Cookin’ or Catchin’

You’ve got to have the right ingredients for both

Part 2

In my last column I introduced you to Jennie Logsdon Martin. Jennie is the Oregon gal who developed and operates one of the West’s most popular Internet fishing sites. You’ll find it at www.ifish.net.

I suggested there were comparisons between cooking and catching fish. I also detailed how Jennie uses the right “ingredients” whether she’s preparing food for her family or prowling the banks of the Kilchis River for steelhead. I mentioned that the success of her Internet site reflects Jennie’s lifetime love of steelhead and salmon fishing. I wound up that column by saying I wanted to tell you about the first time Jennie fished for smallmouth bass.

If you ever have the good fortune to meet the interesting lady I’m writing about, ask her how she did on her trip to fish Oregon’s Umpqua River. Well, never mind, I’ll just go ahead and tell you about it myself. What she did was flat knock the hell out of those scrappy Umpqua smallmouth. Once again she used the right combination of the necessary “ingredients” I’ve been talking about to get the job done.

Jennie Martin used the right combination of "ingredients" to hook lots of nice smallmouth like the one she displays here on Oregon's famed Umpqua River.

Jennie, along with her companion Bill, made that Umpqua drift boat trip with Scott Wolfe, chief guide for the fabled Big K Guest Ranch, and myself. Having the right guide was required ingredient Number One. A second, equally important ingredient was that Scott made certain Jennie used lures that were proven fish catchers.

As it turned out, the Number Two ingredient in her recipe for smallmouth fishing success that day was an Outlaw Baits Slam-It tube. Ingredient Number 3 was having an expert guide like Wolfe make sure that dandy bait was rigged with the right size hook inserted in the proper fashion.

One of the right "ingredients" on Jennie's Umpqua trip turned out to be an Outlaw Baits Slam-it tube.  Look close and you'll see one of the baits she used pinned to the mug of this Umpqua River bass.

 

I guess you could call Jennie herself an Oregon product. So were the baits on which she caught her smallmouth. In fact, before we went to fish the Umpqua I took her to the Outlaw Baits manufacturing plant in Florence to meet the two men responsible for the production of these super plastic fish-catchers. They are Jeff Staggs and Tony Tantalo, the president and vice president of the Oregon bait building company.

Jeff and Tony showed us around their plant. They pointed out some of the baits that had been especially productive on the Umpqua. They weren’t guessing. Both of the Florence-based bait makers are just as big fishing nuts as the rest of us. Maybe more so. They don’t just build baits---they use them. They regularly test their products on the Umpqua River as well as the several largemouth lakes you’ll find scattered along the Central Oregon Coast. They don’t market a bait until they know it works.

Jeff and Tony have come up with a dandy selection of plastic lures. I’ve personally used them to knock the knock the scales off bass and panfish all over the Pacific Northwest and way down south of the border in old Mexico. The darn things work. It didn’t take long for Jennie to find that out. She nailed her first smallmouth on the Slam-It tube before we moved 20 yards down river.

Scott, as expected, pointed out the right spots for Jennie to present her Oregon-made tubes. She quickly picked up the rod manipulations that were required to make those wriggling hunks of plastic especially appealing to the Umpqua’s smallmouth.

Do you get what I was driving at when I said in the beginning that there was a good bit of similarity between cookin’ & catchin? You’re not going to do worth a toot at either one without first having the required ingredients and then making sure those ingredients are used in the proper fashion.

Should you ever have the good fortune to slide your boots under Jennie’s dinner table, you’ll find out I know whereof I speak. And it’s just as likely to happen should you be equally blessed and get to join her on a Tillamook Bay or Kilchis River fishing adventure.

In the meantime, and as I suggested in my previous column, if you hang your fishing hat in the Pacific Northwest take a look at Jennie’s Internet web site. Again, you’ll find it at www.ifish.net. On second thought, better not do that unless you’re prepared to make time for it on a regular basis. I say that because odds are you’ll wind up as “hooked” on it as countless other Northwest anglers already are.

If you know your way around the kitchen, it’s a cinch you’ve got the required ingredients for whatever recipe you’ve selected somewhere on your pantry shelf. The same requirement applies when you’re on your favorite lake or river. Your tackle box or tackle vest has to have the “ingredients” that will help you catch fish.

My guess is Jennie Martin’s tackle box will hold a generous assortment of Outlaw Baits plastic lures on her next visit to the Umpqua River. So will mine!

 

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