November 7th column

[Pete Heley]

Salmon fishing pressure at Winchester Bay underwent a major dropoff. A few bank anglers are targeting the East Boat Basin for hatchery chinooks and a few spinner flingers are hitting Half Moon Bay and Osprey Point, but catches have been few. Siltcoos Lake and the upper two miles of Siltcoos River (between the lake and the Highway 101 bridge) have been producing fair coho fishing, but anglers need to remember that the daily limit is one adult coho and one jack coho and anglers needs to quit salmon fishing once they keep their adult coho.

Judging by the number of boats fishing Tahkenitch Lake, some coho have managed to enter the lake - or at least some anglers think they have. Once in the lake, Tahkenitch is relatively easy to fish since the fish congregate at the head of Five Mile and Mallard arms. Recent heavy rains might mean that this year salmon anglers at Tenmile Lakes might be catching some fairly bright cohos. The regulations regarding salmon fishing on the Tenmile Lakes is a little bit tricky. The outlet is closed below the Hilltop Drive in Lakeside and the channel between South and North Tenmile is closed to fishing during the salmon season.

The hottest salmon bite along the Oregon coast is on the smaller southcoast streams. As you read this, the Chetco, Elk and Sixes rivers should be fishing well for chinooks salmon, but anglers might have to wait a little while before the fishing is good on such smaller streams as Floras and Hunter Creeks.

As for anglers targeting wild coho on the lower reaches of the larger rivers on the Oregon coast, the Alsea River’s quota has been met and it has been closed to the retention of wild coho. Poor fishing on the Siuslaw has allowed the river to remain on the verge of closure for keeping wild coho for more than two weeks and could close at any time. None of the other rivers are even close to reaching their wild coho quotas, but fishing has been slow.

Frequent Umpqua River bar closures and rough ocean conditions have limited offshore bottomfishing opportunities. When available, the fishing remains very, very good. Shorebound anglers are starting to forget about the salmon fishing and, once again, start fishing the South Jetty and Triangle areas for bottomfish. Reports over the weekend indicated a very good bite for greenling and smaller rockfish with some striped surfperch and cabezon also caught. Lingcod remain a jetty angling possibility, but the fishing is usually best in the early spring. Rough surf conditions have limited angling pressure on local beaches for redtailed surfperch (pinkfins), but the fishing is usually fairly productive during the winter months and the daily limit is still 15 perch.

It seems that the excellent fishing for jumbo rainbows at Lake Marie is finally slowing down. The good fishing due to a September plant of large trout lasted much longer than normal due to much of the fishing being done by fly anglers who released their fish. However, the fish are gradually being caught down and cooler water temperatures have slowed the activity of the trout that are still left. Other local trout possibilities are: Eel, Siltcoos, Tahkenitch and Tenmile Lakes.

Fishing for yellow perch remains fairly good, but the only place that seems to be getting much fishing pressure is Tenmile Lakes where anglers fishing off the fishing dock at the county park have recently caught fair numbers of perch to 13-inches.

Over last weekend, a nominal number of boat crabbers enjoyed good success and many limits while crabbing the Umpqua River between the entrance to the East Boat Basin and Half Moon Bay. The crabs seem to actively feed in short time periods and the most successful crabbers put in some time to get their limits. Several dockbound crabbers also go their limits over last weekend, but poor weather conditions limited how many people were actually crabbing. A couple of weeks ago, crabbing success in the half mile of Umpqua River above the entrance to the East Boat Basin was very, very good. But recent rains have moved those crabs downriver . However, it appears that it is going to take a lot more rain to foul up the crabbing in the Half Moon Bay area.