NWWC BAIT LAB: K.I.S.S. tiger prawns = Keeping It Simple with Sugar
POSTED June 14, 2010 / 7:40 p.m.

PUYALLUP, Wash. - The facts are like this: Steelhead like sweeter bait.

If you're skeptical about a steelhead's addiction to sugar, the next time you're curing up eggs for steelhead fishing, try curing some of your skeins with a slightly higher salt base, like you might do for salmon (or as you normally might do with your home brew). Then try doing some of your skeins with a good’ol helping of table sugar, or raw sugar if you can find it.

8BUT I DIGRESS. THE FOLLOWING IS A SIMPLE, EFFECTIVE METHOD for curing/preparing raw tiger prawn for steelhead.

STEELHEADPALOOZA '10: Sept. 11 marks second annual Palooza event!
NEW July 27, 2010 / 6:30 p.m

AUBURN, Wash. - Start making plans now, because, come Sept. 11, the West Coast's most brilliant steelheaders will be at your beck and call as Auburn Sports & Marine and NW Wild Country present SteelheadPalooza 2010.

Hands-on demonstrations, the latest/greatest steelhead gear on the market, and access to the kind of information that takes years upon decades to gather. It's all yours ... FOR F-R-E-E. Tune in to NW Wild Country in the coming weeks for more details!

-JS

BASS REPORT: Junior takes shot at $500,000 payday at Forrest Wood Cup
NEW July 26, 2010 / 6:30 p.m

ATLANTA - Barely 10 days away from competing for a $500,000 payday, Ron Hobbs, Jr. is most excited about signing a liability waiver.

A half-million dollars and bass-fishing immortality can wait. Right now, Junior wants to talk about Blackhawk helicopters.

"Dude, I had to sign a waiver in case I make the top 6 and get to ride in a Blackhawk helicopter - how cool is that?!?" Hobbs says the week before departing for Atlanta and Lake Lanier, where 78 of the FLW's top anglers will compete for the 2010 Forrest Wood Cup and the biggest paycheck in professional bass fishing. "I just want to make the top six so I can fly in a helicopter."

8CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT RON HOBBS' PREPARATION for the 2010 Forrest Wood Cup on Georgia's Lake Lanier.

WILDCAST CENTER: Mike Floyd dishes the dirt on late Westside musky bite!
NEW July 11, 2010 / 1:30 p.m

LAKE TAPPS, Wash. - Mike Floyd subscribes to the age-old theory: Talk softly and carry a big stick.

Or, more accurately in the case of the Westside's musky savant, carry a big net. The net is for the overgrown tiger muskies that the humble Floyd has a knack for landing: The 49-incher in the photo above is the largest confirmed musky ever caught on Lake Tapps.

I had the great fortune of tackling Tapps recently with Floyd and Darren Largent of Auburn Sports & Marine. I'm an admitted musky greenhorn, through and through - I've caught plenty of Northern pike, but the western Washington strain of this giant Esox is a mystery fish to me. That might explain the first words out of my mouth when I spotted a 50-plus-inch MuskySaurus Rex lurking over a submerged weedbed on Tapps' north end: "HOLY BLEEP!"

XLISTEN IN TO OUR RECENT Q&A WITH MIKE FLOYD and get a look at the Evergreen State tiger musky fishery (including details on the development of the summer bite on Tapps).

STEELHEAD REPORT: "Coho" conks Cowlitz chrome on coon shrimp
NEW July 8, 2010 / 10:30 a.m

CHEHALIS, Wash. - After watching fireworks displays until almost midnight then tossing and turning as neighbors continued to set off  their homemade pyrotechnics ‘til the wee hours, I was actually waiting for my alarm to go off: I was meeting with some good friends and chasing some summer steelhead in Washington State.

As I rendezvoused with Pat, Kent and Tom in the pre-dawn darkness, it was evident that they were looking forward to fishing as well and we didn't waste any time getting gear transferred to the boat, and back onto the road, headed for the Cowlitz River.

8CLICK HERE TO SEE HOW ANDY "COHO" SCHNEIDER DID on the Cowlitz, and about how a mid-day technique switch paid off. 

