A trout tickler of a rock & roll chef and his spin-fishin’ mission.
“I want to seek joy, fun and adventure whether through working on the road or exploring different pockets of the world. We have to have fun on this ride. We get one shot. To bring people together. That’s why I cook and make things.”
Bend-based lure maker Zack Tickler with a nice brown trout. Zack Tickler image.
There was a time when the world went crazytown, and I kept fishing even when state governors said to stay home. And people wrote me nastygrams and told me I shouldn’t encourage people to go fishing because their grandmothers would get sick. I kept fishing. And the Forest Circus closed the outhouses for public safety. I kept fishing.
It was during those dizzy days a fellow sent me a note and told me how he had started making bass-style spinnerbaits sized-down for trout. As an enthusiast of the salmonid spinner, I had to take notice.
This is a tale about a trout fishing rock & roll chef and his life’s mission, which is cooking good food, making things and going fishing.
“I like to bring people together,” Zack Tickler said. “I think that’s why I cook and make things. Making things brings people together.”
Good food brings the people together. Zack Tickler image.
Before I could properly understand a trout spinnerbait, I had to prove it to myself. I like to cast spinners in early spring, when the aggressive fish out of any pod of rainbows will slam a spinner with abandon. It was on a swing back out of eastern Oregon, one of those road-trips-for-rainbows things I like to do when I caught my first trout on one of Tickler’s spinners. After that, I fished with my dad on Pine Hollow Reservoir and notched a couple more trout on the little spinnerbaits. My best trout so far on a Trout Wizard spinner was a 15-incher whose ticket I punched on East Lake.
Trout Wizard Meets Guitar Heroes
Zack Tickler makes his home in Bend, Oregon, but his vocation takes him out on the road with some of the great musicians of our time. Zack and his wife, Liz, are thoughtful foodies that can figure out how to make the most of local foods wherever they find them whether the venue is Brazil or Barcelona or Brussels.
Zack and Liz have cooked for the likes of Neil Young, the Dave Matthews Band, the Zac Brown Band, Keith Urban, Usher, the WWE Superstars and most recently, for the folk-pop singer/songwriter Noah Kahan at Fenway Park.
“Once I was watching Neil Diamond from the side of the stage,” Tickler said, “and he turned to his wife who was in the audience and he said, “Katie, I wish I could tell you I wrote this song about you, but you weren’t even born yet.” And then he launched into Cracklin’ Rosie.
When they toured with the Foo Fighters, Tickler said their drummer, the late Taylor Hawkins, was the quietest of the bunch, but he always made a point to come by and say hello.
A collection of Tickler’s trout temptations laid out on an electric guitar. A travel assortment of spinners and spoons can travel light. Zack Tickler image.
“I was cooking for Neil Young and and we were driving from the East coast of Canada to the West Coast of Canada on what he called the Honor The Treaties Tour about not running the Keystone Pipeline through First Nations lands. We were driv-ing through these tiny little towns. Stop-ping at tiny tackle shops and tiny grocery stores and gas stations trying to get enough food to feed Neil’s manager and him and me, and I ended up finding some pheasant and making a pheasant stew while driving 55 mph down the road.”
One of his favorite rock and roll clients is Joe Bonamassa for whom he has been working for more than 10 years. If you have ever seen Joe Bonamassa in concert, you have seen one of the best blues guitarists of our time.
Having grown up in a family that loved music, Tickler and Bonamassa were kindred spirits.
“My father passed away in ‘99 and he had a pretty epic guitar collection,” Tickler said. Zack and his brother split up the collection and his brother, who was the best guitar player, got some of the best ones. “But there were still a couple of guitars that weren’t getting played,” Tickler said.
A toothy brown caught on a tiny spinnerbait. Zack Tickler image.
In 2014, Tickler told Bonamassa about his pop’s E355 Gibson Hollowbody Custom and Joe wanted to see it. Tickler’s mom brought the Gibson to a show in Oakland and Joe wanted it.
