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Thomas was asking me what the upcoming fishing and boating shows are coming up for the Spring of 2008, so here is the start of my list.
Washington Sportsmen’s Show
January 23 - 27, 2008
Western Washington Fairgrounds
Puyallup, Washington
Pacific Northwest Sportsmen’s Show
February 6 - 10, 2008
Portland Expo Center
Portland, Oregon
Portland Home & Garden Show
February 20 - 24, 2008
Portland Expo Center
Portland, Oregon
Evergreen Sportsmen’s Show
February 21 - 24, 2008
Evergreen State Fairgrounds
Monroe, Washington
Central Oregon Sportsmen’s Show
February 28 - March 2, 2008
Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center
Redmond, Oregon
Tacoma Dome Boat Show
March 27 - 30, 2008
Tacoma Dome
Tacoma, Washington
I am sure there are more boat and outdoor shows that I know about, so if you know of one, please let me know!
For a lot of us it isn’t prime fishing time, aside from the crazy Steelhead fishing fiends. So where do you hang out when you are on line? For me there are a couple of fishing boards that I visit on a pretty regular basis.
I know Thomas probably spends most of his time on Rotten.com, but let me know if you have any other great fishing forums that the world should know about!
So what do you do when the Steelhead are in the river, but the water is up and murky, the water is cold and they just won’t bite? Try switching up your tactics to using a spinner! Spinners can get those sleepy Steelhead woken up and in a ticked off mood, resulting in more bites for you!
Check our the full article on Winter Steelhead fishing with spinners!
For you Washington state people out there, don’t forget to turn in your Winter Crab catch cards to the state! They are due back by the 15th of January so you had better get going on it. A lot of people are now thinking ‘but I didn’t catch any crab’ but that is no excuse. Neither is ‘but I don’t have a winter crab catch card.’ Go down to your retailer and get one.
Feeling even less like leaving the house to mail something? You are in luck! You can now file your crab catch card on line. Simply fill in your info from your license and you are all done. It is really simple and easy, plus it saves you a stamp.
Your reporting of what you did or didn’t catch is vital to our state’s shellfish managers to determine stocks and season and make sure that there are plenty of crabs to catch out there for years to come!
Someone sent me the link to this video a bit ago and I found it a great bit of work. It seems that in British Columbia the railroad has been putting in culverts under their tracks, and in the process destroying the original water ways and blocking spawning salmon from returning up stream.
If anyone out there has any more information on this, or knows who to contact about it, please feel free to send me a message and lets see if we can’t do something about getting the process of Salmon habitat destruction changed!
Now that it is a brand new year, it is time to give some thought to where you will be fishing in the coming year. One thing I really like to do while it is the middle of Winter is to take a look at the stocking reports for the different states and see just where they have dumped fish before, and where they are going to stock again this year. Granted a lot of states don’t have their fish stocking reports up for 2008 yet, but by looking at the report for last year, one can pretty well gauge where they are going to be planting fish again.
Of course most of these reports revolve around where they are stocking Rainbow Trout, but that is fine with me. Hooking up a 12″ Rainbow Trout on a lite spinning setup is a ton of fun, and tastes pretty good too. One secret that I will share is that many times these lakes are stocked early in the year before the official lake fishing season opens, but some of the lakes actually are open year round! If you are tough enough to brave some cold mornings on the lowland lakes you can definitely beat the crowds to these planter Rainbows.
Gotta hand it to you die hards that are out on the rivers this week. Between torrential rains, snow and freezing weather you are a hardy bunch. Throw in all the fuss of getting ready for Christmas and you are down right impressive. That and most likely in trouble with your wives.
In any case I hope you all get the fish of the season that you deserve and have a great holiday! While you are here do me a favor and check out this link for Orvis and their Steelhead setup. I am not too sure I would want to try Steelheading with a fly rod, but Hell, I am not much of a fly fisherman. Let me know what you think of it. Do you think fly fishing is more effective for Steelhead than floats and spoons and such.
Speak up people!
OK, so most of the time we know exactly what to expect when we head out on the water, but I recently learned a lesson in why it is important to still pay attention and check out the forecasts before you go out on the water. This is especially important on marine waters.
