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A friend of mine talked me into watching a fishing show last week in which the featured guide twice made statements about the size of the yellow perch in Idaho’s Cascade Lake that were obviously untrue to the point of being ridiculous. The guide stated that the record yellow perch was more than eleven and a half pounds (11.688 to be exact).

The world record for yellow perch is a New Jersey fish of slightly more than four pounds – a record that has not even been threatened in more than 150 years.

While the guide’s claim might get him a few new clients, it will almost certainly cost him clients that realize he is completely disconnected from fishing reality. The current record perch from Cascade Lake and the Idaho state record weighed 2.96 pounds and was caught in late February of this year. The incredibly fat fish only measured 15.63 inches in length.

The wild claim from from the Idaho fishing guide started me thinking about some other ridiculous state record fish claims. One such record is for brown bullhead catfish for Washington state. The 11.04 pound state record is nearly fifty percent heavier than the IGFA world record of seven pounds and six ounces.

Perhaps to make up for it – the Washington state record for blue catfish is ridiculously small at 17 pounds 12 ounces for North America’s largest catfish. In fact the weight of the Washington record blue cat is less than thirteen percent of the weight of the IGFA record blue cat of 143 pounds from Virginia. My opinion is that Washington’s record blue cat was a misidentified channel catfish and their record brown bullhead was a misidentified channel, flathead or white catfish.

Oregon is not immune to misidentifying jumbo fish. Years ago, a Bend area ODFW district biologist identified a trout of more than eleven pounds from Suttle Lake as a brook trout – even though a black and white photo of the fish definitely appeared to be of a brown trout. At the time, Oregon’s record brookie was an uncertified five pounder from Mink Lake. It is possible that one of the rare brookies in Blue Lake jouneyed down Link Creek into Suttle lake and then grew to incredible size amid Suttle’s healthy brown trout population, but that scenario is so extremely unlikely that I cannot bring myself to even consider it.

While on the subject of state fish records, here are some of the most likely to be broken in the Pacific Northwest. Washington warmouth, Washington flathead catfish, Washington white crappie, Oregon yellow perch, Oregon pumpkinseed sunfish. Washington’s record warmouth weighed .53 pounds and it was caught only an hour’s drive of Oregon’s record warmouth of one pound 14.2 ounces caught in Columbia Slough. I’ve talked to a couple of serious anglers that fish southwest Washington’s Silver Lake where the record warmouth was caught and they stated that they have caught warmouths of about a pound – but like almost every other angler, they did not bother to get it officially weighed for record consideration. Still, the fact that Oregon’s record warmouth weighs more than three and a half times what the Silver Lake record weighs should bother more than a few Washington state anglers.

Washington’s state record flathead catfish came out of the same Snake River system that produced the Oregon and Idaho flathead records. But at 22.80 pounds, it is barely one-half the size of the Oregon record (42 pounds) or one-third the size of the Idaho record (58.5 pounds).

Washington’s state record white crappie of 2.80 pounds is smaller than Idaho’s (3.0 pounds) and Oregon’s (4.75 pounds) and much smaller than Washington’s state record black crappie of 4.5 pounds.

Of course the easiest way to get a state record fish is to catch a fish species that is newly eligible for state record consideration – and Oregon does not keep records on a bunch of fish species including virtually all saltwater species as well as common carp. Oregon also does not differentiate between the various species of bullhead catfish – instead lumping the various species under the catagory of bullhead catfish.

The biggest recent news flash regarding Oregon fishing is the bottomfishing closure for waters more than twenty fathoms or 120 feet deep that went into effect on July 15th. The reason for the closure is to protect yelloweye rockfish which usually inhabit deeper water but were being hooked often enough by anglers fishing near the thirty fathom line to justify amending the restriction, which is expected to be in effect through the end of this year.

The Umpqua River pinkfin run is starting to wind down and while there is plenty of perch still hanging out in the spawning area above Winchester Bay it is getting harder to find the perch or entice them to bite. While there are still good catches made daily, the fishing success is becoming less consistent.

