World-record spotted bass. Photo courtesy Everyday Adventures.
If you want to catch the world’s largest spotted bass, there’s a reservoir in California you need to put on you list. The last two world-record bucketmouths came from New Bullards Bar Reservoir, with the last likely record weighing a whopping 11 pounds, 4 ounces. It broke the previous record, also from the same reservoir, of 10 pounds, 6 ounces. It’s a bass paradise, to be sure.
Spring is springing the world over—just ask Ian Gordon, the fly fishing consultant for Hardy-Greys and a rabid British salmon angler. Gordon penned this piece about chasing Atlantic salmon on the storied Spey River, noting that the upcoming month of May is prime time for UK salmon anglers to hit the water. A little closer to home in New Brunswick, the Atlantic salmon seaon on the fabled Miramichi starts in mid-April, but, prime-time fishing is usually between the end of May and mid-June. If you’ve got a Jones for Atlantics, it’s time to start making travel plans.
From one iconic anadromous fish to another, it’s been widely known that Washington’s Olympic Peninsula steelhead are in a long-term decline, having lost about half their annual numbers since 1980. Why, then, would Seafood Watch rate Olympic Peninsula wild-caught steelhead a good choice for consumers? As Matthew Sloat of the Wild Salmon Center notes, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done restoring rivers on the OP before anyone should rate the region’s wild steelhead as a healthy option for those wishing to consume fish. For the consumer, that may be true. But for the future of Washington’s wild steelhead, it’s certainly not.
— Chris Hunt