Northwest Sportsman Mag

15 FOURTH OF JULY IDAHO FISHING IDEAS

(Note: originally blogged to http://nwsportsmanmag.com/ in 2016)

THE FOLLOWING IS A PRESS RELEASE FROM THE IIDAHO DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND GAME

Fourth of July means fun, family and fireworks, and for many Idaho anglers, a favorite time to fish. We know folks have busy holiday plans, but there’s no reason to not add fishing to the mix.

The folks at Fish and Game have compiled a list of places that are prime for fishing for the holiday weekend.

These aren’t exactly secret spots, but they are places where you stand to good-to-excellent chance of landing a fish or two (or possibly more), between hot dogs, watermelons and fireworks. 

To learn more about these fishing spots and many more, check Fish and Game’s Fish Planner at http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/ifwis/fishingplanner/.

Here are some places to consider fishing during the Independence Day weekend.

Panhandle

Fernan Lake sits just east of downtown Coeur d’Alene and within walking or biking distance for lots of folks. Fernan is highly productive and holds just about every species of fish found in northern Idaho. Kootenai County Parks and Waterways has developed nice facilities at both ends of the lake. On the West end, there is a fairly large parking area, a well-designed boat launch, large fishing docks, and restrooms. Anglers can fish from the docks or take a path toward the west where there is a beautiful bay to spread out and fish from shore. Some adventurous folks follow the path around and access the southwest shoreline of the lake.

Clearwater

Deer Creek Reservoir is located about 11 miles north of Pierce and may not be the most convenient location, but it’s worth the trip for its high catch rates and unique fishing opportunities. This reservoir is stocked with lots of rainbow trout willing to bite a bait, lure or fly, but what separates it from other reservoirs is its sterile brook trout and “tiger” trout, which are a cross between brook trout and brown trout. The reservoir has a boat ramp, bathroom and dock, and it is surrounded by a beautiful, evergreen forest.

Alternate: It’s primetime for cutthroat fishing in mountain streams. The Clearwater sports some of the finest cutthroat fishing in the state in the Lochsa River, Selway River, North Fork of the Clearwater River, Kelly Creek, and others.

Southwest

Despite Brownlee Reservoir’s often blazing heat during summer, it is a great place to catch smallmouth bass and a variety of other warmwater fish. Tie on any lure that resembles a crawdad and you’re likely to catch a smallmouth, or dozens of them.

Smallmouths inhabit nearly every portion of the reservoir, and there’s lots of easy bank access, well-developed launches for all sizes of boats and campgrounds, including some with electrical hookups. Crank up the AC in your RV and laugh at the heat.

Alternate: Horsethief Reservoir is located east of Cascade and is owned and managed by Fish and Game. It’s well stocked with catchable rainbow trout and brown trout. It’s also located at about 5,000-feet elevation, so it’s cooler than lower elevations during summer.

Magic Valley

Salmon Falls Creek Reservoir is a classic high desert lake. It’s remote, hot (there are a few shade trees in the campground), and it can get very windy at times. But,the fishing is great with the walleye fishing hitting its prime, and anglers have a great chance of catching big trout (in the 2 to 5-pound range), perch, crappie and occasional bass.

The lake is long and narrow with miles of shoreline to escape crowds on a busy weekend. Fishing can be great from the bank, but a four-wheel drive is recommended to reach some of the shoreline. Trolling one of the several bays can be very productive. The campground at Lud Drexler, has restrooms, a boat ramp and dock. Big Sandy and Grays Landing are two of the other popular places to camp and fish

Southeast

Bear Lake, known for its turquoise blue water, has been one of the best fishing spots of the year so far in the southeast corner of the state. You will need a boat and a tackle box of silver spoons or Rapalas to get the job done. Troll between 35-55 feet for lake trout and cutthroats. Trout limit is 2; only those cutthroat trout with a clipped adipose fin, as evidenced by a healed scar, may be kept. If it is possible to get tired of fishing, Bear Lake’s beaches are perfect for building sandcastles, wading, swimming, paddle boarding, and so much more. Or, leave some time to explore the beautiful Bear Lake National Refuge.

Alternate: Upper Kelly Park Pond in Soda Springs is a wonderful fishery for kids.  Operated by the City of Soda Springs, this pond is stocked with rainbow trout and fishes well throughout summer. Only youth 13 and under are allowed to fish, and those 8 and under must be accompanied by an adult.  It is a fairly easy quarter-mile hike to the upper pond from the parking lot at Kelly Park. Worms, lures, and marshmallows are almost always a hit with the rainbows. For fly rods, try beadheads, leeches, and wooly buggers; grasshoppers and other dry flies for when the trout are feeding at the surface.

Upper Snake

With so many world-class fisheries to choose from picking one in this area isn’t easy, but check out the South Fork of the Snake River and its amazing cutthroat fishing and rainbow trout fishing. The South Fork is typically fished by boats during summer when the river is running high to provide irrigation, but there’s also bank fishing and wading opportunities, especially in side channels.