Crabbing seems to have hit a plateau at Winchester Bay recently, but should continue to gradually improve through mid to late fall and while river crabbing is legal the entire year, ocean crabbing will close the last half of October and the entire month of November.

Rough bar and ocean conditions have limited the ocean salmon catch and the 26,000 fish quota for finclipped coho salmon has hardly been touched. Most of the fishing pressure and salmon catch for our zone has been out of Garibaldi, but as of July 10th, less than two percent of the ocean finclipped coho quota has been caught.

An Umpqua River exception was Chris McAyeal who trolled from the Umpqua River Bar north to Tahkenitch Creek on Saturday and Sunday with one partner and kept a two-day boat limit of two Chinooks and six finclipped cohos. However the largest salmon taken recently have been Chinooks in the 25 pound class taken on the Umpqua River within a couple miles downriver of Reedsport.

Unfortunately, warm river temperatures and windy ocean conditions mean the best time to fish both the river and the ocean is early morning – making it less feasible to fish both.

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The Umpqua River pinkfin run is still happening and should last until the first week of August, but as the fishery winds down, the fishing will become increasingly inconsistant. Right now there are plenty of female pinkfins in the river above Winchester Bay. The South Jetty is fishing well for striped surfperch and fishing for pile perch in the Umpqua River and Coos Bay has been better than normal this year.

Other fish being caught by anglers fishing Winchester Bay’s South Jetty include greenling, black and blue rockfish and a few cabezon and lingcod. Cabezon have been legal to keep since July 1st and the daily limit is one cabezon at least 16-inches in length.

When bar and ocean conditions permit, tuna fishing has been productive with fair numbers of fish less than 40 miles out with a few as close as 20 miles offshore. A recent ODFW report suggested that anglers try to fish water with a surface temperature warmer than 58 degrees with a chlorophyl content of about .25 milligrams per cubic meter.

Eel Lake has been fishing fair for rainbow trout and a few cutthroat trout. The lake also has a good largemouth population with a few smallmouth bass, brown bullheads and black crappies also present. The coho salmon in the lake are not legal to keep. Area anglers wanting to target freshly stocked trout are going to have to wait until the third week of August when Lake Marie is scheduled to receive 800 trophy rainbows.

On Saturday, Jamie Standifer and a couple of friends trolled herring near Reedsport for a boat limit of Chinook salmon weighing between 13 and 21 pounds. On Sunday, two anglers casting spinners at Half Moon Bay caught Chinook salmon weighing 15 and 20 pounds and brought their fish in for photos, but were quite evasive as to color pattern of their spinners. Anglers trolling the ocean for fin-clipped cohos are usually fishing north of the Umpqua River Bar and catching more native cohos than finclipped ones.

Tenmile Lake has been fishing well for largemouth bass and the current issue of Bassmaster Magazine has the lake rated as the seventh best bass fishery in the western United States. However, when stating the lake’s surface acreage, the magazine seems to have only included the surface acreage in South Tenmile Lake. The magazine also seems to have cut by half, the surface aceage of Potholes Reservoir which is also on the list of top bass fisheries in the western United States.

The Coquille and Umpqua rivers are fishing very well for smallmouth bass. Both rivers are receiving fair to heavy amounts of fishing pressure and the numbers of larger bass seem to be greatly reduced in the areas of greatest fishing pressure. Anglers on float trips that cover fair amounts of river mileage are still finding good-sized bass as they float through river sections that have reduced fishing pressure.

Dwayne Schwartz and I fished the pond formed by the confluence of the North Umpqua and South Umpqua rivers. Our targeted fish species was pumpkinseed sunfish, but we hoped to catch a variety of the pond’s warmwater fish species. However, the pumpkinseeds proved most cooperative.