DJ UNPLUGGED: Reanalyzing the reopening of sturgeon on the Columbia
NEW July 5, 2010 / 10:30 a.m

ASTORIA, Ore. - The bad news: Washington and Oregon fisheries managers extended the sturgeon retention season on the lower Columbia River. 

Why? Because the quota wasn’t filled. It wasn’t last year either. Or the year before that.

8READ DAVID JOHNSON'S BLOG ABOUT STURGEON and why the lower Columbia River's recent reopener to sturgeon retention is bad news for the fishery.

CRASH TEST: FishWithJD.com puts the MagLip through its paces
POSTED June 28, 2010 / 9:40 a.m.

FROM FISHWITHJD.COM - Yakima Bait Co’s MagLip has been selling like hotcakes in the Pacific Northwest lately, but is that just a case of everybody rushing out to buy the newest thing on the market or does this plug actually catch fish?

Recently, we spent a couple weeks thoroughly testing the MagLip to find out.

8CLICK HERE FOR THE MOST COMPLETE MAGLIP REVIEW on the web, and J.D. "Joe Dakota" Richey's assessment of Yakima Bait's tricky little plug.

TUNA REPORT: Secret Island finds albacore 86 miles out of Newport
POSTED June 28, 2010 / 7:40 a.m.

NEWPORT, Ore. - Back-to-back calls from Bud Hosner of Big Tuna Marine and Del "Tuna Dog" Stephens - who had just spent two hours in the NWWC studio for our June 26 show - confirmed it: the first sport-caught albacore of the year was headed back to port, aboard the Secret Island.

Tron Bull, Chris Powers and the crew of the Garibaldi-based Secret Island connected with 10 silver bullets after a seek-and-destron mission took them all the way out to the 125 5 line, roughly 90 miles offshore.

8SEE THE FIRST TUNA OF THE SEASON and read the entire report on the SI's recent iFish thread.

8FOLLOW THE RECENT iFISH THREAD ON SSTs and the potential arrival of the first big waves of albacore to the Oregon fishery.

GUEST BLOG: Kramer spends some time with West Coast bass basics
UPDATED June 23, 2010 / 11:40 a.m.

LAKE ELSINORE, Calif. - "Do you know the best single tail grub ever made? That’s an easy question. The best grub is the one they’re biting."

So says George Kramer. Or, as I like to call him "The Sage of Lake Elsinore". I've had the pleasure of working with George for going on 13 years now, first with F&H News and these days with California Sportsman. If you're a West Coast basser - be you from Electric City or Lake Havasu City - you've benefitted from George's writing sometime, somewhere.

8CHECK OUT GEORGE KRAMER'S "GRUB-OLOGY 101" and the review of a new tool in the West Coast basser's arsenal, the Kalin 4-inch grub.

SALMON REPORT: Team Pautzke sets the Queen Charlotte Islands on fire
UPDATED June 19, 2010 / 9:40 p.m.

QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS, B.C. - I have a lot of fun at the expense of Pautzke Bait Co.'s director of operations, Chris Shaffer. I've known, worked, travelled and fished with ShaffDog for almost 10 years now, and can easily name him as one of my best friends in the world.

So, it's okay when I pitch him s*it about his travel exploits.

Shaffer, you see, has had "The Reverse Mojo" working against him on many of his worldwide fishing expeditions the past several years. Whenever/wherever he shows up lately, weird things happen.

Fish stop biting. Animals go into hibernation. Sunshine turns to hailstorms and tornados. This week, though, Shaffer has found himself in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time.

All you need to do is look at the pictures.

Shaffer was making his very first trip to the Queen Charlotte Islands this week, and after nearly 5 years of disappointing fishing trip after disappointing fishing trip, here are the results. Enjoy.

8CHECK OUT THE VIEW FROM HIPPA ISLAND as Team Pautzke touches down in the middle of one of the wildest places on the West Coast.

WILD WIRE: 9.67 pounds and counting: does a 10-pounder exist in Wallowa?
UPDATED June 16, 2010 / 10:40 a.m.