Alternate: Small streams and tributary rivers in the South Fork and Henry’s Fork area often get overshadowed by the big names, but they also offer excellent fishing, especially for those who don’t have a boat and are willing to hike and explore.

Salmon

3 WAYS TO GRIND OUT MAY GOBBLERS

This story was originally posted in the May 2015 edition of Northwest Sportsman Magazine

The back half of spring season is tougher hunting, but there are ways to notch that tag this month.

By Chris Gregersen

Let’s face it: Chasing late-season turkeys can be a grind. But just because the birds in your area have wised up to hunters or calmed down from the excitement of the breeding season doesn’t mean you can’t be successful as the spring hunt draws to a close this month.

Chasing gobblers in May can be tough for many reasons. Hunting pressure over the first couple weeks of the season not only thins out the most eager birds, but after a few weeks those toms have heard just about every call out there, as well as seen all sorts of decoy ploys. Chances are that by this time turkeys have already been pushed out of their normal routines, putting them even more on edge when it comes to aggressive calling approaches. Also, as the late season rolls around, those gobblers’ interest and aggression towards calling will start to decline as flocks of hens break up and transition to nesting.

But while there’s no doubt it can be a challenge to bag a late season tom, there’s no reason to hang up the decoys just yet. Here are a few clutch tactics that might save your season.

LESS IS MORE If the birds are acting shy and wary, nothing will put them off even more than the sounds of an overly eager hen. If you want to bring in a wary late-season bird with calls, you’ll need to sound like, well, a wary late-season bird. Patience is key at this time of the season, so start by setting up and settling in as close as you can to where you expect a tom to be working through.

When using this approach, you’ll want to call far less often than during the early season, while sticking with your set-up for longer as well. I’ll generally stay put for a couple of hours if I know there are toms in the area. Rather than employ the long, drawn-out yelps that you might use often in the early season to evoke frantic gobbles from hundreds of yards away, tone your calling down to soft and short clucks and purrs. Turkeys have excellent hearing, so don’t worry about broadcasting the sound. At this time of season, it’s more important to focus on finesse than worrying about whether or not you’re being heard.

Aside from calling, lightly raking leaves or other ground clutter to mimic feeding in conjunction with soft purrs and clucks is also a good way to mimic a shy turkey. Be persistent and attentive with your set-up. Toms this time of year will usually take their time coming to your calls, and more often than not they won’t make a sound as they approach.

BEAVERS NOT SO EAGER TO REBUILD DAM AFTER BIOLOGIST’S TRICK

Apparently, I have a soft spot for toothsome, low-slung fur bags of middling reputations, especially those that once upon a time made good hats or make for a stirring calls to arms for those of a certain age.

Today, we’ll focus on the former, those cottonwood-champing impounders of all things flowing.

Beavers, it turns out, are pretty important for the freshwater habitat of some of our finny faves.

A recent study found that putting them to work on a North-central Oregon stream increased its productivity for juvenile summer steelhead by 175 percent.

Damn!

“The results suggest that, under the right conditions, beavers can restore the health of streams and their fish, faster and likely at lower cost than traditional river restoration that relies on expensive heavy equipment,” reported the Northwest Fisheries Science Center last month.

Makes you want to fire up the Cessna and start airdropping beavers all over the Northwest again!

Maybe so … but sometimes the rodents make ponds where ponds are not exactly desired by landowners.

Such is the case in Southwest Washington, where a forest manager with a large timber company has been trying to outwit a colony the past couple years.

They keep flooding ground he doesn’t need irrigated. Cottonwoods like their toes wet, valuable Doug firs not so much.

He replaced a culvert with a bridge, but that just led the beavers to put in a new dam above the crossing.

“Having had to remove the dam numerous times, he was seriously considering trapping. However, he realized that even trapping would not stop them. It is just too good of beaver habitat to expect that removing a few will resolve the problem,” reports WDFW in its July 25 weekly Wildlife Program report.

Enter Scott Harris.

He’s one of WDFW’s private lands biologists, a man on a mission to help property owners in coastal counties deal with deer, elk, bears, beavers and other critters that get in their gardens, treat their berries as buffet lines and fence with their fencing.

Mostly it involves encouraging the critters to go elsewhere through various and often inventive means.

Harris had an interesting idea for beating the beavers giving the forester fits, and it didn’t involve setting up one of those metal beaver deceiver contraptions.

He got ahold of something a lot cheaper — the coat of a fellow furbearer.

Once the forest manager got the permits to take out the latest dam and had removed it, Harris strung up strips of bear hide where the blockage had been, as well as underneath the bridge.

The idea is that the smell of the predator discourages the roly poly rodents from returning.

Harris says it’s an old trick in the nonlethal toolbox of timber companies and a federal agency that deals with wildlife damage issues.

But while it’s been used around culverts, apparently it hasn’t been tried under bridges before, he says.

“It is not 100 percent effective. There are some fearless beavers out there,” Harris says.

Every other time this particular dam had been destroyed, the beavers had begun reconstruction within a day, finishing the job within three, WDFW reported.

So, is the hide helping?

It’s going on three weeks now and Mother Nature’s engineers haven’t reported back to work, Harris told me late last week. 