To give you a little history on what happened to teach me this lesson, I headed out Thursday afternoon to drop off some crab pots. The weather looked nice with a slight breeze and plenty of sun. Headed out it was a bit choppy, but the waters outside of Everett usually are in the afternoon. By the time I got to my spot and dropped pots, the water had gone from choppy to small waves with whitecaps. To make things more fun, the wind was blowing pretty good now and from the direction I needed to get home.
For the next hour and a half I slogged home, fighting waves, wind and generally really rough water. When I got home I checked the marine reports to find that I had been cruising home through a small craft advisory. At least I know what that is like now. So my lesson from this is to check the tide and weather reports from now on. Apparently I was deciding to head out during a big, fast 12′ incoming tide, with a good strong wind blowing against it. That sucked.
So from now on I have a couple places I will check before I head out, and I suggest you do to!
NOAA - National Weather Reports
NOAA - Graphical Weather for the Northwest
Salt Water Tides - Tide info for all the coastal areas.
Is your sunscreen giving you Cancer?
Now that the sunny days are back, it is likely we are going to hear ‘put on
your sunscreen’ from the media again. The truth is that I have always
been a bit dubious about slathering on enough chemicals to block out UV radiation,
and exactly what happens to those chemicals after they break down
on your skin and start to soak in. Ever wonder if there is a correlation
between increased skin cancer rates and sunscreen use?
With this in mind, I went out to do some research on the web and found this
article straight away: 84%
of sunscreen products are harmful to health, says alarming EWG study. Pretty
scary stuff since they tell us to put on sunscreen every day. To make
matters worse it looks like many of the sunscreens on the market are not that
effective at blocking both UVA and UVB radiation. So while you may not
be burning, you may still be getting a good dose of cell damage. This
quote from HealthLink pretty
much sums it up:
"As prevention, however, sunscreens alone appear to be imperfect. In the
first study to test the protective effect of sunscreens on people — not
just the hairless mice used in laboratory studies — researchers at the Queensland
Institute for Medical Research in Brisbane, Australia, reported in 1999 that
sunscreen use reduces the risk of developing squamous cell carcinoma by 40%.
But using sunscreen did not reduce the risk of developing melanoma or basal
cell carcinoma. The Australian study followed 1,383 adults for five years. "
So you have managed to lower your risk of cancer of your superficial skin
cancers which are very treatable and according to InteliHealth:
"In most cases,
the outlook is excellent. Overall, 95% to 98% of squamous cell carcinomas can
be cured if they are treated early and have not spread.
But at the same time you aren’t burning you stay out in the sun longer, exposing
yourself to more UV overall and setting yourself up for other types of skin
cancer. Seems
to be that letting your skin tell you when it has had enough might be a better
way of preventing skin cancer than relying on the chemicals.
When you go out in the sun next time, give some thought to your poor skin. It
is after all your biggest organ (no matter what else you might be thinking
of) and it does suck up whatever we put on it. If you are going to wear
sunscreen take a look at the Sunscreen
Summary — What Works and What’s Safe and decide for yourself what
you should be using.
Personally I will stick with just not sitting in
the sun baking all day long. Besides, if you sit in the sun, it gets my
beer warm before you can drink it all.
The Invasion of the Sea Suckers!
Well it would make a great headline, but Sea Suckers aren’t some new invasive
species or urban legend, but a really cool new way to mount gear onto your
boat! These are are essentially big suction cups with a vaccuum pump
on them, and a generic mounting plate for attaching pretty much whaterver you
want to them without haveing to drill holes in your boat. We got to see these
babies in action at ICAST and couldn’t believe just how many things you can
do with them!
Some of their suggested uses are as mounts for rod holders, a
place to secure scuba tanks, holding electronics in place, putting bumpers
about anywhere you could need one and so much more. No need to worry
if they are tough enough either. The 6″ Sea Sucker is rated at 200# so
you and attach all sorts of things without worry. If
you have a boat then you owe it to yourself to check out Sea
Suckers today and see just what all you can use them for on your boat.
Personally I want to try out their suction cup drink holders!
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