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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

He’s not acting


His bare hands seemingly impervious to the wintry cold, Seth Burrill of Otis Orchards, host for the Angler's Xperience TV fishing show, nets one of a couple dozen mackinaw he caught recently while light-tackle fishing in shallow water at Priest Lake.
 (Photo by RICH LANDERS / The Spokesman-Review)
Rich Landers Outdoors editor

Television fishing shows have a tempting connection to fantasy. Editing can make four days of filming and mediocre action look like one fantastic half-hour of fishing. Location freebies can influence content in exchange for publicity. What you see isn’t always the way it happened.

But after being aboard to watch the host of The Angler’s Xperience ply his trade with rod and reel, it’s clear that Seth Burrill of Otis Orchards is the real deal.

At 31, he’s been fishing for 25 years.

“In high school (at East Valley), I used to experiment with tying knots in the back of the classroom,” he said. “The year before I started the show, I fished 130 days.”

Burrill is one of those can-do guys who knew he’d be every bit as good at re-roofing his house as a full-time roofer.

He has a working man’s hands distinguished by a right thumb that’s worn, cracked and peeling like the windward side of an abandoned ship.

“I fish a lot,” he explained.

Burrill was as comfortable fishing at Priest Lake on a gloomy 18-degree morning two weeks ago as he might be any day of the summer.

“Dress appropriately,” he warned when we met at his home at 5:30 a.m. “My boat has no heater and no top. It’s a tough-guy fishing boat.”

Fishing in adverse conditions is not a new drill to Burrill, who’s filmed more than 90 TV shows in a production schedule that defies waiting for perfect weather.

The back of his pickup was loaded with 250 pounds of sand and 80 pounds of rock salt to help thwart any winter challenges at the boat ramp.

Even with all the salmon steelhead gear removed from the boat, the Crestliner was still equipped with an arsenal of fishing rods and 144 tackle boxes.

“We won’t need hardly any of that stuff today,” he said at the boat launch as he pampered the outboard motor to idle in the frigid weather. “We’ll be drop-shotting for lake trout that are still spawning. They’re broadcast spawners, you know, so when you find them, they’re in a group. We’ll be using light tackle in shallow water. We’re going to catch a big bunch of fish.”

Yeah, sure, I thought. I’ve been winter fishing for mackinaw.

I brought along a Thermos of coffee and a big bunch of doughnuts.

Everything in Burrill’s boat has a purpose, but on the approach to his chosen fishing area at the north end of the lake, the sonar unit was the center of his universe.

Small talk subsided as he idled the 250-horse outboard. Burrill was focused on the sonar screen like a pointer with a nose full of pheasant scent.

Using the electric trolling motor, he found a hump of golf-ball-size gravel that rises from the deep water to a narrow bench under 40-45 feet of water. He dropped a marker buoy.

“See the fish?” he said, pointing to the arcs hugging the lake bottom on the sonar screen. “A good fisherman needs to be comfortable with his electronics. You need to school up on it. There’s more to it than reading depth and temperature. I use it to study the bottom.

“And if I don’t see fish down there, I go someplace else.”

He trolled to where the bench started getting shallower, about 39 feet deep, and dropped another buoy 50 yards from the first. That was the playing field for the next six hours.

“Time to fish,” he said.

Burrill’s TV program, which he films in the Northwest with cameraman Mickey Hough, is a different breed.

Because he usually doesn’t disclose the name of the water he’s fishing, he isn’t tied to glorifying resorts that might lure him with free accommodations.

“We focus on the techniques, because once you have that knowledge, you can apply it to anywhere you want to fish,” he said.

Some fishing shows resemble infomercials, and portions of The Angler’s Xperience are no exception.

“We have to buy our air time and we need sponsorship to do it,” he said, noting that the TV program will switch from a cable broadcast to an online subscriber service in 2008.

But he said he’s never compromised on catching fish.

“If something doesn’t work, it won’t be on my boat,” he said. “Try doing 13 shows in 13 weeks and you’ll realize real fast that it’s hard enough dealing with fish that don’t want to cooperate without dealing with inferior gear.”

As he rigged his rod to fish for Priest Lake macks, I asked Burrill why his TV programs and the excellent DVD he’s produced on drop-shot fishing techniques are so specific on tackle.

“Fishermen want you to be specific,” he said, recalling the questions asked after a program he presented to the Spokane Walleye Club.

His reel was spooled with Berkley’s FireLine crystal translucent 6-pound line, which cuts through the water with a diameter comparable to a 2-pound monofilament. With no stretch, it increases the sensitivity for light strikes.

To the main line, he used a double uni-knot to attach about 6 feet of 6-pound Trilene clear fluorocarbon leader, which is virtually invisible underwater, giving the drop-shotting bait the appearance of being suspended in the water column.

He took a fold of line from the middle of the leader, threaded it through the eye of a hook and fastened it on with a Palomar knot. He has some tricks, one of which involves a drop of Super Glue, to hold the hook perpendicular to the leader.

The hook was a Roboworm ReBarb, medium wire, Size 1, which has a big enough gap to get a good hook set without being so heavy that it hangs lower than perpendicular to the leader or compromises the presentation.

The rebarb helps hold on the plastic bait – a Powerbait 5-inch Jerk Shad in pearl white, which picks up light and offers finesse presentation of a wounded baitfish in a profile that’s easy to swallow.

At the end of the leader, a couple feet below the hook, he adds just enough weight to keep contact with the bottom – no more, no less.

Burrill dropped the rig into the water. I was surprised to see it scope slightly toward the back of the boat.

“It goes against jigging tradition, but there are no vertical lines in my boat,” he said. “I try to keep moving, slowly, with the electric motor to cover more ground.”

He hooked the first lake trout within two minutes and continued in a fishing spell that left no time to eat a single doughnut until we took a break three hours later.

We dropped an underwater camera down to see how naturally the Jerk Shad looked swimming a couple of feet off the bottom perpendicular to the leader. Burrill inflicts very subtile twitches to the rod that translate into tantalizing movements in the bait.

Two bald eagles perched in a snag on a nearby island and watched intently as we caught and released several dozen fish. The birds apparently hoped we’d release a fish that could not submerge because of a bloated air bladder.

They were disappointed.

Each lake trout was reeled in slowly to let it burp. A few were a bit bloated from being hauled up through two atmospheres, but five that had the pinkish-orange tongue and mouth of a shrimp-feeding mackinaw were quickly dispatched, bled and put in the fish box, where staying chilled was no problem as the air temperatures soared to about 20 degrees.

“The best eaters are these 4- to 5-pounders with the colored mouths that indicate the flesh will be sockeye-red,” he said.

And he was absolutely right – again.