I'm lucky enough to have a wife that enjoys the outdoors almost as much as I do, so when she asked "When are we going to go to Forks?" I didn't hesitate to hook up the driftboat and get the steelhead gear ready. It was more like a sprint than anything. When your wife demands […]
"You couldn't get Tobeck to come?", asked Mike Meseberg of Mar Don Resort as we shivered out of our skin in our layout blinds/coffins in the midst of four dozen full-body Canada goose decoys on Wednesday. My reply, "Nope, he's a lot smarter than we are." I was trying to convince myself that I'd much […]
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 […]
Gerald Sexton downed this 4×4 blacktail with guide John Koenig in the Skagit valley Big blacktail bucks seldom leave the confines of their worm holes in the jungle on the wet side of the Cascades and when they do most of their movements are nocturnal. They are big because they don't make many mistakes. […]
Fishing buddy Steve Maris and I hit the Olympic Peninsula bright and squirrely on Tuesday morning in search of an elk. We drove for three hours in the dark, launched the driftboat on river "X" at sunup in a what-the-hell-are-we-doing-here rain storm and then floated downstream, poking our way into alder bottoms and potential elk […]
FROM THE US VENISON COUNCIL- Controversy has long raged about the relative quality and taste of venison and beef as gourmet foods. Some people say venison is tough, with a strong "wild" taste. Others insist venison's flavor is delicate. An independent food research group was retained by the Venison Council to conduct a taste test […]
My luggage has been packed for three weeks now. King salmon on the coast, mule deer in the Okanogan, honkers at Potholes, blacktails on the Oly Pen, and just as I'm unzipping my travel bag to empty out a backlash of hunting and fishing attire my new Droid does-everything-but-dishes phone buzzes half away across the […]
Seven of us descended upon Mar Don Resort on Washington's Potholes Reservoir for the first annual Outdoor Line Waterfowl Weekend. The blue bird weather we experienced in Washington the first week of hunting season rapidly deteriorated on Friday as a huge storm pushed into the Pacific Northwest, bringing with it high winds and plenty of […]
I just returned from what I would consider a very successful hunt in Washington's Okanogan County. For the large camp I was in success in terms of deer harvested was very low, actually three deer and a bear for the eighteen hunters in the camp. Deer hanging in camp isn't a necessity for a successful […]
Guide Bill Meyer with a dime brite silver salmon caught on a twitched jig. Twitching marabou, zonker strip, and hoochie-skirted jigs for fall coho has proven to be a deadly technique on the rivers of Western Washington for fickle, lock-jawed silvers. 1/8 to as large as 1/2 ounce jigs in sizes 1/0 and 2/0 are […]
