Winter Steelhead

Antone with a nice one from the Umpqua River. We had a great day last week. It was my first day in the sled steelhead fishing this winter.

Here I am with one Antone caught. She lets me pose with one every once in a while. This was a great fish in the 16 to 17lb range.

This is little Makayla (aka: deathgrip) with her first steelhead. Her dad Tim brought her for a birthday present. She did a great job, and her dad was quite a proud Papa.

Here are the Bend boys with a nice limit of fish. Let me tell you this is a fun group of guys to fish. Always a good time, and a trip I look forward to each time they make the call to go fishing. I hope we can do it more often.

Another nice limit from this week. Tim, Doug, and Donny. The weather held out for us, and the river stayed in shape. Thanks for a great trip, and Tim thanks for the great metal sturgeon sculpture. I look forward to our next day on the water.

Steelhead

Well winter steelhead fishing is in full swing. I started fishing the Umqpua the last week of November. I was able to fish until the 28th of December when the recent rains began to blow out the river. We faced some very low and clear water condtions over the last couple of weeks. These are a few of the fish we caught over the last month. Happy new year.

The rods are ready.

These are my new sidedrifting rods for this season. I have been building a bunch of rods for not just myself, but others as well. With the recent rains I have been trying to catch up on some that need to get done. I should be caught up in a few days.

Fall Salmon

Fall fishing has been great. The Umqpua has been the go to place so far this season. Some of the other rivers are starting to fish, but you don't leave fish to find fish. This is the first year in a long time that we are able to harvest wild coho. Here are a few pictures from the last couple of weeks.

Smallmouth

I had fun fishing smallmouth this summer. I worked for myself, and I also did some work for the Big K Ranch in Elkton. Fishing was good, and we caught some bigger fish this summer. As many of you know we had to sift through a bunch of smaller fish to find the bigger ones. I built six new rods that really seemed to be a perfect match for this fishery.

Sturgeon

Sturgeon fishing was a bit interesting this year. We had lots of water from all the snowpack in the Cascades. All in all we caught plenty of fish, however the keepers were not always there. We did out best. Here are a few pictures from the season.

I am building rods.

So, I have started building my own rods. Many of you have already fished with them, and I have even started selling a few. If you have an idea I most likely can build it. You pick the thread color, and I can help with the blank. Here are a few of the recent builds.