The ruse could wear thin, or maybe a brave beaver will show up and slap the strips away with its fat tail, but in the meanwhile the effort and results are good news on another front as well.

It keeps the forest manager happy, and in a region with shrinking recreational opportunities on private timberlands, it all might help keep the company’s lands open to free hunting access, which in a sense is another part of Harris’s day job at WDFW.

“This company has a great public access policy, so naturally I will do what I can for them. If it were not for their policy several thousand acres of state land would not be accessible,” he says.Harris is also trying out the bear fur idea around the South Coast’s cranberry bogs, where it also appears to be initially working.

LINN CO. DEPUTY DA NAMED OSP’S WILDLIFE PROSECUTOR OF THE YEAR

THE FOLLOWING IS A PRESS RELEASE FROM THE OREGON STATE POLICE’S FISH AND WILDLIFE DIVISION

On August 18, 2016, Linn County Deputy District Attorney Keith Stein was presented the 2015 Wildlife Prosecutor of the Year Award at the Oregon District Attorney’s Association summer conference. DDA Stein received the award in front of hundreds of his peers and colleagues.

The 2015 Wildlife Prosecutor of the Year Award was presented by Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Division Captain Jeff Samuels and Lieutenant Casey Thomas, along with Steve Marx, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) West Region Manager, on behalf of the Oregon Sportsmen’s Coalition.

One example of a successful prosecution by DDA Stein:

A Sweet Home resident was recently sentenced in Linn County Circuit Court. The sentencing was stemming from a 2014 investigation involving Fish and Wildlife Troopers and an OSP aircraft. Late at night in October of 2014, the Aircraft Sergeant located a vehicle south of Sweet Home actively casting a spotlight from a motor vehicle and notified responding ground Troopers of its location and direction of travel. A trooper responded to the location to discover the suspect had fled the vehicle and was hiding in the thick forest. The suspect ultimately obeyed commands and revealed himself and his juvenile son. The suspect had concealed a rifle and spotlight in the nearby brush which troopers later located. The suspect was charged with Felon in Possession of a Firearm and Hunt with Aid of Artificial Light, and was ultimately convicted on both counts. Below is the sentence the suspect received:

* 1 month and 2 days in the county jail * 13 months in prison * Hunting privileges permanently revoked * Fined $400.00 * When released, will have 24 months of Post-Prison Supervision * Rifle and spotlight seized as evidence was forfeited

In a nomination letter, an OSP Fish and Wildlife Trooper wrote: “DDA Stein is clearly an outstanding professional, mentor, and colleague, but I believe he should be viewed first as an outstanding prosecutor with respect to fish and wildlife laws. In many ways exceeding the challenging requirements and expectations for the award, DDA Stein’s ambitions, intelligence and accomplishments complement precisely the stellar community of past recipients and make him highly deserving of the honor bestowed of this award… DDA Stein welcomes the diverse issues fish and wildlife offenses create with charging, forensics, … he appreciates the challenges fish and wildlife cases present, and understands the importance and value of each case. DDA Stein has been the leader of the Linn County District Attorney’s Office for prosecuting high-profile wildlife cases for approximately a decade.”

ODFW West Region Manager Steve Marx said, “ODFW commends DDA Stein for his commitment to prosecuting fish and wildlife cases. Effective enforcement of wildlife laws is a critical component to protecting population health and species conservation needs, and supporting wildlife associated recreation and quality outdoor experiences.”

ROGUE RIVER WRITER-ANGLER’S FAMED CABIN NOW A NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK

THE FOLLOWING IS A PRESS RELEASE FROM THE BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Grants Pass Field Office, is pleased to announce that the historic Zane Grey Cabin at Winkle Bar has been officially designated for preservation under the National Register of Historic Places. This honor is intended to provide recognition of the site’s significance and to encourage its continued preservation.

The historic cabin is located at Winkle Bar, one of the most unique sites along the world-famous Rogue Wild and Scenic River. This spot–and the entire Rogue River–was popularized by the western novelist and angler Zane Grey, who fell in love with and wrote about the pristine wilderness and abundant fishing opportunities on the river.

In 1925, Grey launched an expedition down the Rogue River from Grants Pass to Gold Beach with nine other adventurers in seven wooden boats. Of the places Grey encountered on the trip, Winkle Bar proved to be the most influential. In 1926 he purchased the mining claim there and had this now-famous cabin built. In Tales of Freshwater Fishing, Grey described his new acquisition:

“The rushing river at this point makes a deep bend round a long oval bar, with rocky banks and high level terraces above, and both wooded and open land. Here it flows through a lonely valley set down amid the lofty green mountain slopes. A government forest trail winds out some twenty miles to the nearest settlement. Far indeed it is across the dark Oregon peaks to railroad or automobile road!”

WILD HORSE WIND FARM HUNTING ACCESS PERMITS NOW BY RESERVATION ONLY

The winds of change are blowing, east Kittitas County hunters.

Where last year the Wild Horse Wind Farm required written permission to access, for this season you’ll need a reservation to chase wapiti, muleys, chukar and other game onthe 9,000-acre Puget Sound Energy site  north of Rye Grass Pass.

