Mike Perusse - Co-host

The latest edition to the Wild Country studio team, Mike Perusse hits the studio with a 20-ounce Rockstar in each hand, headphones in a Crown Royal bag, and 25 years of on-the-water experience on some of the most famous salmon and steelhead fisheries in the world. With a list of fishing buddies and sources that filters through virtually every fishery from northern California to southeast Alaska, Mikey P. knows what's happening 24/7 … even before it happens.

Perusse's expansive West Coast fishing knowledge comes from his multi-tiered career as a professional fishing guide on Oregon's Tillamook Bay, a hired gun on the Nushagak River for Alaska King Salmon Adventures, and a 12-year member of the G-Loomis rep team, where here's responsible for some of the most important coverage territories in both the Loomis orbit: Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Idaho. Perusse holds a master fly-casting certification through the Federation of Fly Fishers, and gives dozens of casting seminars a year throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Perusse can be seen on Amato Publications' wildly successful Side Drifting for Steelhead video, which he co-wrote and co-hosted.

AT A GLANCE

• Favorite fishery: "Upper Kenai River rainbows. It's a lot like steelhead fishing, except you're using trout gear. It's never a bad thing when you catch a 32-inch rainbow on trout gear."

• Favorite NWWC guest: "Luke Clausen. He's a local kid who picked six numbers and hit it big."

• Favorite repeat guest: "Eric Linde. He's just dialed in, and he's always excited about the next day."

• Dream interview: "Hank Williams, Jr. He's the man."

• Favorite intro song: "All My Rowdy Friends are Coming Over Tonight. Hank is original, and he loves to fish."