Bryan Bell, a seasoned tournament pro from Kennewick, WA, has fished many regional tournaments in the Pacific Northwest as well as the National Walleye Tour.
Outside of tournament fishing, he spends a lot of time as a fishing guide in the Washington area for salmon, trout, sturgeon, and walleyes. When he’s not in a boat, you can find him spending time with his wife and daughters, at his vacation house near the ocean, or hunting for elk and geese.
Bryan’s favorite body of water to fish is the Naches River located in Washington. He grew up fishing the river and says that he learned how to read water and river fish on the Naches River. A world-class fishery, the Columbia River, is located right around the corner from Bryan’s hometown which has made it easy to call his home body of water. Bryan says it’s a big river system that fishes similar to a reservoir that commonly produces 11-14lb walleyes which keeps it very exciting.
Bryan is no stranger to the no-live-bait rules of PWS (nightcrawlers are the exception) because of the regulations in Washington and Oregon. He does say that the 5 hour tournament days really put pressure on him because it doesn’t give him much of a chance to move around to find fish during tournament hours. Bryan is excited for the different array of fisheries on the schedule for the season and how diverse they all are from one another. Being from the Pacific Northwest, one of his biggest weaknesses is the lack of experience on some of the better Midwest walleye fisheries, but he also says he is lucky to have some very unique, top notch fishing spots located in the Pacific Northwest.