What’s more, those will only be available on WDFW’s website, not at PSE’s visitor center.

While an unlimited number of permits will be available for deer and upland birds, only 50 will be given out each day during the general rifle elk hunt, Oct. 29-Nov. 8.

PSE says that’s “an effort to improve the overall safety and quality of hunting during this busy season.”

You can reserve yours for that hunt starting at 8 a.m., Oct. 15.

“PSE also offers special access opportunities to hunters with lower extremity mobility disabilities through a limited permit drawing administered by WDFW’s Disabled Hunter Road Access Entry Program,” notes agency spokeswoman Madonna Luers.

FREE KIT AVAILABLE TO PUGET SOUND FISHERMEN SOPS UP OILY BILGE WATER, PREVENTS POLLUTION

THE FOLLOWING IS A PRESS RELEASE FROM WASHINGTON SEA GRANT

To paraphrase an old saying, “There’s no use crying over spilled oil.” Yet many are concerned with oil pollution in Puget Sound. What people don’t realize is that the biggest source of spills so far in the Sound has not been tankers and freighters, but small recreational and commercial vessels. Small spills, such as oily bilge discharge, account for 75 percent of the oil dumped into local waters over the last 10 years.

In the future, however, there may be a lot less to cry about, thanks to a simple remedy called the Small Oil Spills Prevention Kit consisting of a small absorbent pillow that is placed alongside bilge pumps to prevent oily discharge from entering the water. Washington boaters will be seeing and using a lot more of the kits in the coming months.

The Clean Marina Program, a partnership of the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, the Northwest Marine Trade Association and Washington Sea Grant, has worked for 20 years to minimize small vessel spills. But this summer marks a change: for the first time the partners are targeting private boaters, rather than marina managers. Washington Sea Grant, the Washington Department of Ecology and Washington’s District 13 Coast Guard Auxiliary have launched the Small Spills Prevention Program to provide boaters with the knowledge and tools they need to stop oil pollution at the source. Last year, in a trial run, Washington Sea Grant Boating Program Specialist Aaron Barnett succeeded in distributing 1,000 spill prevention kits. This year that labor is bearing fruit: according to Coast Guard Auxiliary Instructor Mike Brough, more and more boaters are requesting kits after seeing their friends and other boaters use them. As Barnett explains, the success of the program depends on first, getting the kits out to boaters, and second, word of mouth—with boaters educating each other about oil spills.

Pollution prevention, pollution management

Washington boaters understand the importance of keeping our waterways clean. As frequent users of our region’s waters, they serve as the first line of defense against pollution and with the 2016 boating season now underway, this is an ideal time to set the Small Oil Spills program in motion.

Instructor Brough, a Seattle-based sailor and boating educator, is a leading proponent of the program. Brough recently handed out spill prevention kits at a local marina on National Marina Day. “It’s like handing out candy on Halloween,” he says. “Anyone with a bilge and inboard engine will take one. Boaters want to do the right thing, and these [kits] make it easier.”

Brough also got a chance to see the kits in action. “At the marina office, one boater was getting a new bilge sock to replace his old one,” he recounts. “The guy had gotten a crack in the lubrication oil line during a trip on the Sound. The broken line dumped a significant amount of oil into the bilge. The bilge sock he had been using caught all of the oil, and none went over board.”

Small spills can be expensive for boaters to clean up, and often cost is the first question boaters ask. In the state of Washington the kits are funded by the Barrel Tax and made available to boaters at no cost, through the Small Oil Spills Program.

Getting your own kit

This summer, the program hopes to hand out another 1,000 kits. Kits may be obtained during U.S. Coast Guard boat inspections or at marinas throughout the Puget Sound. If you or your organization would like to have kits sent directly to you, contact WSG’s Aaron Barnett at [email protected].

WASHINGTON RESIDENTS TAKING ADVANTAGE OF ROADKILL SALVAGE OPPORTUNITY

Prime cuts from a roadkilled elk were on the menu Monday night for a Pierce County family.

“We served bacon-wrapped backstrap with fresh, picked-that-morning chanterelles — there aren’t many, but they’re popping up — and steamed carrots,” says Randy Hart Jr. of Orting. “It was awesome — not a speck left. I fed my family of five, plus my parents, and all loved it.”

He’s among the more than three dozen people so far who have taken advantage of a new law that went into effect July 1 and allows salvaging vehicle-struck elk statewide and deer in all but three Southwest Washington counties.

“I believe had I not looked for it, this elk would have gone to waste,” Hart says.

Hart, a union plumbing foreman and lifelong hunter who has sent Northwest Sportsmanmagazine photos of three generations of his family with deer they’ve harvested in Eastern Washington over the years, was on his way to work last Friday morning around 4:15 a.m. when he stopped by the Jackpot gas station in Orting  and heard two clerks talking about an elk that had been hit.

“I asked, ‘Who hit an elk?’ and one replied, ‘I did.’ She was still shaking. I asked if it was dead and she said, ‘I don’t know.’ I said, ‘With the new law, you can keep it. I’m gonna go look for it,'” Hart recalls.

