourty feet of line. And the further away your […]

“Went Springer Fishing”, just couldn’t keep the Trout off.

April 27, 2012

“Went Springer Fishing”, just couldn’t keep the Trout off… Sometimes you just have to say the heck with the boat dealio and revert back to a much less involved, relaxing kind of day. I love these kinds of spring days.  The ones where you call up a fishing buddy and say, “hey, let’s go bank […]

Selecting the Right Bobber

April 25, 2012

With opening day of trout season just a few days away there’s going to be a lot, and I mean a LOT of bobbers flying off the shelves of local tackle shops this week. Like most items these days there are quite a few different styles of bobbers out there and where does the beginner […]

Float Doggin with the “Stick Weight”

March 10, 2012

Float Doggin with “The Stick Weight” Call it Float Doggin, Bobber Doggin, or even Float Drifting; it’s basically all the same. The biggest difference between, Float Doggin and Float Drifting is as simple as, are you in the boat or on the bank. When you are in the boat, and for me it’s the Drift […]

Rigging a Slip Float for Low Water Winter Steelhead

December 22, 2011

We're in the middle of our second La Nina winter in a row here in Washington and the weather maelstrom that many of the meteorologists predicted, well, it hasn't materialized yet. Knock on wood! This has been the driest December on record and that's dropped many of the cricks in Western Washington to near summer […]

Bobber Fishing for Fall Salmon

October 12, 2011

Ray's bobber went down for the umpty-umph time that morning and he reeled hard into a chrome king salmon that quickly headed for the tangled mess of lumber immediately downstream of where we were anchored. After some finaggling and coaxing Ray co-erced the chrome king salmon boatside and I slid the basket of my Frabill […]

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 […]

Centerpinning 101

November 3, 2010

John Whitlatch from Reel Adventures put Ray into this Methow steelhead BY RAY GOMBISKI. Exactly one year ago I was invited on a centerpin trip with John Whitlatch of Reel Adventures. John is a premier guide on the Kenai River in Alaska and for years has touted the centerpins effectiveness for steelhead. One trip was […]