fishing | The Filson Journal

Technical Rainwear: The Right Tool for the Job

When looking at pictures of rain jackets on a web page, they all kind of look the same. How does one choose? Simple: honestly prioritize your needs as a user and choose the jacket that best fits those needs.

5 Min

Tournant (for web + social only)Photo Credit: Eva Flores

Profiles

Q & A With the Open-Fire Chefs of Portland’s Tournant

Tournant is an open fire cooking and events company. Based in Portland, OR, their business serves as a homage to the Pacific Northwest, to one another, and to all the things they hold dear: food, fire, nature, craft, connection, community, seasonality and sustainability.

4 Min

Profiles

The Puzzle Master: Kathy Burek

Anyone who has ever spent hours huddled over a puzzle knows the joy of finally figuring it out. Whether it’s an obscure image coming together piece by piece, that head-scratcher of a rhyme finally making sense, or completing the last box in a crossword, the endorphin rush of finally getting the right answer makes all of the effort worthwhile. But imagine devoting your life to untangling complicated mysteries but rarely knowing if you have solved the puzzle correctly. Most people couldn’t handle it, it might even drive them mad. But, Kathy Burek has done this almost every day for the last twenty-five years, and she loves it.

5 Min

How-To

How to: Preserve Your Catch

Winter brings slower days and time to cook – and a freezer full of fish after a summer of harvest. Nourishing and delicious protein, wild salmon brings brightness to the table through the cold weather months. This recipe is a personal favorite provided by Nelly Hand at Drifters Fish, a local Pacific Northwest business.

2 Min

Profiles

Renowned Artist and Activist: Ray Troll

Ray’s Alaska adventure started in 1983, when he moved here to help his sister open a seafood retail store in Ketchikan. Ray soon turned to art to document his experiences in the unique fishing culture that permeated the town.

4 Min

Food

Filson Food: Whole Salt Crusted Fish with Horseradish Cream

Cooking in a salt crust is essentially a method of steaming, but instead of using water to steam, the salt crust holds in the natural moisture from the fish to steam itself. With the addition of herbs and citrus in the salt crust, we are effectively cooking in a flavor pressure cooker.

3 Min

Profiles

Marian Beck: The Saltry Restaurant

The first thing you notice about Marian Beck is her hands. Graying Alaskan fishermen all have the same hands, swollen and powerful from decades of picking fighting salmon from gillnets, stacking seining gear, or baiting hooks. Her hands look like they’ve been taken from someone else’s body, twice as big and twice as old, and transplanted onto her wrists.

4 Min

Profiles

The Ocean’s Top Predator: Puget Sound Orcas

Black fins sliced the water and rose higher and higher, close to our boat. With a puff and a blow, the orcas surfaced: members of J pod, the southern resident whales that frequent Puget Sound. The whales blew mighty breaths. They are mammals,
like us.

4 Min

Profiles

Deep Sea Fishermen’s Union

Back at the turn of the last century, a hardy group of men roamed the wooden docks of Seattle. Grizzled and gruff, they would spend days out on the unpredictable and often dangerous waters of the Salish Sea and nearby Pacific Ocean.

3 Min

a green colored image underwater close up of five salmon, one close to the camera, with the others layered behind

Profiles

Salmon Conservation – Chinook in Puget Sound

Wild salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest have taken a steep nosedive over the last few decades. Where once the waters of Puget Sound and the greater Salish Sea teemed with millions of these fish, their populations have drifted to around 3–10% of those once mighty numbers, and 27 native salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest are now listed as endangered.

3 Min

a finished product of west coast chowder in a red pot with the three pieces of grilled buttered bread and a wooden spoon dipped into it

Food

Filson Food: West Coast Seafood Chowder

Chowder is a dish that can be found up and down both coasts of the United States and each regional interpretation has its own unique local style. Regardless of the style of chowder, the main theme remains the same. A medley of seafood is cooked in a broth with a mixture of vegetables and commonly served with crackers.