He says that judging from damage to the clerk’s rig, he knew the elk had been hurt bad, and he found it about 2 miles outside of Orting along Highway 162.

The bull was barely alive, Hart says, so he called 911 and State Patrol troopers were sent to the scene.

It’s tough for hunters or anyone for that matter to see an animal suffer, but under the rules approved by the Fish and Wildlife Commission this spring, collectors can’t kill a deer and elk that is still alive after a collision and must instead call an officer or someone authorized by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to dispatch it. That’s meant to prevent poaching in the guise of picking up roadkill.

“When State Patrol arrived, they could see it needed to be put down. I advised them of the new law and told them I’d like to keep it, so they dispatched it,” says Hart.

Unlike hunting, where we gut the animal where it died, you can’t do that under the salvage law either.

“I called my dad, Randy Hart Sr., friend JJ Arnett and my apprentice Lloyd Haskins, and together we loaded it up. Not an easy task due to the law stating take it all or don’t take it,” says Hart.

The quartet were able to quickly take care of the elk and had it in cold storage inside of an hour.

Hart made it to work in Seattle just two minutes late, and after getting off his shift Friday afternoon, he went online and filled out the required WDFW possession form.

WDFW spokesman Craig Bartlett says that the permit system is working well and that so far 41 people have filled out forms, 36 for deer, five for elk.

So when was the first filed?

“That happened on the very first day the permit was available, July 1,” by a Pacific County resident, Bartlett says.

He says it’s not surprising, considering that the Department of Transportation estimates 3,000 deer and elk are hit on state highways a year.

Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Jay Kehne of Omak was behind passing the salvage law. He lives near one of Washington’s deadliest roads for deer, and he and his wife have hit two themselves, but couldn’t harvest the meat. The animals are otherwise collected by DOT crews.

Now there’s an opportunity to to make better use of roadkilled deer and elk, and folks like Hart are taking advantage of it.

“I’ve been hunting since I was 9 years old and many times in years past wished this law was in place,” says Hart. “I’ve seen so many wasted.”

He says it would have been easy for the Orting elk to have gone to waste too.

“While watching it waiting for State Patrol, we saw easily 50 cars go right by with no idea he was there dying,” he says.

The heat of summer might seem like a trickier time to collect roadkill — let’s be clear, you’re doing this at your OWN risk – but social media might prove to be a workaround.

“Kinda funny — last night I received a Facebook message, ‘Hey, there is a dead deer in The Buttes [a development in the Orting Hills] if ya want it.’ LOL, guess I’m a salvage crew now,” Hart says.

He declined, but probably only because he, his dad and friends were able to salvageabout 60 percent of that elk.

And it’s not just the meat off that animal that’s getting used.

“We already boiled and stripped the head, and will probably start whitening this weekend for a European mount,” Hart says.

TUNA ANGLERS EXPERIENCE ‘BAIT STOP WE ALL DREAM ABOUT’

Editor’s note: The following blog was written and submitted by Northwest Sportsman reader and skipper Dave Anderson.

by Capt. Dave Anderson

Over the 4th of July weekend Captain Patrick Walker, some friends and myself decided to enjoy the weekend for ourselves. Friday we went out in search of salmon for the opener. It was basically slow for everyone, including some of the Westport heavy hitters, so we decided to catch our limits of lingcod instead.

There were a few different boats that were lucky enough to find some nice salmon and share that information Friday night. However, our hearts were set on tuna for Saturday!

Saturday morning we headed southwest about 55 miles, which put us out in front of the Columbia River. We got into the zone where the water temp and color was perfect. We set out troll gear and got hammered in minutes and attempted to convert to bait, but we got no love.

We put the troll gear back out and got hammered again, but this time I grabbed an even larger scoop of bait and we immediately went completely wide open on one of the best bait stops I’ve ever seen. There were tuna boiling all around us.

Kiley from Shimano started working jigs on the bow and hooked up right away. A couple other people joined the jigging fun at the bow, which kept the tuna eating the paint off the bottom of the boat. Not only were the tuna crushing jigs up off the bow, they were also chewing on every piece of bait that went over the rail.

CORNED ELK & CABBAGE STEW

Corning meat usually uses a brine method. A brine is simply a wet marinade for the meat, one that usually includes a variety of spices, salt and sugar. The spice combination can vary from cook to cook, family to family – especially for those who have a tradition of making it by hand. But for this chef, I use a simple pickling spice off the store shelf – I prefer the McCormick brand. The trick to getting great-looking – i.e., pink – corned meat is Insta Cure #1, otherwise known as pink salt. Arguments can be made for and against pink salt – it is your call; I use it.

2 quarts water, hot ½ cup kosher salt 1 tablespoon Insta Cure #1 (Prague powder or Speed Cure) 3 tablespoon pickling spice 3 pounds elk neck roast (or other red meat you wish to corn) ½ head green cabbage 2 pounds red potatoes, cut in half 1 pound baby carrots Salt (maybe) Pepper

PLAN B FOR B-RUNS

Tucked back in the hills and featuring great access, the Clearwater’s South Fork produces good fishing for nice steelies.

