I've spent the last decade chasing steelhead and salmon on Great Lakes tribs and Pacific Northwest rivers, and my tackle bag has held everything from custom Colville clickers to budget Amazon reels. The centerpin reel is the heart of float fishing: a free-spooling, drag-free tool that lets your bait drift naturally with the current, well […]

Pink salmon, also called Humpies, are the smallest and most aggressive of the five Pacific salmon species. Every odd-numbered year, millions of these hard-biting fish flood the rivers and beaches of the Pacific Northwest, and they are hungry almost the entire time they are around. That aggression is exactly why the best pink salmon lures […]

I've spent the last three summers chasing sockeye salmon from the Kenai to Baker Lake, and I'll be honest — most generic salmon advice falls apart the moment you hook one of these red-finned powerhouses. Sockeye salmon gear needs to be chosen with intent. These fish are plankton feeders in the ocean, so they rarely […]

I've spent the last three salmon seasons chasing king salmon across Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Columbia River, and I've personally tested more rods, reels, flashers, and downrigger setups than I care to admit. When anglers ask me about the best chinook salmon trolling gear, I don't just pull up […]

After spending 45 days chasing coho salmon across Pacific Northwest rivers, Puget Sound beaches, and Great Lakes tributaries, our team landed and lost enough silver bullets to know which coho salmon lures actually trigger strikes. We tested 12 of the best coho salmon lures across four lure categories and three water types. Spinners dominated shallow […]

If you have ever stood in the cold edge water of a Scottish river at first light, watching your line swing through a pool with that quiet hope every Atlantic salmon angler knows, then you already understand why choosing the right fly matters. I have spent the last several seasons chasing Atlantic salmon on rivers […]

I've spent the last three trout seasons chasing tiger trout across stocked lakes, tailwaters, and tiny mountain streams, and I keep coming back to the same conclusion: tiger trout hit lures harder than almost any other trout swimming. They are a sterile hybrid between a brook trout and a brown trout, and that hybrid vigor […]

Brook trout are some of the most beautiful freshwater fish in North America, and chasing them with a fly rod on a tiny mountain stream is one of the great joys of our sport. But if you have ever stood on the bank of a clear Appalachian creek wondering which fly to tie on first, […]

I have spent the last decade chasing brown trout across the streams, rivers, and tailwaters of the Rockies, and the most common question I still hear from new anglers is simple: what are the best brown trout lures for ? I have caught wild browns on dries at dusk in Montana, plucked stocker rainbows-turned-feral from […]

I have spent more weekends than I can count chasing rainbow trout through creeks, mountain lakes, and tailwater rivers, and the right lure makes the difference between a frustrating day and a full stringer. After testing 12 of the most popular rainbow trout lures on the market in , I narrowed the lineup to the […]