Almost immediately, Dwayne caught a pumpkinseed at least eight inches long and decided to release it without weighing it. One of Dwayne’s fishing goals is to catch a state record pumpkinseed and the current Oregon state record from Lake Oswego only weighed 7.688 ounces and that fish should not have been eligible for an Oregon record since Lake Oswego is not open to the angling public.

The ODFW policy is that large fish caught in Oregon waters not accessible to the angling public are not eligible for state record consideration – and the Lake Oswego pumpkinseed is not the first time the ODFW has ignored its own policy. Oregon’s current state record largemouth bass replaced a state record largemouth that was caught from a private pond in the Butte Falls area.

Oregon state records for warmwater fish are now being kept by the Oregon Bass and Panfish Club and they should follow ODFW policy and de-certify the Lake Oswego pumpkinseed.

So, although Dwayne did not actually weigh his jumbo panfish, there are ways and formulas that allow weight estimates of surprising accuracy. My favorite method involves memorizing a few weight / length ratios for different fish species.

So if you know that a normally shaped 14-inch rainbow trout weighs one pound, then a reasonable level of math skill should allow you to closely estimate the weight of any rainbow trout of similar body shape once you know its length. For examle, a 21-inch trout would weigh three pounds and six ounces – an estimate arrived at by first comparing their relative lengths. The 21-inch trout is one and a half times as long as the 14-incher. It’s also 1 1/2 times as deep (top to bottom) and 1 1/2 times as thick (side to side) So take the 3/2 ratio and cube it. 3/2 times 3/2 times 3/2 equals 27/8 which equals 3 and 3/8. Since the weight of the anchor fish – the 14-inch trout is one pound, the estimate of the 21-inch trout is three pounds and six ounces. The same formula would give you an estimate of eight pounds for a 28-inch trout of similar shape.

Keep in mind that as fish get older and longer, they tend to get chunkier, which can make weight estimates using this formula less accurate and much lower.

To get an estimate of the weight of Dwayne’s pumpkinseed, let’s assign a weight of one pound for a fat ten inch sunfish and Dwayne did say his fish was very fat.

Cubing the length of his eight-inch pumpkinseed we get 512. Cubing the length of a ten-inch sunfish gives a figure of 1,000. To arrive at a weight estimate for a fat eight eight inch pumpkinseed , we divide 512 by 1,000 and then multiply by 16 ounces. The estimated weight is 8.192 ounces.

So if the original premise of a fat ten inch long sunfish is accurate and Dwayne could somehow get his fish to a business with a certified scale without it losing weight and he took the requied photo and got signatures to the weighing – he could have had a state record for a fish species not many people worry about.

But if a fat one pound sunfish was actually ten and one-quarter inches long, rather than ten inches,the estimated weight for Dwayne’s pumpkinseed drops to 7.607 ounces – nothing more than a near miss.

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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.

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Spring chinook fishing on the lower Umpqua River continues to be productive for anglers casting large spinners at Half Moon Bay. The most consistent fishing is usually close to high tide, but salmon have recently been caught at all stages of the tide. In fact, more spring Chinooks have been caught at Winchester Bay this spring than any year in recent memory. Last Saturday, Reedsport resident Randy Walters, stopped by the Stockade Market while I was working to ensure that I got a good look at the salmon he had caught that morning. The 17 pounder was the fourth salmon he had landed in five days of spinner flinging at Half Moon Bay. Randy’s recent salmon-catching success has pretty much ensured that he will have company on fishing trips to Half Moon Bay in the near future.

While the lower river has been unusually productive for salmon, there is still a good number of springers being caught from Scottsburg upriver all the way to just below Winchester Dam on the North Umpqua – and the season is barely half over. The heaviest springer turned in at the Wells Creek Inn’s springer contest now stands at 39.7 pounds.

However, suspended weeds and moss are starting to become a nuisance for the Umpqua’s spring Chinook anglers fishing above Scottsburg.

Shad are in the river and are probably accounting for most of the springer fishermen’s bites that don’t result in hookups. Expect shad fishing to improve over the next several weeks as the Umpqua River continues to drop and clear.

