Spooled: A Fishing Blog

There's nothing like escaping to the coast after enduring two of the most stressful days of the year. Sure, nobody has a problem with a long weekend, but Thanksgiving and Black Friday make the weekend seem long in an entirely different way. This is heightened by the reminder that the latter has become considered a legitimate holiday in itself among the people of this country. It used to just be the official kickoff of Christmas season and a day where many people would try to get a head start on their shopping. Nowadays, it's a brutal bloodbath where people seem to forget about everything that had been preached to them the previous day. After waving goodbye to grandma and wrapping up the leftovers, they arm themselves with pepper spray and prepare to reenact scenes from "Gladiator" on their fellow shoppers. I would normally love to join in on the fun, but I had fishing that needed to be done and found it a serious inconvenience when even Fisherman's Marine had a mo

All fish are created equal, but some fish are more equal than others. I've caught hundreds of species of fish across the globe, and can honestly say that I've never been disappointed with any of them, but there are still ones that are on top. The same rule applies to all people who fish. We all have favorites. For some people, these are the glamour species. Fish that are rare, or difficult to catch, or only live in certain parts of the world. Other people like fish that they get to target on a regular basis and are fun to catch. There's another group of people who like fish that are especially beautiful, or delicious to eat, or remind them of some distant childhood memory. And then there are the guys who want to remind everyone how rich or well-traveled they are and only talk about some ultra exotic species nobody's ever heard of like the Golden Mahseer or the Papua New Guinean Black Bass. I might have fallen in the latter category on more than one occasion, but that go

The fishing season isn't over. I don't care what anyone says. Across this great state that is Oregon, there are still fish to be caught. Allow me to demonstrate. I sent this to a friend who claimed that there weren't any big carp in this lake. So far I haven't gotten a reply.  The noble carp. Although the usage of the word "noble" in reference to a fish is usually done so sarcastically, I believe that the great common carp is a personification of this stately word. Sure, carp are kind of disgusting to look at. They're big, ugly bottom feeders that eat detritus and other unmentionables. They've got these giant sucker mouths that look like the wrong end of a human vacuum cleaner. Most people in Oregon consider carp fishing to be a huge waste of time. I disagree with this. I can tell you that in the last week alone I have put in fifteen hours of carp fishing, and not regretted it at all! In the fifteen hours of fishing spread across four days, I

I have lots of opinions on lots of things. I also have the internet, a medium that allows me to express my unwanted opinions to the exhaustion and misery of anyone unfortunate to stumble across my musings. In this installment, I discuss the numerous saltwater fishes of the Pacific Northwest. As anyone who has ever fished this area knows, there are a wide assortment of interesting, tasty, and prized sportfish that reside in the chilly waters of the Oregon and Washington coastline. There are even more that are ugly, unappetizing, and loathed among many. We'll start with the former. Salmon: Salmon are the undisputed kings of Pacific Northwest waters, despite being not unusually large and nowhere near the top of the food chain. However, there is something about salmon that makes them so irresistible. My early salmon days consisted of being skunked into alternate dimensions where I still couldn't catch any fish, and I never thought too highly of them. I didn't get th