Bonamassa looked it over and told Tickler what the guitar was worth and then made him an offer, raising the price a bit.
“It will get played every night. It will get beat up,” Bonamassa apologized in advance. And that Gibson has been in Bonamassa’s rotation ever since.
If you catch Bonamassa in New Mexico, or at Red Rocks, somewhere in Nebraska, Kansas, Alabama, Indianapolis or at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester this summer and fall, look for that guitar with the two F-holes, humbucker pickups and the Bluesboy strap. You probably won’t see them, but Zack and Liz will be there back-stage, cooking the good food for the band, bringing the people together. And if there is a day between shows, you can bet Zack and Liz will be bending their rods, catching trout or bass or bream on tiny spinners, spoons and handcrafted plugs.
Liz with a trophy taken on light tackle between gigs. Zack Tickler image.
Tickler’s Trout Temptations
When he is not traveling, Tickler tries to make the most of the fishing in Central Oregon. It was for the upper Deschutes River and the high lakes that he began crafting small spinners tuned to target rainbows, browns and brookies.
“I was really tired of line twist,” Tickler said, “so I took inspiration from my bass fishing lures and built an overhead style spinnerbait.”
This was the spinner that caught my eye—a bass fishing-styled spinnerbait for trout. Back in 2020, Tickler sent me a handful of spinners to try and I saw his vision. A kindred spirit.
Trout Wizard Lure Company sells lures via their Instagram page.
A Central Oregon rainbow taken on an inline spinner. Zack Tickler image.
To my mind, the Spell Slinger Spinner is the right choice early and late in the day to target aggressive trout. Tickler ties his spinners both as attractors and to match local food sources. Lost Galaxy, Dragon-fly, Dwarven Armor, Ghost Minnow, PNW Brownster, PNW Craw and The Wraith are some of his top sellers.
There are times during the season when spoons out-fish spinners and Tickler sells both a casting spoon and a flutter spoon for pulling behind a boat. Don’t be afraid to tip the Crown of Thorns or Hammer of Doom with a piece of corn or a salmon egg. Tickler uses very sharp single hooks on all his spoons and spinners.
There are two styles of plugs in Tickler’s catalog. He calls them Mystic Minnows. The floating minnow is a classic shape hand-painted in patterns like Rain-bow Trout, Smoke Shad, The Fighter and Toxic Lightning. When a sinking minnow is called for, it’s a humpback style with patterns like Yamame Unicorn, Fool’s Gold and Ancient Bones.
Tickler styles himself an ambassador for catch-and-release fishing with high quality lures built by hand, one at a time right here in America. Each of his lures are hand painted, turned, twisted and tied by himself. And he is quick to fill orders, except when he is rocking a frying pan and a spatula in the back of a tour bus.
Fishing for brook trout was good in early summer. A Mystic Minnow tempted this brook trout from an edge of wilderness lake in Central Oregon. Zack Tickler image.
A Spinning Rod for Trout
One of the hardest things in all of fishing is to find a good spinning rod for trout. And if I sound like a snob it’s because I am. But it’s hard to talk about it around some of my other friends who are fly fishermen only. They don’t know what I’m talking about because there are hundreds of good fly rods for trout.
A lot of us are missing out on some of the pleasures of trout fishing because we use whatever trout rods we are stuck with. It doesn’t have to be this way. To my way of thinking the ideal trout rod is 6 to 7 feet long. No shorter. No longer. Fiberglass or graphite; it’s a medium-fast action and should be paired with a high-quality reel and loaded with 4-pound test line. I have only owned one good one in 50-plus years of fishing. And I got a second one because I liked it so well. Then the company went out of business and I broke both rods. Don’t miss out on the good things. The perfect spinning rod is out there. I know it. If you find one, tell me about it.
Gary Lewis is the author of Fishing Central Oregon. To contact Gary visit his website garylewisoutdoors.com or cast him an email garylewisoutdoors@gmail.com
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