Summit Outdoor Specialists

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 anothe fantastic derby and everyone who competed and supported the event. What a great day!

08/09/2025

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!

07/20/2025

Spent an absolute gorgeous morning on the water yesterday with my daughter Aisy Litrakis and Nolan Peterson at the Oregon coast. Took them to one of my honey holes for a rare mid summer crabbing trip to see if we could manage a few keeper dungies. It would be Nolans first "true" crabbing expedition. Crabbing was not hot by any means but it was very good. We definitely had to work for them. Pots were coming up full with many big females and juvies. We would often get one or two keepers in most pots. We crabbed from 7AM until 10 and pulled 22 keepers that were hard. The uncommon part of the trip was that the majority of keepers were JUMBOS! Normally you will get 2 or 3 JUMBOS, maybe a half dozen. On this trip we only caught maybe a half dozen crabs that were not gauge busters. It was a pretty incredible deal.
Weather was great. Light overcast and cool early giving way to sunny skies and just a light breeze. We used fish carcasses and chicken but enhanzed with Pro-Cure Bait Scents Crab and Shrimp attractant oil.
Had an absolute blast spending the day my family and then coming home and having big ole crab feed.

07/17/2025

If you know, you know...
Made a little breakfast from where I come from. Sure it should have been on a Kaiser roll but a hamburger bun is all I could get out here on short notice. Nothing beats starting the day with comfort food! "Pork roll, egg and cheese with salt, pepper, ketchup buuuudDY"
How many of you actually know??? Drop me a comment.

07/01/2025

Odell report 6/30/25
We had an awesome 4 days at Odell staying/glamping at Shelter Cove. Despite some windy afternoons we were able to get a lot of fishing in.
In the four days we fished we put 97 kokanee in the cooler and caught more than 160. The fishing is very good and the fish are plentiful but much smaller this year compared to last. The fish are running 11-14" with the bigger being very hard to come bye. We ended up finding some 13's and only two 14's despite hearing many talk about catching many. The evening of our first day and a portion of the morning of day two we spent a lot of time releasing d***s. It was not until mid morning that we finally got on a better fishing pattern.
We fished KokaneeKid Fishing tackle with the hot rigs being the Wickiup mosquito, Ole Blue 44, purple and pink twisted hoochies. We caught fish from the surface down to 100+ ft on our Scotty Fishing Products downriggers. Our dodgers of choice were Poulsen Cascade Tackle arrow flash in gold, gold and silver moonglow and water melon. Sean's and Kitchen sink corn sealed the deal as usual. The Pro-Cure Bait Scents cures work so well. I even passed on some corn to a couple of gentlemen at the cleaning station for their final day of fishing hoping to increase their odds of catching more. Great meeting you gentlemen. My cVz Customs rods are getting a crazy worlout this year and like the old Timex commercials, they take a lickin and keep on tickin! Speed varied through the four days but a 1.2 mph average was about right. Conditions were typical for Odell, chilly and calm in the morning and blowing up late morning with warm clear skies.
We did manage to catch 3 mackinaw with the largest being 22" which made my future son in law very happy. All in all a great camping and fishing trip.
Special thanks to all the great people we ran into and yuked it up with! Boyd Blanchard , Nat at Scream N Reelz, Eric, Bill Adams, the Harris clan and everyone else who made this trip so fun!
I absolutely love spending time with my family in the outdoors, especially when "my" adult kids join us. Nothing better than being together with famiky in the outdoors. So happy that Aisy, Karen, Nolan, Jake Pickett, Clyde and Val could spend time and enjoy the beauty of Odell. Love and appreciate you all!
So many fun memories!

06/19/2025

Aisy PB kokanee! 🫏

06/18/2025

Great giveaway for B10 trip!!

06/18/2025

Eli's PB kokanee. This kokanee was ripping drag and made him nervous but he handled it great. Memories we will all never forget.
Please excuse the almost cuss word at the end of the video...I was SO excited for him😂
That smile though...priceless!

06/15/2025

Another amazing Cross the Divide Wallowa lake derby is in the books. What a great event for a worthy cause, Veterans. This was the 4th annual and my second annual. Such an incredible area, pristine lake and awesome fishery. This derby was made even more special because not only were my good friends and last year's partners on board, but my daughter Aisy Litrakis joined our team. We found a great bite prefrishing Thurs and it stayed hot through day one of the derby landing us in 1st place going into day two. Well, how quickly things change when our late morning bite never materialized on day two of the derby. We ended up catching 30+ fish day two but no decent fish so we weighed a small limit. We finished 10th overall and are very proud to have placed in the top ten in consecutive years despite the sting of a dissappointing day two bite. Many incredible highlights for this three day trip and derby after starting off with me not sleeping for 39 straight hours due to the almost 14 hour drive getting here due to I-84 closure. Day one of the derby was the single best day of kokanee fishing I have ever experienced weighing a 9.52lb limit of five fish. More memorable was seeing not only my daughter, but my very dear friends' son catch their PB kokanee. Both are memories I will never forget.
We fished six rods, five on downriggers (2 stacked on one manual Scotty Fishing Products ). The last rod we fished a snap weight using a 2oz cannon ball. All our fish were caught between 20 and 60ft of depth and our hot colors were KokaneeKid Fishing Chartruese twisted hoochie and purple twisted hoochie. We fished Poulsen Cascade Tackle arrow flash dodgers in various colors. Our presentations were tipped with Sean's corn (tuna garlic) and Kitchen sink corn cured with Pro-Cure Bait Scents products. My not so new (anymore) custom rods from cVz Customs got a SERIOUS workout this trip and not only handled the task, but looked amazing doing it. Water temp fluctuated between 59-67° depending on the day and and location of the lake. Winds went from breezy to flat calm and back to gusty from hour to hour but generally stayed kind the entire trip. Thank you again to Cross the Divide for another amazing derby as well as all the fine companies who support my outdoor lifestyle. We appreciate you very much!
Thank you David, Eli, Doug and of course Aisy for making this trip so special. Love you all!
Also special thanks for my close friends Clyde Jenne and Val (8th), David and Linda Gail for coming out and fishing this fantastic event along side us. It was a blast.