Those redtailed surfperch caught last week above Winchester Bay have not yet turned into hordes of spawning “pinkfins”. However the run should be imminent.

The hot fishing for striped surfperch off the South Jetty at Winchester Bay has largely been replaced by improved fishing for greenlings and rockfish. Crabbing remains slow for legal crabs at Winchester Bay, but there are enough small crabs for folks to entertain their young children.

Crappies and bluegills continue to provide light tackle action at the upper end of Loon Lake, but most area waters that contain warmwater fish are fishing well. Crappies should be finished spawning very shortly – and will definitely become harder to find. The bluegills be in the shallow areas of most area lakes and be easy to see and catch through the rest of the summer. Largemouth bass are now spawning in most of the coastal lakes and fishing shallow or near-shore waters will generally produce best.

Most area waters have fair numbers of uncaught stocked rainbow trout, but the waters that will be stocked this week are Millicoma Pond and Bluebill Lake. Bluebill Lake, the extremely shallow lake on the west side of the road to Horsfall Beach, is slated to receive 3,000 legal rainbows in its only trout plant this year. Many of the lakes in Coos, Douglas and Lane counties will be stocked during the first week in May.

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Spring chinook fishing on the lower Umpqua River continues to be productive for anglers casting large spinners at Half Moon Bay. The most consistent fishing is usually close to high tide, but salmon have recently been caught at all stages of the tide. In fact, more spring Chinooks have been caught at Winchester Bay this spring than any year in recent memory.

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Bryan Gill, of the Umpqua Angler, reported very good springer fishing last Thursday when his clients boated four springers while fishing near Elkton. They were using spinner and anchovy rigs. For three of his four clients, their salmon were their first springers ever.

It’s somewhat of a secret, but there has been more springers caught in the lower Umpqua River this year than any recent year – and a good percentage of them have been finclipped fish. Most of the salmon have been taken by spinner flingers at Half Moon Bay, but a few have been caught by anglers trolling herring near Reedsport.The big fish in this year’s Wells Creek Inn spring Chinook contest is now over 32 pounds.

While no shad catches were reported last week at Sawyers Rapids, the early morning springer fishing has been good and several shad were caught near Yellow Creek.

The Fish Haven/Duckett’s dock at the upper end of Loon Lake has been fishing very good for crappie and surprisingly, at least this early in the season, for bluegills. Another lake ripe for excellent panfishing is Ben Irving Reservoir where the small coves on both sides of the boat launch are absolutely loaded with crappies and bluegills. Cooper Creek Reservoir should also be hot for panfish, but last week it seemed that every angler was targeting planted rainbow trout.

The sand dunes lakes between North Bend and Hauser are full and their future fishing looks promising, but their fish populations, reduced by last year’s late season low water, may be tough to find this year.

Always somewhat inconsistent, the beach angling for redtailed surfperch, also called “pinkfins”, has occasionally been very, very good – and a few pinkfins are starting to be caught above Winchester Bay.

The Triangle/South Jetty Area has had little fishing pressure directed at lingcod, but the fishing for greenling and rockfish is much improved. The excellent fishing for striped surfperch has dropped off, most likely due to their spawning season winding down.

Most of the area lakes are starting to produce good fishing for largemouth and while the fishing should hold up for the next several weeks, numbers-wise, the numbers of big bass caught will drop way off after early May.

Umpqua River smallmouth fishing is getting better and the river is clear enough to fish soft plastics effectively. Fishing for smallmouths with crankbaits might be better on the Coquille River, which is less clear than the Umpqua. Both rivers have no limits on the number of bass that may be kept.

Idaho’s Snake River produced yet another state record sturgeon for their new “catch and release division. This fish, caught on April 8th, measured 111-inches and replaces a 98.5-inch sturgeon caught less than a month earlier. Idaho catch and release records that will almost certainly be broken this spring are bluegill (9.5-inches) and white crappie (9.375-inches.