By Mike Wright

For a number of years my high school had a tradition of starting out the softball and baseball season with a two-day tournament in Orofino. The tournament was always scheduled for mid-March, when snow covered the fields of North Idaho and far Eastern Washington. It also coincided with the latter part of the steelhead run on the Clearwater River and its tributaries. Since I helped with the coaching duties I would always make the trip, but unfortunately I never had the opportunity to do any steelheading. 

Then one year I decided to take a fly rod along and try my luck between games. The schedule would give me enough time for a couple hours of fishing between contests. Someone suggested the nearby North Fork of the Clearwater, which had a lot of fish in the river at the time. So between games I made my way down to the North Fork, walked to the water’s edge and started to cast into a very clear, slow-moving section of the stream. To my delight, very quickly a nice 24- or 25-inch fish followed my fly – until he got close enough to inspect the offering and abruptly turned and swam away. As I continued to work this section the same thing happened three more times. Even though I changed flies, tried different retrieves and speeds, the results were the same: no takes. I even switched to a sink-tip line, but all that did for me was a couple hook-ups on rocks and the loss of two flies. That evening I went into a grocery store to buy some snacks and drinks for the next day. While in the store I ran into one of my former students, who was working for the U.S. Forest Service out of Orofino. I told him my tale of woe and he said I was really fishing in the wrong spot. He went on to tell me that the Clearwater’s South Fork was the preferred destination for most fly fishermen. He stated that it was a smaller river with well-defined holes and generally much easier to wade. The next morning I left just after dawn to make the relatively long drive to Kooskia and the South Fork. Although we had a game at 11, I felt there was enough time for a couple hours of fishing. Unfortunately, just after I arrived at the river the heavens opened up. After only a few casts it was very apparent these were not the ideal conditions for steelhead fishing. Nor was it ideal for softball or baseball either. The rest of the tournament was cancelled and I went home with nothing to show for my efforts.

SINCE THAT ILL-FATED journey to the South Fork I have fished it several times, learning a great deal more about it and gaining much more respect for this outstanding fishery. The river forms at around 4,000 feet, just outside the old mining town of Elk City. Its upper reaches flow through a narrow, heavily timbered canyon on Forest Service land. Steep and full of rapids and pocket water, you might catch cutthroat, rainbow, brook trout, mountain whitefish and possibly bull trout here.

HOW TO TROLL FOR POTHOLES WALLEYE

The water temp is 58 degrees and the winds are light. Nearby on this Tuesday are 25 other boats on the water – five times the amount of traffic I’d see if I was fishing the mouth of the Methow River in Pateros for steelhead. Don’t get me wrong – my first love is fall and winter steelheading, but walleye fishing may just take half my recreational time this winter, as long as the weather holds out!

Why? The fishing is excellent and super easy to understand – the only problem we have is that the rookies try to set the hook on almost every bite. This isn’t trout or salmon fishing, where you set the hook and hold on. The idea is to feed a walleye when one grabs your bait. I learned this technique while fishing with a Professional Walleye Trail pro in 1999 and 2000. Give the walleye line for about three seconds so that the fish can start to turn the bait in their mouth. Then I sweep the hook with one steady motion until the weight of the fish is solid, and reel slowly up.

In 1999 Royce Dry and I won the Potholes Classic walleye tournament by nearly 15 pounds. Held in the fall that year, we won the event using a 1-ounce slinky weight and No. 2 octopus glo hook rigged with a leech. It wasn’t long after that leeches were banned in Washington state for use in our waterways. That didn’t slow down the fishing and here is why:

We have something more productive than an octopus glo hook to offer the walleye. The Slow Death hook is the biggest improvement in walleye fishing in the last 10 years. This hook allows you to troll all the way through winter, and it uses the worm to create a rotating action while trolling .7 mph and up. Winter trolling needs to be kept at under 1 mph and this is the rig to do it.

I enhance my rig with a Shaker Wing that I developed for MoneyMaker Products. I was the first person to use a Mack’s Lure Smile Blade and packaged and named this award-winning product while I worked as the marketing director for Mack’s from 1996 to 2002. I have been using the blades for the past 19 years until lately. If you know anything about me and the development world, then you can count on improvements to be made that challenge the status quo. I designed the patent-pending MoneyMaker Shaker Wing over 16 months ago to spin faster and shake more at slower speeds. The lopsided design is proving to be extremely effective while fishing side by side against other blade patterns and designs. The Shaker Wing is helping me look better than I am, and that is one reason why I am going to take up walleye guiding and maybe fish a few more tournaments in the near future. THE GREAT THING about Potholes Reservoir is that the state park ramp is right next to the most popular fishing hole on the lake for walleye. The launch has two lanes and a nice dock in the middle.

With the lake full of walleye, bullheads, perch, bluegill, crappie, bass and rainbow trout, you will likely catch three or four kinds of fish while you are going after the walleye. It is a ton of fun to troll along the 30- to 40-foot shelf straight out from the launch. You can also try to find the secret humps on Fish-n-Map’s Potholes map, available at local tackle dealers, a good buy if you don’t have a depth finder with the chip for Potholes on it already. The info on the map will help you mark spots that are productive.

