Summit Outdoor Specialists

09/26/2025

National daughters day is very special for me. Thank you for being our daughter. You will ALWAYS be my little girl❤️ God is good🙏

09/07/2025

Got an invite from from some very good friends to join them on the Columbia to fish one of their haunts. Kent and Tammy Jackson spend a bunch of time on the Columbia and we had been planning this trip for nearly a year. The girls Karen and Aisy jumped in the rig and we towed the boat up to meet team Action Jackson. When we arrived Kent had decided we would anchor up and do some wobbler fishing before we started trolling after the tide change. Kent and Tammy anchored up and I pulled up next to them about 30 yrds away and hit spot lock on my Minn Kota Riptide Terrova. Admittedly this was the first time I had used my bowmount to spot lock in this much current. The river was rushing by and everyone else seemed to be on anchor but the spot lock held the boat solid for two hours in heavy current.
I did not have a great selection of wobblers so Kent was kind enough to pick a few out and when he handed them to me earlier in the day, my daughter jumped on the blue tipped chrome wobbler by Alvin.I deployed 3 wobblers in 55.7ft of water, two on my Scotty Fishing Products downriggers and one with a five foot dropper. Being blue, I naturally set the wobbler at 44 ft on the ball...IYKYK. It did not take more than 20 minutes before the Rogue custom rod made on a Stryker Rods & Blanks blank for Summit Outdoor Specialists by cVz Customs popped the clipped and buried. I grabbed the rod and quickly handed it to Ais and watched her battle what ended up to be a beautiful first ever chinook just a hair under 14 lbs. The strong river current had the fish swim right to the boat somewhat easily until it saw the boat and then the fight was on. She battled it and we finally got it to the boat. She was grinning from ear to ear. We took pictures and I quickly re-scented the wobbler with Pro-Cure Bait Scents sand shrimp and got it back into the water. I moved over to the other downrigger and quickly adjusted it to match the other at 44ft. Not more than 15 minutes later the other downrigger goes off. I grabbed the rod the fish shakes its head for about 3 seconds and it was gone. BUMMER. We wobbler fished for about an hour and a half more and then began trolling. We trolled stuffer baits and cycled through colors and styles but could not get a bite after our initial success. Kent and Tammy ended up going 2 for 3 trolling. So as a team we went 3 for 5 and had a great day! Thanks so much you guys for the invite. We had a blast. The weather was perfect...almost no wind until about 5, warm but not hot, and overcast. It was a little humid but not horrible.
Awesome day with my girls and such a proud father moment seeing my not so little girl land her first chinook after many coho.

09/01/2025

With ocean conditions predicted to be fantastic and both of us wanting to put salmon in the boat, great friend Allan J. Roche' called me last night and said..."Let's go for a short trip!" I gladly accepted and met him and Jeff early this morning. We made the drive over to the coast and launched in the pitch black across the narrow "hole" in Depoe Bay. After running out to 185 feet of water we waited for more light and began trolling. We snaked through the 180's and made our way into 130 feet of water with no bites. After debating possible areas I received a call from a very good friend and charter captain running a bottomfish charter. He confirmed that the bite was slow but the fish that were being caught were way out in deep water. We immediately pointed the bow to the West and headed out to deep water. Right when we hit 238 feet my rod gets buried. After a solid fight, we put one giant wild coho in the box. Allan immediately began doing figure 8's thoughout that area and we hooked 4 more fish and landed 2, both wild. Unfortunately we had committed to a shorter day and had to head back to the dock. I have no doubt that if we stayed a few more hours we would have limited.
We ran stuffer baits, more specifically Yakima Bait Company Spin N Fish stuffed with Allan's scented tuna recipe using Pro-Cure Bait Scents. We trolled between 26 ft and 34 ft on the line counter running 8 oz balls. Speeds varied between 2.2-3.0 depending on current.
All in all, an amazing day on the water with great friends. Thanks for the invite Allan.
Grundéns
Shortbus Flashers
Pro-Troll Inc.
Fish Seaguar

09/01/2025

09/01/2025

Decided to switch it up a little and travel to one of my old go-to haunts...the Alsea river. Had some good reports from friends to start the week with a pulse of fish moving into the river. There was concern for the weekend with the soft tides starting late in the week but you know what they say...you can't catch them from the couch. With my good friend's (Dean Pickett) son home on a quick trip from Utah and my daughter Aisy Litrakis coming along it was bound to be a fun trip.
We headed out early knowing it was a holiday weekend and good reports from the week prior. We launched at Odark thirty and were trolling by 6AM. We were treated to a beautiful sunrise and great weather but the bite never materialized. We cycled through gear and depths and never got a bite. We did see a few fish on the finder but only saw 2 fish caught and one lost until we called it a quit at 10AM. We shot out to one of my crab spots and dropped pots and saw that the bar was super calm so we joined about 10 or so boats and trolled the entrance for incoming chinook. We saw one fish caught until we left at 3PM. We pulled our last pots and ended the day with 23 gauge buster dungies! All in all a great day. Super fun and lots of laughs.

Pro-Cure Bait Scents
Grundéns

08/27/2025

Buoy 10 fishery is going off right now. The coho bite is 🔥. Spent the day with my good friend chasing salmon. The morning was pretty sloppy but the river layed down late morning and the Buoy 10 "can" bite went off on the tide change. We put 8 salmon in the boat today, with three keepers. I had a total blast.