4 Min

a straight on view of the work in progress build of the ballard bridge as an old car drives towards the cameraman

Featured

The History of Ballard: The First 100 Years

Today, the neighborhood of Ballard is well known for its restaurants and atmosphere. However, the history of this Seattle hamlet is a story of industry, community, and entrepeneurship.

6 Min

Field Notes

Access to Fishing, Illinois’ Tackle Loaner Program

Imagine if there was a special library made for young anglers; but instead of borrowing books, they could check out fishing rods, reels and other gear. Well there is and it’s available to anyone in Illinois.

3 Min

Field Notes

Elver Fishing in Maine

Elver fishing in Maine is based on a lottery system. For those lucky enough to win a license the payout can be over $2,000/lb.

4 Min

Profiles

In Print: Branson Wallace

Last summer while in Kodiak, AK we went crabbing with Branson Wallace and his buddy Aaron Thompson. We recently reconnected with Branson to ask him about life on Kodiak, his duties in the USCG, and how both of those things have shaped his life and effected his journey to becoming an outdoorsman. Tell me about

8 Min

hiking along the river with fishing gear

How-To

What to Pack for a Backpack Fly Fishing Trip

Backpacking is a great way to re-familiarize yourself with the often-elusive feeling of spare time. With a little extra planning, you can turn a backpacking trip into a fly-fishing trip. We asked Sage Elite Pro and backcountry fishing expert Seth Blackamore about what he packs for a minimalist backcountry fishing kit.

2 Min

Profiles

Q+A With Fly Designer Brita Fordice

Atop Brita Fordice’s desk lays a bag of eyeballs. Next to the eyeballs are a variety of feathers – some that look real, some that are real, and some that look like they might have been picked up on the floor of a costume closet. Next to the feathers are resins to hold things together and tools to pull things apart. It looks a bit like a kindergarten art class, save for the cauterizer.

6 Min

Ed's art of fish and mountain scenes in his journals

Profiles

In Print: Making Art with Ed Anderson

Ed Anderson is an Idaho-based artist known for his iconic scenes using bold colors and lines to present subjects from bush pilots to bull trout and bugling bull elk. We sat down with Ed to learn more about how he got into art, developed his style, and what has influenced him along his journey.

5 Min

Field Notes

With The Flow: WA Winter Steelheading

When you picture father and son fishing trips in a metal row boat, you might picture a pristine lake with a bobber and worms, goofy hats with oversized boots and dozing off in the warm sun. For my dad and I, we picture something different entirely. Basalt boulders the size of Volkswagens, yesterday clearly exposed, are now lurking millimeters beneath the surface. On days like this, there’s about a 5% margin for navigation error as you’re flying through white water, oars digging hard, unable to change trajectory more than a few crucial inches. It sounds reckless (maybe it is), but the payoff is worth every risk.

3 Min

How-To

How To Fillet a Fish

Whether you fish your local river, the lake the next state over, or the ocean on the other side of the world, knowing how to properly filet your catch is an important step in becoming a fisherman. We commissioned artist Heather Hardison to draw a basic tutorial outlining the few key steps to take your catch

1 Min

portrait of corey on fishing boat in filson hat and orange overalls

Profiles

Corey Forrest: Fishing Rhode Island

As a little girl, I didn’t know I was going to grow up to be a fisherman, or follow in my father’s footsteps, and his father’s footsteps. It was a man’s world at the dock of Sakonnet Point, no women working in sight. The faces of fishing, as I recall, were a blue-collar gang of

7 Min

salmon gravlax with dill fronds and brown rye bread

Food

Filson Food: Whiskey Cured Salmon Gravlax

Making cured fish is incredibly simple, but requires intentional time to prepare. Gravlax, a preparation of preserving salmon from the cold coast of Scandinavia, is cured in salt and sugar for just a few days. This recipe has been adapted from my grandpa’s handwritten notes, a treasure shared in my family. Gravlax celebrates the fish with

3 Min

How-To

3 ways to open an oyster without a shucking knife

While a shucking knife is always recommended to open oysters, it’s not the only way. If a fresh bivalve opportunity presents itself while you’re without a shucking knife, you might try to break in using one of these alternative methods.

