Growing up and fishing with my dad was always fun and exciting. However, the addiction didn’t truly take hold until I started going on my own. From this point on it was the anticipation of what might be that kept me coming back. Once I got home each day I would sit down to tie up what I thought would work for the next trip. This passion has kept me tying jigs for over 15 years. In this time I have learned the hard way that quality materials such as Owner, Gamakatsu or Mustad hooks and tying materials from places like Hareline Dubbin are the only way to be able to have confidence that you are fishing a quality product that isn’t going to fail in the moment of truth.
Growing up, winter steelhead was the name of the game because the long hours of working on the farm kept you away from many of the other species. Fishing the Molalla and the Nestucca Rivers as a youngster and later the Siletz, Alsea, South Santiam and Wallowa rivers while at college provided me a variety of rivers to hone my skills and jig patterns on. During this time I was able to stumble through a lot of ‘learned lessons’ as there were many failed and downright ugly concoctions at times. Eventually fish started taking my own creations and before you knew it I was tying jigs for all of my friends and family because they knew they caught fish.
My name is Samuel Wurdinger and I grew up in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and feel blessed to be able to fish for salmon or steelhead 12 months a year all within a morning’s drive. I now live in beautiful Silverton, Oregon and even though you’ll see me throughout the state chasing chrome, my home rivers now include the Clackamas, Molalla, and North Santiam Rivers. All my friends call me Dinger. Make sure to say Hi.
In the meantime, browse and buy some jigs that look good. Every jig is hand-tied, by myself, and catches fish. Good fishing to you.