THE WILD COUNTRY CREW: Your official West Coast radio outfitters
UPDATED Feb. 18, 2012

If you had an unlimited budget and unlimited time, maybe you could research every lake, river and stream from Alaska to California. Maybe.

Fortunately, you don't have to: The Wild Country on-air crew has already been there, done that. With over 110 years of West Coast outdoors experience among them, Northwest Wild Country host Joel Shangle and co-hosts Bill Herzog, Nick Petosa and Mike Perusse come to the Saturday studios loaded with information on everything from Mackinaw to giant sturgeon.

You want info on kokanee? Done. Steelhead? Done. Smallmouth bass, Chinook salmon, Lahontan cutthroat and Dolly Varden? Done, done, done and done!

The host and creator of Northwest Wild Country, veteran outdoors journalist Joel Shangle lists a fishing, hunting and adventure resume that reads like an itinerary from The Amazing Race:

nDorado and sailfish on Hannibal Bank in Panama ...

nLargemouth bass in the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico ...

nNorthern pike and lake trout in the McKenzie Range of the Yukon Territory ...

nAtlantic salmon in the Valley of the Kings in southern Ireland ...

nBonefish and tarpon out of Key West ...

The list goes on and on.

Shangle's source list drives the Wild Country news-gathering machine. As a longtime editor of the West Coast editions of Fishing & Hunting News magazine, he built the the most exhaustive list of Western sources in the industry, and covered thousands of the best fishing and hunting spots west of the Rocky Mountains.

Shangle's byline has also appeared in some of the largest national outdoors mediums in the world - Outdoor Life, ESPN Outdoors, STIHL Timbersports - and regional titles ranging from Salmon, Trout, Steelheader to Hunting the West to The Reel News to Salmon & Steelhead Journal.

For more info, click HERE.

One of the most well-known outdoors writers on the West Coast, Bill Herzog's influences run the gamut from George Carlin to Roderick Haig Brown. As a matter of fact, he may be the only man on the planet who can quote Lewis Black, Rob Halford and Dick Weber in the same sentence.

With a vocal grab-bag that ranges from Krusty the Clown to Angus Deyoung to Joe Pesci to Bullwinkle the Moose, we're never sure which one of the voices will escape from Zog's head, but we know this: It'll be funny, it'll be clever, and it'll be interesting.

Herzog has been one of the most popular fishing writers on the West Coast for over 20 years, contributing hundreds of articles and columns as a fixture in the page of Salmon, Trout, Steelheader.

He's also written five best selling fishing books for Amato Publications: Spoon Fishing for Steelhead; Color Guide to Steelhead Drift Fishing; Tying Strong Fishing Knots; Color Guide to Bass Fishing; Guide to Lake and Stream Trout Fishing; and Steelhead Drift Fishing.

General Zog's fishing exploits are the stuff of legend: He helped pioneer spoon fishing in steelhead rivers throughout the Pacific Northwest, and he's hooked more 20-plus-pound steelhead than anyone we know (212 to be exact).

The newest member of the Wild Country crew, North Puget Sound river rat Nick Petosa grew up sharing water with some of the legends of the salmon and steelhead world. Fishing the Skagit River since he was barely old enough to walk, Petosa built a foundation of salmon and steelhead techniques on one of the most challenging river systems in the West.

He's taken that foundation and applied it to his job as the youngest full-time guide in the state.

Petosa is the owner/operator of Petosa's Fishing, specializing in both jet-boat and drift-boat trips on the Skagit system, the Olympic Peninsula and the Cowlitz River. Wild Country listeners have become accustomed to his regular reports on the Skagit's world-class humpy fishery this summer, and he'll quickly transition to the big river's abundant run of coho in September, October and November before switching gears to winter steelhead.

An active member of the Team Pautzke Pro staff, Petosa is an active contributor to both the Pautzke blogsite and to Wild Country: He's a Pro Cam regular whenever he's in studio, with North End twists on everything from bait wraps to egg cures.

Petosa is a dynamic seminar instructor, and has logged time at Cabela's, Yeager's, Puget Sound Anglers and Wholesale Sports. He's served as a source for Fishing & Hunting News, Northwest Sportsman and Salmon Trout Steelheader.

He rules the Wild Country casting course, and hits the studio every Saturday morning carrying a 20-ounce Rockstar in each hand. Throw in over 25 years of on-the-water experience on some of the greatest salmon and steelhead fisheries in the world and you have Mike Perusse.

A longtime member of the G-Loomis and Shimano sales team, Mikey Joice routinely patrols the West Coast from northern California to Alaska, spreading the gospel of the Skeleton Fish.

As you might guess, Perusse has a list of fishing buddies and sources that covers every fishery from the Chetco River to Bristol Bay, and he's clued into the political realm thanks to his tireless work on behalf of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association and the Pacific NW chapters of CCA.

Perusse's fishing foundation is one of the broadest in the industry: he's a Federation of Fly Fishers Certified Master Casting Instructor, a former licensed guide on the Tillamook Bay system in Oregon, and a member of the Alaska King Salmon Adventures guide team on the Nushagak River.

Perusse is the co-host of Side Drifting for Steelhead with Nick Amato, and host of the recently released DVD Center Pin Secrets (both by Amato Books).