WILD BLOG: Breaking the 30-year steelhead learning curve in one day
UPDATED Sept. 7, 2010 / 12:40 p.m.

ARLINGTON, Wash. - I'd like to shoot a shotgun like Tom Knapp. If only I could cast a fly like Steve Rajeff. Sure wish I could cook like Tom Douglas, pour a martini like Keith Robbins, and tell a joke like Ron White.

Practice. I can do it. If I spend the next 30 years shooting my Benelli, making 300 spey casts, pouring gin and rehearsing punchlines every day, I'll have it all down.

Practice. Repitition. No problem!

*Insert sound of screeching tires here ... *

P-R-O-B-L-E-M: Man, I don't have time for all that. Do you? That 30 years of expert knowledge takes 30 years to collect, dammit. Where's the "Easy" button when you need it?

And SteelheadPalooza was born.

The Auburn Sports & Marine crew has been hard at work organizing the parking and setup for the venue, getting tents, tables and chairs ready, setting up the P.A. system and doing all the hard work that goes into an event like this. Come Saturday morning, all you have to do is show up and partake in a day that we're dubbing "The 30-Year Learning Curve".

They've lived it, now Y-O-U learn it
Bill Herzog caught his first steelhead in January of 1971 on the McMillen Drift on the Puyallup River. On a spoon.

Since then, he's brought exactly 213 20-plus-pound steelhead to hand, roughly 80 percent on spoons. The last steelhead he caught - this week on the Hoh River - was on a spoon.

You think you'd like to learn a few tricks about fishing bent metal from General Zog?

You can. FOR FREE.

Just show up to Flaming Geyser State Park on Saturday for SteelheadPalooza 2010, and stand wader-to-wader with Herzog in the upper Green River as he shares the Tao of the Spoon. Or Mike Perusse's shoulder as our resident Federation of Fly Fishers Master Casting Instructor holds court on the centerpin.

Ditto for Duane Inglin, the Duke of the Drift Bobber, or Rob Brown, the Pacific Northwest's unequalled spinner specialist.

Here's the reality: Becoming a crackerjack steelhead angler takes time, but you can collect several years of steelhead learning in one place, through practical, hands-on instruction from experts in the craft.

That's the whole concept of SteelheadPalooza. It's a hands-on, in-the-river application of the skills and concepts that fine educators like Steelhead University have been showing you for years. It's the lab portion of your ongoing steelhead education, if you will.

The Palooza Pileup
Here are the need-to-know details of the West Coast's only on-the-water winter-steelhead festival:

nSaturday, Sept. 11, 9 to 4 a.m.: Come and go as you please! If you have a few hours open in the morning, bring the whole family. Can't make it until the afternoon? No worries, the Palooza is open until 4 p.m.!

nFlaming Geyster State Park in Auburn: FREE PARKING, with shuttles to take you back and forth from the Palooza grounds to your car.

nSerious Seminar Horsepower!: Bill Herzog on spoons; Mike Perusse on the art of the centerpin; Duane Inglin on float drifting; Rob Brown on spinners for steelhead AND coho; Bruce Warren in the Beau Mac Rigging Station; the Pautzke Bait Lab; Auburn Sports & Marine and RivTech experts on rigging keys for jet and drift boats; MORE seminar announcements today and tomorrow!

nTest Drive/Crash Test the latest gear!: Cast the latest steelhead rods from G-Loomis, Lamiglas, St. Croix, Okuma and more; try the latest reels from Shimano, Daiwa, Abu-Garcia, Quantum and more; check out the coolest new gotta-have-it gear from Berkley, Yakima Bait Co., Beau Mac and more.

nFree lunch, giveaways & discounts!: Lunch courtesy of the Green River Steelheaders, giveaways (including a $350 Loomis steelhead rod), discount cards and samples.

-JS

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