Matt Straw’s Blog

Recent Posts

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Fishing vertically with light line and light jigs  creates line twist. Right? You reel in, the jig spins. You drop…»

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Bluegills exhibit exotic and varied color schemes. Never ceases to amaze me how many different patterns can be seen in…»

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Looking at my photo library and fishing logs from last year at this time, I see we were running the…»

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Not a big specimen, by anyone’s standards, but look how pristine and healthy she is. Steelhead from Lake Superior seldom…»

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This shot was taken about 24 hours ago, as I write this on April 24. We ventured up to the…»

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April is two thirds gone and we just received 12 inches of fresh snow overnight. That storm came on the…»

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Frost covers the ground before day break. A history of air temperatures and the recent disappearance of snow tells the…»

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Rivers are climbing over their banks and invading our forests at the behest of the Chocolate Beast. The Beast comes…»

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Mary Savage admires the silver sides and pink highlights of another nice one. Marine olive backs and multiple black spots.…»

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Notice how red the tag alder is? Mornings have been cold, but the afternoon sun is activating plant growth, creating…»

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Trails are slick, dangerous ribbons of hard ice, packed into place by the passage of deer throughout the winter. Snow…»

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  Rapala issued a statement today: “Alaska’s Nushagak River system holds the largest run of king salmon on the planet.…»

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  Somewhere on a tributary of the Great Lakes, snow builds on the horizontal branches of phantom trees, not to…»

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God’s rose garden.  Those pastel orange-pink-purple sunrises painted across non-descript stratus clouds—the kind of sunrise that promises nice weather and…»

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The rod is already engaged with a wild steelhead by the time you’re able to grab it. Reeling the tip…»

Salmon

We interrupt this stream of steelhead consciousness to bring you salmon Jamaican style. Mon. (The promised presentation piece will appear…»

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Ok, I lied (again). Promised to deliver a little more inside information on ice fishing for steelhead yesterday but got…»

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Reason #1: Scenes like this one. Releasing multiple silver dynamos like this girl, fresh from the big water, is all…»

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It’s that time of year again. Rivers swollen with warming rain bring steelhead charging into the flow to close the…»

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  When surface temperatures cool to somewhere in the vicinity of the 60°F mark in fall, lake trout begin staging…»

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Few contrasts are as startling as the tropical orange-yellow-blue-green of multi-hued bluegills against deep snow. When the snow gets deep,…»

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Predicting runs of salmon, like this Olympic Peninsula silver, into the Columbia and other Northwest rivers just became a little…»

Blog Steel

Wind rattles the last dry leaves in the red oaks. In the dark shadow of cedars, footfalls crunch through crusty…»

Miss BWater Perch

In the center is Stanley Von Ruden, on the left is is son Kyle, and to the right is our…»

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“Uh. You’ve got another one, Strawman,” laughed Chris Beeksma  I looked up. The HT Enterprises Ice Rigger flag was down.…»

Matt Straw

Matt Straw

Matt Straw grew up around trout streams and bass lakes in Michigan. Always fascinated with water, he used his spare time to research baitfish, aquatic insects, and limnology in the biology library at the University of Michigan, where he graduated with degrees in communication and English literature with a teaching certificate.

His professors encouraged him to publish and he did, placing articles in outdoor magazines before graduation. He then took a reporting job with Advance Newspapers. Five years later, his beat was the largest in the chain’s history. He joined In-Fisherman as an editor in 1990 and worked there for 20 years.

During that time he described many novel fishing concepts and techniques for catching smallmouth bass, steelhead and salmon, panfish, and more. His writings on steelhead are recognized throughout the industry as some of the most informative ever published.

Today, Matt writes for a number of media outlets on a free-lance basis. As Field Editor for In-Fisherman, he regularly writes features for In-Fisherman magazine and the company’s annual guides. He also uses his multi-species experience to help youngsters find fish and enjoy the outdoors by volunteering to speak and bait hooks for kids groups and outings throughout the Midwest.