JOSEPH, Ore. - P.T. Barnum would've loved Wallowa Lake. Or, perhaps more accurately - considering the freakish size of the kokanee being yarded out of this northeast Oregon high-mountain lake - maybe it would've been more to R.L. Ripley's liking.

Well, believe THIS or not: A 10-pound kokanee lurks somewhere in the 200-foot depths of this 3.7-mile cirque. Mark my words, Wallowa County will produce the first 10-pound landlocked sockeye ever this summer.

8IT'S 9.67 POUNDS: READ THE LATEST on Wallowa Lake's potential new world-record kokanee, courtesy of Walgamott's blog.

JOSEPH, Ore. - World record hunters have had the small town of Joseph, Ore. on their watch lists for most of 2010, thanks to a crop of gargantuan-sized kokanee that have been yarded out of Wallowa Lake.

Ron Campbell of Pendleton, though, re-set the bar higher than it's ever been before with a 9.67-pound kokanee that, if approved, will establish a new IGFA world record for the species.

8READ ANDY WALGAMOTT'S COVERAGE OF THE FISH in his NW Sportsman blog, including a quick Q&A with the new record-holder.

8FOLLOW IFISH.COM'S THREAD ABOUT THE BIG FISH and the debate about the overall productivity of the fishery.

8CHECK OUT THE OREGONIAN'S COVERAGE of the record fish.

WILD BLOG: Taking our shots at the Rogue's never-ending spring Chinook run
POSTED June 13, 2010 / 8:30 p.m

GOLD BEACH, Or. - Rain, rain, rain was the theme as June rushed into the Southern Oregon Coast. The Rogue peaked at 20,000 cfs on June 5 and was on the decline the last few days. With the phone ringing and reports of more spingers being caught, we decided to try our luck again with some skepticism that there would be numbers of Chinook in the lower river.

Could it be that this run fishes into mid June?

8CLICK HERE TO SEE SOME MAJOR JUNE SPRINGER CHROMAGE as our South Coast blog reporter continues to hammer on the Rogue River's amazing run of spring Chinook.

NWWC ON TV: Check us out LIVE Saturday a.m. on Comcast SportsNet NW
UPDATED May 26, 2010 / 5:50 p.m.

SEATTLE - Yeah, we know: Faces for radio. See for yourself Saturday morning as Northwest Wild Country host Joel Shangle fires up the mega-microphone with co-hosts Bill "General Zog" Herzog, Mike Perusse and Duane Inglin for two hours of the fastest, smartest, most informative outdoors radio show in the country. Yyou can see it all from 6 to 8 a.m. on Comcast SportsNet Northwest.

Here are the channels, and where you'll find us:

nCHANNEL 179: Puget Sound and the Seattle Metro area (from Bellingham to Olympia), Bremerton, Centralia, Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties, Spokane

nCHANNEL 37 (337 HD): Southwest Washington (Longview, Vancouver), Portland Metro area, Salem, Corvallis, Eugene

nCHANNEL 40: Bend ; CHANNEL 82: Ashland

KOKE REPORT: Kokanee Qs? Our resident koke freak has the As! Chime in!
POSTED May 16, 2010 / 12:00 p.m.

SEATTLE - The Wild Country kokanee craze rolls on. One of the key resources on our brand new Kokanee Report page is Zog's Kokanee Q&A, an open forum for Pacific Northwest kokanee anglers to have their questions answered by the region's kokanee king.

As we've documented on the show - and as Herzog has documented in his spectacular articles in Salmon, Trout, Steelheader - General Zog was introduced to kokanee fishing as kid, and picked it up again about 7 years ago in true Zog style.

8THE GENERAL'S KOKANEE Q&A PAGE on Gamefishin.com. Got a question about kokanee? Here's the place to serve it up for General Zog.

8NWWC TUNA NATION 8NWWC HOT BITES REPORT 8NWWC SALMON NATION 8NWWC STEELHEAD NATION 8NWWC BASS NATION 8NWWC CRASH TEST PAGE

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