Fat perch the size of your shoe are a bonus catch at the reservoir, and there’s a daily limit of 25 with no minimum size. The combined bluegill and crappie limit is 25, and the latter species must be at least 9 inches. Daily limit on walleye is eight, with only one over 22 inches allowed. In season, the state park boasts a world-class cleaning station with electricity and a fish grinder, but it closed as of Nov. 2.

MarDon Resort (mardonresort.com) also has a boat ramp, as well as a tackle store; for the latest fishing info, be sure to check with the Mesebergs (509-346-2651).

I can see why Potholes Reservoir has a boatload of midweek traffic during the fall and winter until it ices up, and I will see you there in December, trolling very slowly. I might even take up blade baiting as the water cools off further. I will not be alone if the weather is nice.

Enjoy your fishing journeys as we discover productive and new products and techniques to try together. The next article will be on dressing up your favorite casting spinner to catch more trout and steelhead year-round.

If you have any additional questions about this subject, contact me at Don Talbot’s Fishing (509-679 8641; donsfishingguideservice. com). NS

RIG OF THE MONTH: CLEAR-WATER BOBBER SET-UP

By Andy Schneider

THE GURUS: BOB REES

Guide, conservationist, fisheries advocate – there are many pieces to the subject of this month’s feature in our continuing series on all-around Northwest anglers. By Andy Schneider

“God, no, I’ve never looked back!” So exclaims Bob Rees, the executive director of the  Association of Northwest Steelheaders, Northwest Oregon and Columbia River guide, and fish and fisheries advocate. “Besides my gray hair, I’ve got no regrets,” he says. “I owe my entire life to salmon. The best lesson my dad ever taught me was to get a job you love. It’s been a wonderful journey, meeting some incredible people and having some incredible opportunities.”

IT’S THE LAUGHTER coming from Bob Rees’s boat that usually gets your attention. Rees has a way of trolling right up behind you without attracting much attention – that is, until the laughter breaks out. You glance back and see Rees standing at the tiller making minor adjustments to the motor, while leaning in and telling his clients something that sets them off laughing again. As you think to yourself that it’s good his clients are having so much fun but they must not be taking the fishing too seriously, someone hooks one almost on cue to a punchline of a joke just out of earshot and the entire boat erupts in uncontrollable laughter again. Fish around Rees enough and you begin to see the pattern: This guy is having a good time, and it’s infectious to his clients.  At first encounter with Rees, you wonder if it’s just a show that he puts on to be a good businessman; no one could be that easygoing, quick-witted and fun all the time, could they? Well, I hate to break it to you, but yes, Rees is the real deal. He truly loves  what he’s doing and is glad to share his good fortune with pretty much everyone. “People come out fishing to have a good time,” explains Rees. “And I can easily accommodate a group of folks looking to have an enjoyable time on the water. It actually makes my job pretty easy. Sure, I’ve been stuck on a sandbar or two – or three – but those are usually the highlights of the trip!”

SPRING’S OTHER HUNT

With millions of acres burned around the Northwest in 2015 and the past few years, this season could provide a bumper crop of morel mushrooms.

By Jeff Holmes

Spring comes more quickly to Southcentral and Southeast Washington than to the rest  of the Inland Northwest, and most of the Northwest for that matter. Longer days, more sunshine and higher nighttime temperatures warm the earth and water and awaken the land. Sporting opportunities compound as the weeks progress through April and further into spring, creating a welcome conflict: What to do? As April begins, water temps awaken species like walleye and bass; catfish and sturgeon respond too. On trout lakes the longer days and warmer water mean hatches of increasing intensity and correspondingly intense feeding behavior. As the month moves along, eyes turn to dam counts as upriver-bound spring Chinook move through the Columbia Gorge and eventually into four distinct zones on the lower Snake: Ice Harbor, Little Goose, Lower Granite and Clarkston. On the 15th, thousands also take to the hills for the general turkey hunting opener, where they might stumble across some early morel mushrooms emerging amid a chorus of gobblers, pileated woodpeckers, ravens and wild canids. As the month moves toward its final week, the symphony of opportunity reaches a near crescendo. Spring Chinook fever afflicts an army of anglers everywhere there is a legitimate retention opportunity. Meanwhile bass and trout fishing get even better, crappie move shallow, and turkeys strut near almost every fishery. Millions and millions of dollars worth of morels erupt on timbered and burned-forested hillsides throughout the region’s mountains. The final week of the month is one of my favorite times of year. While I don’t often take part in the trout opener anymore, it once was the biggest event on my angling calendar, and it’s surely the single biggest event in all of Northwest angling. Hundreds of thousands of kids catch trout, many for the first time, on the fourth weekend of April: It’s a big deal! There are too many options to engage in everything, and it’s also easy to spread one’s focus too thin; it’s my specialty, in fact. Nonetheless, I just can’t be the guy who locks in on one way to enjoy the outdoors when so many special things are happening. My burning passion during the last week  of April will be to catch and eat spring Chinook, I know that going in, so I’ll make sure to already have a few from the Lower Columbia and Willamette in the freezer. That’ll help clear the way for me to do some cool stuff this late April into early May without getting the shakes from springer withdrawal. Those activities will include some trout fishing with a friend near Cheney and float trips down the Walla Walla and Yakima Rivers for smallmouth bass and channel catfish, but what I’m most looking forward to is combing the woods for delicious and valuable morel mushrooms.