08/18/2025

Thanks for being a top engager and making it on to my weekly engagement list! 🎉 Kent Jackson, Dave Bales, Joe Kupillas, Jared Nelson, Robert Korepta

08/17/2025

Absolutely EPIC day on Detroit today. I reached out to good friend Joe Kupillas yesterday to see if he wanted to join me for a quick trip to Detroit today. He asked me "Are fish wet???" 🤣 Seriously, whatever he said, I took it that he was "in like Flynn". I picked him up in East Salem and up the mountain we went. We were the first boat in the water and met a trio of very cool gentlemen at the ramp. I set course for the Yellow Wall troll (North side). The weather was cooler, breezier, and more overcast than expected. Water temp started at 69° but ended later in the day at 71.9°. The bite started super slow so we began cycling through gear and depths until we put a pattern together. After finding a couple of colors and finding some active depths we put a bite together. The bite was thin but consistent. Fish after fish coming over the rail was 14"+. I think we started the day with 7 fish over 14", one of which was 15. We ended day at 11:10 AM with our 20 fish limit.
We fished KokaneeKid Fishing tackle with the Wickiup mosquito being high hook, pink twisted hoochie second and Jolly green Giant third. Joe also used a couple of home tied rigs. We paired our presentations with Arrow Flash dodgers by Poulsen Cascade Tackle in colors like Pink rocket, solid gold, wonderbread, Easter Egg flames and black. We caught fish from 40' to 61' on the Scotty Fishing Products ball, our speed was 1.2-1.3mph. Joe had his new special corn recipe but I used Sean's corn and Kitchen sink corn cured using Pro-Cure Bait Scents. Both Joe and I used our cVz Customs rods. Not only did they look amazing but they handled the fight the many large kokanee presented us. Breezy, overcast conditions gave way to some sun and some small white caps but we left the water early enough it was a none issue.
What an awesome day on the water.

08/10/2025

Spent the last two days prefishing Friday and fishing the Odell derby Saturday. Aside from ANOTHER road closure due to wildfire extending my travel to a kokanee derby for the second consecutive time, I had a spectacular trip. We had amazing weather and phenominal fishing. I brought in a new ringer as my derby partner, A Ray Kintner. He was gracious enough to join Team Summit Outdoor Specialists because my normal partners had prior committments. Ray and I had a blast. After arriving at camp around 10 PM Thursday night, we got out on the water around 7 AM Friday morning. We fished several of my favorite trolls and after putting 28 kokanee in the boat I felt we had a good idea of where fish were biting. The fish finders showed the lake was literally full of schooling fish.
Early Saturday, derby day, brought even nicer weather and better fishing. We deployed gear at 5:15AM and were fishing by 5:30. At around 6:20 fish began flowing over the rail, slowly but steadily. As the sun rose and temps warmed, fishing heated up. By 10 AM it was tough to keep more than one rod fishing at times. We ended the day with 49 fish releasing several early in the AM untouched and unharmed. The kokanee were short striking both days and we had many drive-byes and lost fish both days.
We used KokaneeKid Fishing tackle with Ole Blue being high hook with most fish caught, pink twisted hoochie (look at my live video from derby day and watch until the end) second with more quality fish and the wickiup mosquito third. Fish were caught from 50' to 90' on the Scotty Fishing Products ball, most of which were between 50 and 65'. Our presentations were matched with Poulsen Cascade Tackle arrow flash dodgers in colors like gold, pink rocket, orange rocket, black and cop car. Pro-Cure Bait Scents was used to cure my famous Sean's and Kitchen sink corn. My now well broken in rods from cVz Customs had a serious work out landing over 90 fish in two days and looked incredibly good doing it.
Unfortunately we did not place in the top 10 for only third time in 7 tries. There was a large turn out with many good fisherman and despite catching many fish, we had a hard time finding the large size class of fish.
Big thank you Kokanee Power of Oregon Group for sponsoring another fantastic derby and everyone who competed and supported the event. What a great day!

07/29/2025

I was blessed to spend a spectacular day on Lake Pacific yesterday. My close friend Jimmy () and his family ( and Lisa) came out to visit and spend some time in Oregon. My daughter Aisy and Nolan joined us for a trip with amazing captain and guide Mikoleits Guide Service. Jacob has many years of experience and is one fishy dude!
The weather was incredible! Bright sunshine, warm temps, near zero wind and mirror calm ocean. We laughed from Odark thirty until we parted ways that evening. Fishing was great despite being too nice. We ended keeping 5 hatchery coho and 1 beautiful pink anchored bye a bruiser 12+lb silver... That slab coho was the single best battle I have had on any coho since Alaska back in the early 90's. This fish made runs like chinook and refused the net four times. What a battle! Jacob you were right..the fight definitely does not correlate to hatchery vs wild.😅 We also boated some black rockfish, a keeper lingcod, a baseball bat greenling and 25 keeper crab. Special thanks to Jacob for being such an amazing fisherman, tour guide, and most importantly, friend. I know everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves from the morning bar crossing through the hole, the fish, crab, harbor porpoises, grey whales, murres etc all the way to their return crossing through the hole.

07/21/2025

I just finished making Dungeoness crab Fra Diavlo bow tie pasta topped with grated and of course more crab. For those who do not know, Fra Diavlo is a spicy red sauce and it is amazing! This post and pictures, with associate smell-a-vision, is specifically for my good friend who is always posting his amazing dishes with his fresh harvests. Nothing beats home cooking from scratch using game you harvest. Tight lines everyone!