Salmon fishing in the ocean off Winchester Bay showed a marked improvement over last week. On Saturday, Chris McAyeal, of Eugene, while fishing with two friends landed a boat limit of six keeper salmon. Their catch consisted of a finclipped coho and five Chinooks to 20 pounds. They also released a couple of unclipped cohos which seem to be running larger than the clipped cohos and a couple of Chinooks just shy of the 24-inch length required to be legal. Chris said they trolled herring at a depth of 55 feet and caught their salmon north of the Umpqua River Bar.
Other salmon anglers were not so lucky. One of the area’s more successful guides could not get out of the wild cohos and had little to show for a lot of action. A few Chinooks are starting to venture up the Umpqua River and their numbers should continue to increase over the next several weeks. A large Chinook salmon was hooked and lost Sunday morning to a spinner flinger at Half Moon Bay.
Rough bar conditions have put a tempory halt to what has been a very productive tuna fishery about 30 miles offshore and delayed early morning salmon fishing. But there are a few fall Chinooks in the river as far upstream as Reedsport.
There has been very few reports of striped bass catches. A friend of mine has spent several nights targeting stripers on the Smith River and only had a few boils and missed strikes to show for it. The first night he used live bait, he landed two. He caught an 18 pound ten ounce fish on a pikeminnow and a fifteen pound three ounce fish on a sculpin.
For the last few weeks, stripers have been tough to find on the Coquille River which has a surprising amount of tidewater. The river’s smallmouth fishery is holding steady with an impressive number of bass caught weighing at least two pounds. As expected, the river’s largemouth bass population seems to have shrunk and they seem even harder to catch.
Crappie anglers are having fair success at daybreak and dusk as long as they are in the Eugene or Roseburg area. In western Oregon the yellow perch seem to outcompete the crappies. However, fishing for yellow perch remains very slow on Tenmile Lakes, but is fair on Tenmile Creek just below South Tenmile Lake, but few of the perch will measure eight inches in length. Tenmile Creek still has a logjam on it about a mile and a half below the lake, which keeps all but the most reckless from floating it. But this year, the shallow faster current seems especially suitable for trout. The fishing for largemouth bass also seems much improved – possibly due to less fishing pressure due to the logjam.
The Umpqua River pinkfin run is still going on, but is winding down. A guide and his clients landed a boat limit of perch before 9 am last Sunday (7 rods and 105 perch). On the 4th, several more boats had boat limits by 8 am. What they all had in common was they all used sand shrimp for bait and they were all fishing less than two miles up river of where Winchester Bay’s East Boat Basin connects to the Umpqua River. As this fishery approaches it’s conclusion, the fishing will become even more inconsistent.
Umpqua River smallmouth bass are biting well, but the river is very clear and smaller soft plastics or nightcrawlers are more productive than crankbaits.
Umpqua River shad fishing is pretty much over although a few fish are still being caught near the chute at Sawyers Rapids.
Tenmile Lakes has been fishing well for bass and its popularity ensures that almost every other bass fishery in Coos and Douglas counties is underfished. However all of the area bass fisheries are turning into early morning or after dark fisheries.
Rough ocean and bar conditions have limited crabbing options, but some boat crabbers have made decent catches near the lower end of Half Moon Bay. There has been some tuna carcasses in Winchester Bay’s East Boat Basin, which seems to have improved crabbing success for those crabbing off the end of “A” Dock.
from Pete’s Blog – PeteHeley.Com
NOTE: This content is automatically by NewsBot1600. If there are any inaccuracies or issues, please let us no through the contact link.