Tight lines on the Salish Sea.

Chester will present a program on targeting sea-run cutthroat trout in Puget Sound. He will detail strategies for finding productive water, timing the tides, and rigging effectively, while sharing photos of his favorite waters.

Chester is a Pacific Northwest outdoor journalist, author, and lifelong fly angler based in Central Oregon. A former newspaper columnist, he is best known for his landmark book, Fly Fishing for Sea-Run Cutthroat, an essential guide to reading tides, choosing tactics, and targeting wild coastal trout along saltwater beaches.

Brian learned to fly fish from his grandfather at eight years old on the rivers around Missoula, Montana. He graduated from high school in 1973 and immediately lit out for a year of fishing, skiing, and working in New Zealand, then took a job with the Forest Service in Cooper Landing, Alaska — where, to save money for fly fishing, he fed himself and his entire crew on lake trout caught on Vienna sausages.

He guided in Alaska in the late '70s and '80s and eventually parlayed his talent and experience into a career as one of the most successful and influential photographers in fly fishing. If you've picked up a fly fishing magazine in the past 40 years, you've seen Brian O'Keefe's photos. Despite fishing all over the world, often at the finest lodges, Brian remains a DIY dirtbag at heart: he loves unpretentious, accessible fish and fishing, and freely shares his knowledge and experience. The stories alone are legendary.

Herschel will share insights from his long-standing manufacturing partnership with Far Bank Enterprises and its iconic fly-fishing brands, Sage and RIO Products. Drawing on decades of experience in engineering, product design, tooling, and manufacturing, he will provide a behind-the-scenes look at how premium fly-fishing gear, bags, cases, and carrier equipment are developed and brought to market — along with stories from a lifetime of fly fishing around the world.

Herschel is Managing Director of Triad-Orbit Advanced Stand Systems, a division of Music Express LLC. A co-founder of Schecter Guitar Research, he has more than five decades of experience in product development, manufacturing, and global sourcing, holds more than 30 patents, and has overseen the development of more than 2,000 products for brands including Yamaha, JBL, Fender, and Gibson.

Mike will share his knowledge of his home waters as the owner of Lost Creek Fly Shop, started in 1996 and located just minutes from the Cowlitz River. He fishes four watersheds — the Cowlitz, the Newaukum, the Skookumchuck, and the Chehalis — which hold salmon, steelhead, cutthroat, rainbow, brown, triploid, and brook trout, largemouth and smallmouth bass, tiger muskie, and bluegill.