Trout

When we set out to do battle with trout, we arm ourselves with specific techniques to handle typical encounters with our quarry. But often, our opponent has seen our stratagems before and is wary of taking the fly. That’s when its time to bend the rules of engagement. And time to adopt guerrilla tactics. Guerrilla…

To catch big brown trout, they say, you’ve got to fish very early and very late in the day or even all night long. Big browns, they say, come from big, deep lakes where they feed on kokanee and chubs. Furthermore, you need big baits to turn salmo trutta’s head. Well, they should have been…

The waters of the Klamath Basin in southern Oregon are legendary for big rainbows, but there is a trophy trout tributary to Upper Klamath Lake that is little known, lightly fished and miles off the beaten track. Clean, clear, low and shallow, up to 50 yards across, the creek empties into Pelican Bay in the…

It is no secret that bull trout are in trouble across much of their range, but they are still found in fishable numbers in parts of British Columbia, Alberta, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. The bull trout (a char) is a colorful fish with back and flanks of olive or brown, sprinkled with red, orange,…

“The go-to patterns and tactics you’ll need when you chase the biggest of the big in the Northwest’s Pay-to-Play waters” Sometimes you just want to catch big fish. Trout that can be measured in pounds, not inches. And not just a few pounds, either. Double digits look good in the fishing journal. A lot of…

When I booked a February trip with Coyhaique River Lodge in Patagonia, I told owner Gaston Urrejola, that I hoped to ride horseback to access a stream on a nearby estancia. A few days before I boarded the plane to Chile, I told him I wanted to catch a wild trout, on a dry fly,…

I turned my back on a career in professional basketball when I entered the seventh grade. You have to practice every night, they told me. With church on Sunday that left only Saturday for fishing. I was forced into a decision between the roar of an adoring crowd and a jerk at the end of…

From where I stood, on the bank of a small lake, I could see at least four good fish. Moving in and out of the weed beds, the trout were feeding, but I couldn’t tell what it was they were taking. It was the middle of the day and if I could see these fish…

Distant storm clouds filtered the afternoon sun. The wind blew a chop on the water and we squinted into the sunlit spray from the bow. A white pelican, wingtips lifted to catch the air, drifted ahead of us, riding the wind ten feet above the water. It was Perry Parmelee’s boat and his son Brent…

We pulled on neoprene waders and stepped into the icy shallows. The wind blew a heavy chop on the water and I tugged my hat down firmly on my head. There was new four pound test line on my spinning reel and a floating Rapala dangling from the end of the rod. I cast into…