2 Min

pickled salmon, carrots and red onions on cutting board

Food

Filson Food: Pickled Wild Salmon

Pickled salmon is a tradition that runs deep in Alaska, preserving the summer’s harvest to last through the cold winter. Wild salmon is a healthy protein and pickled fish makes for a filling bite anytime of day. A staple in the fridge of many PNW chef’s and boat captains.

4 Min

Profiles

In Print: Patrick Manary

Patrick Manary is an Oregon native, lanky, with piercing blue eyes and a wild beard. Thoughtful and soft-spoken, he holds himself with the steady confidence that brutal outdoor work can impart. For the past few years he has moved seasonally, splitting his time between Bristol Bay, Alaska and Tillamook Bay, Oregon. He works in Oregon

5 Min

portrait, eric jackson with red flannel and big brown beard

Profiles

In Print: Eric Jackson’s Snow, Surf and Steelhead

Eric Jackson is always ready for a challenge. You may recognize him from the massive hucks in his latest snowboarding film, Alignment. Or perhaps you’ve seen photos of him fly-fishing some of the most pristine rivers in the world as a sponsored fisherman. Either way, “envy” might describe how you feel about it his life.

5 Min

fly fisher casts into lake with pine trees and low lying clouds

Profiles

Cooper River Trail

Some of us like hiking and some of us like fishing; a lot of us like both. The Cooper River Trail is the perfect trail for those who like both. Just outside of Cle Elum, WA, the Cooper River Trail is just that, a trail that follows along the Cooper River.

1 Min

Field Notes

After Wildfire

A bike-pack fishing trip through a scorched landscape was not the trip that Ashlee thought she was going to take – but the things she saw and the experience she had left an impression about how we interact with the landscape after wildfire. “Lucky for you, all the goat’s head burned too,” someone said, smiling,

5 Min

fisherman holding large fish kneeling in river wearing red and white flannel and green trucker hat

Field Notes

Brown Trout of New Zealand

Jack Kos is a self-described Kiwi trout bum. What began as a passion for fishing soon developed into a desire to know more about the fish he sought. That pursuit led Jack to dive deep into the rivers and the history books as he wrote his dissertation and earned a PhD in history on the

portrait of Larry Ford, owner of Blue Heron Lodge

Profiles

Blue Heron Lodge: Forks, WA

“I love teaching folks how to appreciate the water; the ruggedness and beauty of the river are something special. I like to share with people a means by which they can experience these places. A drift boat and a fly rod are just my preferred means. Passing on some of my knowledge to my clients,

Technical Rainwear: The Right Tool for the Job

Q & A With the Open-Fire Chefs of Portland’s Tournant

The Puzzle Master: Kathy Burek

How to: Preserve Your Catch

Renowned Artist and Activist: Ray Troll

Filson Food: Whole Salt Crusted Fish with Horseradish Cream

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Marian Beck: The Saltry Restaurant

The Ocean’s Top Predator: Puget Sound Orcas

Deep Sea Fishermen’s Union

Salmon Conservation – Chinook in Puget Sound

Filson Food: West Coast Seafood Chowder

The History of Ballard: The First 100 Years

Access to Fishing, Illinois’ Tackle Loaner Program

Elver Fishing in Maine

In Print: Branson Wallace

What to Pack for a Backpack Fly Fishing Trip

Q+A With Fly Designer Brita Fordice

In Print: Making Art with Ed Anderson

With The Flow: WA Winter Steelheading

How To Fillet a Fish

Corey Forrest: Fishing Rhode Island

Filson Food: Whiskey Cured Salmon Gravlax

3 ways to open an oyster without a shucking knife

Filson Food: Pickled Wild Salmon

In Print: Patrick Manary

In Print: Eric Jackson’s Snow, Surf and Steelhead

Cooper River Trail

After Wildfire

Brown Trout of New Zealand

Blue Heron Lodge: Forks, WA