Salmon University in WA - Has anyone gone to this?

Has anyone attended the 2-day Salmon University Saltwater Seminar here in WA? The next session is in April in Kent. I'm wondering if you consider it time well spent.

I enjoy fishing but kind of got away from it a while back. And I've never fished down here in Puget Sound/Desolation. I'd like to gear up and give it a go this year.

http://salmonuniversity.com/about/2016seminar

Thanks for your input,
Mary

No I have not.


The coming Seattle boat show has free seminars if you are interested. Down riggers are usually requied for the depth of 30 to 300 ft depending what you are fishing for. Also requires a slow speed which most large boats can not a chief with out slipping in out if gear. The Eagle is to big, so we use the 19 ft run about with small 4 hp ob or the 14 ft Livingston dink. Low free boards close to the water. Also there are charter fish boats which are good for learning. The right boat, tackle, place and time.

I am thinking or selling the run about that is good for sound and lake fishing and also other water play toys. I am not to concerned about the selling price as the right person using and taking care of it. We have a lot of great memories with the boat.

I've used some of the Salmon University recipes from their website for smoking salmon. Great results! I didn't realize that they offer seminars. Sounds like a good idea.

I have not attended their seminars but I do use the fishing reports quite often.

A co-worker attended some years ago. I think he viewed it as being worthwhile. He's passed on to me a few tips and techniques that he learned there.

However.... I've used some of the tips and techniques he passed on and while the reasoning behind them make all sorts of sense, the fish themselves apparently do not attend this seminar.

So in pretty short order they proved to us that the "always do this" and "fish always do that" rules from the classes are not rules at all but are simply things that fish sometimes do when they feel like doing it. The rest of the time they do something else.

I have found over the past 29 years of fishing in this region that the most valuable and consistent techniques I have learned have all come from longtime local fisherman in the specific area we fish in. The techniques we use up the north end of Vancouver Island for salmon are very different than the techniques we use in Puget Sound, for example.

And even then, there are plenty of instances of fish who prove to be the exception to the accepted local "rules."

In fact in all the years I've been fishing--- ocean fishing in Hawaii, river and lake fishing here and in BC and the Yukon, and salt water fishing here and in BC--- I have only found one rule to be universally true and this I learned years ago from a college friend during a Land Rover trip in the Yukon. My friend's rule is: If you know for sure a fish is there and if you put something it's really interested in directly in front of its nose it will most likely bite it.

My guess is that this is why they call this activity "fishing," not "catching."

An old timer taught me that there are two rules for fishing and he did not know which one was most important. They are, go where the fish are and the other rule is to take along enough food so you can eat your way out of any situation you get into. Yep, these rules have always worked for me.