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Everyone who fishes dreams of the perfect experience: the perfect trip, the perfect setting and naturally, the perfect fish. Those dreams keep us constantly ex­ploring different environments, with different gear, for different piscato­rial treasures. Sometimes, good fish­ing can make us believe that we have found this Nirvana, but the dreams continue, of another place, another "absolutely guaranteed" fly to try, or another species to which we've not yet cast. Trying to portray perfect fishing, most anglers get a dreamy, far away look in their eyes while visualizing some solitary and picturesque setting, lots of co-operative fish, ideal water levels and,...

SELECTING HERRING Short of jigging up your own herring we have three choices in buying herring. Seasonally you can buy freshly bagged herring on ice in areas like the early fall Buoy 10 fishery. But most of us are buying frozen herring either trayed and bagged by size, or frozen and vacuum packed. As owner of Pro-Cure I get to fish with a lot of top guides, and I can tell you very few of them fish fresh­ bagged herring on ice. They haven't been starved, so they are usually soft baits, and hard to keep on the hooks, especially...

TIP 278. Hit Riffles Riffles are arguably the best low-water fishing habitat there is. Rifles provide fish, especially steelhead, coho and sockeye, with protection in the form of a broken surface. The faster­moving water, though it does not carry more oxygen than other parts of the river, like many folks believe, does aid in the fish's respiration, which is another reason fish will gravitate to riffles in low water. Angler pressure, if intense, can also cause fish to move into shallow riffles, as can direct sunlight. Fish have the ability to be camouflaged in very shallow rif­fles, and it doesn't take...

    Our beginning started with luck, and that combined with hard work and some financial hardships, including the near loss of our first endeavor, almost ended it all. Larry and Ellen Stanley, my partners, and I had graduated from Cottage Grove High School in Oregon. Larry and I were average students, but Ellen was much more intelligent. This still stood to be true, regardless of the fact that she came with us on our seemingly mad journey to pioneer a fishing lodge, somewhere in the wilds of British Columbia. The idea of us owning a fishing lodge dated back...

The anticipation gives you chills. Eyes affixed to a strumming rod tip, telegraphing a staccato tap ...tap...tap...tap, telling the terminal gear's position as it slips downstream through choice holding water. A sudden stop, a slight pull followed by an instinctive hookset transforms "bottom" into fiery life, all before a taken breath. With shaking legs and racing pulse you try to match each acrobatic, flash-quick move. The fish is tiring, he's yours, two-plus feet of gunmetal blue, mercury silver and stark white slides into the shallows. A single sea lice clinging to its underside, signaling mere hours from sea. Briefly admired,...