THE WILD COUNTRY CREW: Your official West Coast radio outfitters
UPDATED March 24, 2008

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

Fortunately, you don't have to ... because the Wild Country on-air crew has already been there, done that. With over 100 years of West Coast outdoors experience among them, Northwest Wild Country host Joel Shangle and co-hosts Bill Herzog and Mike Perusse come to the Saturday studios fully 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!

JOEL SHANGLE - Your host

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, though, is what really 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 - 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.

BILL HERZOG - Your co-host

One of the most well-known outdoors writers on the West Coast, Bill Herzog's influences runs 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 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 career is 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).

Mike Perusse - Your co-host

The latest edition to the Wild Country studio team, Mike Perusse hits the studio every Saturday morning carrying a 20-ounce Rockstar in each hand, and 25 years of on-the-water experience on some of the greatest salmon and steelhead fisheries in the world.

A longtime member of the G-Loomis sales team, Perusse routinely patrols the West Coast from southern Oregon to Alaska, spreading the gospel of the Skeleton Fish. As you might guess, he has a list of fishing buddies and sources that covers every fishery from the Chetco River to Bristol Bay.

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).