NOW SERVING FISH ’N CHIPS

Washington state’s bountiful ocean coast offers a mix of tasty bottomfish in spring.

By Jeff Holmes

Next week when a good friend and his lovely, player-hater wife co-celebrate their birthdays with a big dance party in their new shop, I’m frying, grilling and baking 30 pounds of  halibut, lingcod and rockfish left over from an especially productive 2015 season. Without trying, I’ll probably make a lot of friends at the party while clearing freezer room for 2016’s ocean bounty. Like most of you, I love eating white-fleshed ocean fish, and I could make you a long Bubba-Gump list of dishes. For modest prices often cheaper than sled or drift boat seats, bottomfish charters offer safe and fun fishing yielding big bags of snow-white fillets. For us Northwesterners, the Pacific can be a U-pick fish market where the freshest fish and greatest thrills and memories can be had. Charter prices are often eclipsed by the value of fish taken home when considering retail prices. Pike Place Market brings up the distant rear for quality of Northwest seafood experiences, and charter fishing with fish and chips on the brain is easily on the list of quintessential, must-do Northwest outdoor experiences. April marks the beginning of bottomfishing opportunities in Washington with the opening of deep-water lingcod fishing for the month’s last two weeks. Typically the only limiting factor to catching big lings out of Washington ports during April is weather, and not too many operators bother. But some do, and private boats also get in on the action closer to shore by fishing jetties and nearshore reefs that have repopulated with bottomfish through the winter months. A friend of mine and his buddies and family make an annual trek to Neah Bay in April to fish the protected waters all the way out to Tatoosh Island, and they do very well fishing over reefs that have seen no pressure in six months. April may not be prime-time ocean fishing season yet, but it is a clear wake-up call with some advantages and excellent payoffs in fillets.

COWLITZ WILL SHINE THIS SPRING

Huge Chinook forecast, plus great steelheading makes the river an April must-fish. By Jason Brooks

The Cowlitz is known for putting out good numbers of winter and summer steelhead, and it can be an outstanding fall coho river as well. But come April most Northwest sportsmen are fixated on the spring Chinook making their way up the Columbia to terminal fisheries. Before venturing too far up the big river in pursuit of the year’s first salmon, though, remember that the Cowlitz too has a good run of springers. And this year’s forecast of 25,100 not only follows on a stellar season in 2015, it is one of the largest predicted returns over the last 30 years. But wait, there’s more! One thing the famed Southwest Washington river offers that most other springer fisheries don’t is the chance to double up on winter steelhead that arrive in February and are caught all the way into June, when the summer steelies show up. The Cowlitz also offers a variety of water conditions and access for all anglers.

WHILE 2016’S FIRST Cowlitz springer was caught out of the lower river in early February, the fishery really doesn’t get going strong until mid-April as the salmon make their way up to the Barrier Dam and Tacoma Power’s salmon hatchery. Thanks to 2010’s rebuild and changing release strategies at that facility, the numbers of smolts being released there has increased 70 percent, rising from around a million to 1.7 million. Early this month boat anglers have the advantage because they can best fish the bigger water from Toledo down. The I-5 launch (which is underneath the interstate off Mandy Road, which peels off the Jackson Highway) is a starting point. Keep in mind that salmon and steelhead in this section probably won’t be too close to each other, so targeting springers will yield very few steelhead. Plus the techniques in the bigger water are more geared to salmon anyway – back-trolling plugs, such as the Brad’s Killer Fish, Yakima Bait’s Mag Lip 4.5 or even the newer 5.0, and Luhr Jensen’s Kwikfish, all wrapped with either a fillet of herring, sardine or a piece of tuna belly. As the regulations don’t allow the use of a barbed hook until June from Lexington Bridge up, switch out the trebles to a single barbless siwash on a barrel swivel or bead chain  and pinch the barb down. Another  favorite is a plug-cut herring with a Brad’s Diver 48 inches in front, with a four-bead chain swivel halfway down the 25-pound leader. One of the more popular areas is the mouth of the Toutle River. Here, bank anglers who find their way to the large gravel bar find a place to plunk Spin-N-Glos with a chunk of sardine or a gob of eggs, and some even put both on the hook. A 5- to 8-ounce pyramid weight is needed this time of year as river flows can vary, even with the river being controlled by a series of dams. The Toutle is not controlled and has a lot of sediment, making the water below the confluence very dirty, but plunking is an intercepting technique, so don’t let the offcolored water discourage you too much. Boat anglers will often fish here as well, again pulling big plugs and fishing the off-color and clearwater separation line.