Crabbing at Winchester Bay continues to be very good and dock crabbers are now sharing the crabbing success.
Fishing the South Jetty continues to be productive and between the salmon fishing and improved crabbing, the fishing pressure on the South Jetty is way down. Most of the fish taken are striped surfperch, greenling and smaller black rockfish.
Starting on September 3rd, the nonselective ocean coho season will begin. This will be an angler’s only chance to actually keep an unclipped or wild coho salmon this season. The cohos must be 16-inches long to keep and all kept fish must be tagged. Chinook salmon at least 24-inches long are also legal to keep in the ocean.
This Labor Day Weekend, our local STEP Chapter (Gardiner-Reedsport-Winchester Bay) will sponsor its 23rd annual Salmon Derby. The contest hours will be from daylight until 6 pm on Saturday and Sunday and from daylight until noon on Monday. This year the derby is co-sponsored by Cabelas and ticket prices are still $10.00 for an individual and $25.00 for a private boat which may include three or more anglers.
As usual, the heaviest salmon weighed in each day wins $150.00 and the heaviest salmon weighed during the derby wins an additional $500.00. There is also a $100.00 prize for a Lucky Ticket Stub Drawing” and three “ Blue Ticket” winners of $100.00 each drawn from people that weighed in salmon during the derby. One difference this year will the $1,500 worth of Cabelas fishing gear that will be raffled off. The Awards Ceremony will be at 1:00 pm at the Marine Activity Center at the Salmon Harbor RV Resort in Winchester Bay. Questions regarding the derby can best be answered by calling Doug Buck at 541 – 271 – 3144.
The first derby derby ticket I sold this year while working at the Stockade Market was to Karen Arms who weighed in the heaviest salmon caught during last year’s derby.
A federal agency, NOAA Fisheries, has approved the continued killing of California sea lions that are eating salmon, steelhead and sturgeon near the Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam.
NOAA Fisheries announced last Wednesday that it is allowing Oregon, Washington and Idaho to continue what the agency is calling the “lethal removal” of those sea lions until the middle of 2021. Since 2008, the states have removed 166 seals or sea lions. Sea lions are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. But the law allows the lethal removal of individual seals and sea lions that are known to be having a significant negative impact on threatened or endangered salmon or steelhead. Last year sea lions consumed nearly ten-thousand adult spring chinook salmon, according to NOAA Fisheries.
What has been largely ignored amid the warmer water temperatures on the lower Deschutes River is the fact that this year’s sockeye salmon run of 350 is about four times the 86 returnees of last year. There doesn’t seem to be any effective way to deal with the lower river’s fast-growing smallmouth bass population other than a complete removal of the limits on bass size and numbers.
During a short float trip on Tenmile Creek between its Eel Creek confluence and Spin Reel Park I used light tackle to catch fair numbers of small largemouth bass and a few yellow perch, but the surprise of the trip was the numbers of rainbow trout encountered. The trout ranged in size from eight to 11-inches and lacked adipose fins. Since Tenmile Lake receives minimal trout plants, my conclusion was that these were outmigrating steelhead smolts courtesy of the STEP program on Eel Creek at Tugman Park.
Lake Marie’s annual pre-Labor Day plant of trophy rainbows ocurred this week. The 800 trout of 15-inches or more should keep fishing the lake interesting through Thanksgiving. Several years ago, area fly anglers using pontoon boats “discovered” the lake’s good fall fishing and since they released virtually everything they caught, double digit catches of these large rainbows were possible through much of the winter. Lake Marie is also slated to receive 500 smaller, but still legal, rainbows next week.
On August 18th, the WDFW announced that were starting wolf removal efforts in response to livestock predation by the state’s Profanity Peak wolf pack. After using a helicopter to shoot two pack members, the state halted its wolf removal efforts since the last recorded incident occurred on August 3rd. However, another incident blamed on the eastern Washington wolf pack resulted the removal efforts to almost immediately restart.
Some provisions of the WDFW Wolf Removal Program are: (1) – The department must confirm four or more wolf depredation events on livestock within a calendar year, or six or more confirmed such events within two consecutive calendar years. (2) – Wolves must have killed, not just injured, livestock in at least one of those confirmed depredation events. (3) – WDFW must expect depredations to continue without taking lethal action to stop them. (4) – The department must notify the public about the pack’s activities and related management actions.
The new policy is available at: http://ift.tt/2bghu8g.
WDFW is preparing a complete report on the recent action, including information about staff recommendations, the director’s decision, and wolf removal activities.
The removal of two wolves from the Profanity Peak pack marks the third time that WDFW has used lethal measures to address repeated depredations on livestock since 2008, when the first pack was confirmed in Washington state. A total of 10 wolves have been removed through those actions. During that time, the state’s confirmed wolf population has grown from two wolves in one pack to at least 90 wolves and 19 packs by early 2016.
Additional information about wolf packs and WDFW management actions is available at http://ift.tt/1gUBG9i
Next year Washington’s senior resident anglers will have a new option that is in direct contrast to the way Oregon treats its senior resident anglers. The fee for a yearly fishing license for Oregonians at least 70 years of age went from $15.00 to $25.00 – a 67 percent increase. Next year, Washington senior residents can purchase a license for $19.05 including taxes and fees that will allow them to fish both freshwater and saltwater and also harvest seaweed, crabs and clams.
from Pete’s Blog – PeteHeley.Com
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