Virtually all of the Florence-area lakes were stocked this week as follows: Alder Lake (850 legals, 225 12-inchers and 36 16-inchers); Buck Lake (850 legals, 200 12-inchers and 36 16-inchers); Cleawox Lake (350 legals and 36 16-inchers); Dune Lake (850 legals, 225 12-inchers and 36 16-inchers); Elbow Lake (600 12-inchers); Erhart Lake (200 legals); Georgia Lake (150 legals); Lost Lake (500 12-inchers); Mercer Lake (2,250 12-inchers); Munsel Lake (3,150 12-inchers and 150 16-inchers); North Georgia Lake (150 legals); Perkins Lake (250 legals and 200 12-inchers); Siltcoos Lagoon (850 legals, 350 12-inchers and 106 16-inchers); Siltcoos Lake (1,000 12-inchers) and Sutton Lake (1,500 12-inchers).

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The trout stocking schedule for Coos County has changed. It seems that the 16-inch trophy rainbows originally slated to be planted this week in several Coos County waters will instead be planted during the fourth week of March when Bradley Lake is scheduled to receive 200 of the jumbo rainbows and Empire Lakes 500 (250 each in Lower Empire and Upper Empire. At that time, Johnson Mill Pond will receive 50 trophy rainbows it previously was not scheduled for while Saunders Lake (150); Butterfield Lake (150) and Powers Pond (100) will not be getting the trophy rainbows they were slated to receive this week. However, the current stocking schedule for this week, while not including trophy trout plants for this week in the appropriate column, still includes them in the totals of trout scheduled to be planted. Which means I’m as confused as anyone else.

This week’s Coos County trout plants will consist of 3,000 legal rainbows each for Bradley Lake; Upper Empire Lake; Lower Empire Lake; Saunders Lake; Johnson Mill Pond and Powers Pond.

Roseburg-area lakes sceduled to be stocked this week include Plat I Reservoir with 1,000 legal rainbows, while Ben Irving Reservoir; Galesvill Reservoir and Loon Lake are each slated to receive 2,000 legal rainbows. Cooper Creek Reservoir, which was stocked with 400 legal and 100 14-inch rainbows last week is also slated to receive 2,000 legal rainbows this week. Lake Marie will receive 2,000 legal rainbows during the third week in March.

The Florence-area lakes, some of which have been stocked twice this season , are not scheduled for additional stocking until the third week in March when virtually all of those lakes that receive plants will receive additional trout.

The Lower Umpqua Flycasters’ annual Flyfishing Expo was held at the Reedsport City Hall last Saturday and as usual, it was one of the best free events any fishing addict could hope to attend – and if you missed it, you’ll have to wait until the last Saturday in February of next year to truly know what you missed.

It won’t be free – admission is ten dollars – but the Northwest Fly Tyer and Flyfishing Expo will be held at the Linn County Expo Center in Albany on March 11th and 12th. With demonstrations from more than 200 fly tyers and 50 exhibitors, the event bills itself as “the largest fly tying event west of the Mississippi.”

During the last couple of weeks, bassfishing has been surprisingly productive at many of the lakes along the Oregon coast despite water temperatures and fishing conditions that haven’t been all that great. Tenmile Lakes is the only fishing spot along the Oregon coast receiving much bassfishing pressure and soft plastics are usually the most popular baits. But when it’s windy, spinnerbaits, chatterbaits and crankbaits are easier to fish.

As good as Oregon’s bassfishing has been, California’s has been much better. It seems like the entire state has been redhot with many double digit largemouths taken including a 15 pound 12 ouncer from central California’s Camanche Lake.

Also well worth an extensive road trip are the hefty lahontan cutthroat trout in western Nevada’s Pyramid Lake. This winter fishery produces cutts weighing from 15 to 20+ pounds every week.

Crabbing success has been very slowly improving. Weather and bar conditions have ruled out ocean crabbing during most days and very few people have been crabbing in the “Triangle” – which usually offers fair to good winter crabbing.

Most of the fishing pressure on Winchester Bay’s South Jetty has been directed at striped surfperch, but lingcod should be available for anglers willing to cast large lures or baits for a long enough period of time to give them a chance to work.

Both sand shrimp and nightcrawlers have been working well for the striped surfperch.

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The annual “Flyfishing Expo” put on by The Lower Umpqua Flycasters will be held at the Reedsport City Hall (451 Winchester Ave.) from 9 am until 3 pm. This free event has been very well attended and most impressive in years past.

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This quote was recently overheard, from one of our adventurous Reedsport Community Charter School students, near the end of this year’s new Fishing Basics Class Brave’s Session. The South Coast Chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association of Oregon (CCA) offered this well-received class, with an objective of providing students with the knowledge and equipment necessary to be successful anglers.
Using philosophies of “fishing is a conservation journey and luck favors the prepared”, the class was developed by Steve Godin, South Coast CCA Chapter President, and Ron Frakes, Biology Teacher at the Reedsport Community Charter School. Funding for the class was provided by the Reedsport Education Enrichment Foundation (REEF).

Many supporters came to our aid from within and outside the Reedsport community. Steve Miller engaged Tom Rumreich, ODF&W Biologist Charleston Office who donated fishing rods and reels. Evan Leonetti and Eric Himmelreich, ODF&W Biologists Roseburg Office provided the students with a strong appreciation for salmon conservation and fish habitat restoration. Doug Buck, GRWB STEP took the students on an informative tour of the Gardiner STEP Hatchery. Michael Northrup, U.S. Department of Agriculture, presented the students with an excellent USDA Fishing Guide and detailed instructions related to local waters. Bill Taylor, a skilled local angler, shared his insight on successful boat fishing techniques for local lakes. Pete Heley, Umpqua Post Outdoors Writer and local angler, provided each student with a copy of his outstanding publication Oregon Coast Fishing Maps, as well as his experience regarding fish available in local lakes. Harold Ettelt, local angler, trained students on how to make their own spinners, and generously donated all the needed tools and materials. As a result of these many donations and supporters, the students got a deep appreciation for local conservation efforts, hatchery management, how and where to fish, and the gear needed!
The Fishing Basics Class was held for half days, at the Reedsport Community Charter School starting on January 19th, and continued for eight days. It was composed of classroom instruction as well as three field trips. Instructions addressed knot tying, equipment rigging, safety, habitat, conservation, hatcheries, regulations, fish identification, fish anatomy, casting, netting, fish handling, cleaning, and cooking. Multimedia presentations were composed of a wide variety of displays, practice equipment, access to the Internet, printed materials, videos, and games. Sammy, ODFW’s three-foot plush stuffed salmon, even volunteered as the subject for a netting demonstration! There were multiple casting practice sessions too, which took place outside at the adjacent sports field and at Lake Marie. Students also had the opportunity to compete in a casting contest, where there were enthusiastic battles for some highly prized chocolates!

At the conclusion of the class, each student received their own fishing rod, reel, appropriate tackle, and instruction specific to its use. Students also had multiple opportunities to rig these rods with depth adjustable strike indicators, split shot, and knots. We accomplished our objective of providing students with all the equipment and knowledge necessary to fish. So, it sounds like it’s time to go dig some worms!
Sixteen students graduated from the Fishing Basics Class on January 28th and were encouraged to continue their pursuit of fishing and come to our South Coast Chapter meetings. Students were also invited to further develop their skills at the upcoming free-fishing day on June 5th at Lake Marie. My favorite student quote was definitely, “I don’t want this class to end.” And it won’t. Graduates are now enrolled as New Tide members in CCA and our local chapter offers them follow-on learning, networking, and fishing opportunities. Additionally, they receive a year’s subscription to the CCA newsletter publication, Rising Tide. This is a class that truly doesn’t end.

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