March 14 column

[Pete Heley]

The few spring chinook taken so far on the Umpqua River have not yet resulted in intense fishing pressure usually associated with this fishery, but fish have been caught upstream at least as far as Sawyers Rapids and there are definitely fishable numbers of springers in the river. Anglers catching jumbo-sized salmon should consider entering them in the annual spring chinook contest held annually by the Wells Creek Inn.

The ocean opens on March 15th for sportsmen targeting chinook salmon. Those first two weeks allow anglers to combine ocean salmon fishing with bottomfishing - which will close down offshore on April 1st. Since the numbers of Umpqua River bound spring chinook is always way less than fall chinook entering the Umpqua, a good strategy for targeting the ocean springers is to fish near the Umpqua River bar where the fish should be slightly more concentrated.

Crabbing at Winchester Bay remains somewhat tough for the dock crabbers, but boat crabbers targeting Half Moon Bay are usually getting partial limits.

A few anglers have been fishing the surf for redtailed surfperch, better known as pinkfins, and doing quite well. The key is to fish when the surf isn’t too heavy, although a few anglers manage to minimize the heavy surf effect by using long rods and heavy weights. Using braided line will also reduce the effect of heavy waves or strong tidal currents, but few anglers seem to take advantage of its super-thin diameter. Sand shrimp is the most frequently-used bait, but some anglers dig their perch bait (sand worms) on-site at low tide and then fish it on the incoming tide. The most successful surf anglers tend to be those who don’t waste much time when they are not getting bites, but keep moving until they find cooperative fish.

Fishing pressure on the South Jetty has increased and, in general, been quite good. Greenling and striped surfperch remain the most common catches, but rockfish, cabezon and lingcod have all been caught recently. Cabezon are not legal to keep through the end of March and most of the larger rockfish are caught by anglers fishing the outer half of Umpqua River side of the South Jetty. The few anglers actually targeting lingcod report that the fishing has recently picked up. Very few anglers have been targeting the offshore bottomfish areas, which are almost always very productive and will close as of April 1st. The retention of one cabezon measuring at least 16-inches in length will become legal as of April 1st and remain legal until October 1st.

Striped bass continue to be caught by the few anglers actually targeting them on the Smith River at night. The fish are still hanging around the upper end of tidewater and most easily reached by boat anglers. It seems that the stripers taken last year were chunkier than those taken in recent past years and maybe this year a lucky angler will hook and actually land a pre-spawn female striper that actually reaches the 60 pound mark.

Recent rains have allowed most area streams to receive additional winter steelhead. Water conditions usually determine the best fishing opportunities. While Tenmile Creek usually receives fair numbers of late winter steelhead, Eel Creek will close to steelhead fishing on April 1st.p

Area trout plants for this week are restricted to Butterfield Lake and Mingus Park Pond which are each slated to receive 2,000 trout and Empire Lakes which is scheduled to receive 6,000 trout. Most of the other smaller lakes in the Florence area have received trout plants and have enough trout left to merit fishing them. Best warmwater opportunities are for largemouth bass and yellow perch. A bass weighing nine pounds 11 ounces was reported caught from Freeway Lakes which lies beneath Interstate 5 at Albany. The winning five bass weight at last weekend’s American Bass Tournament at Tenmile Lakes was 23.64 pounds and was taken by the team of Chris Carpenter and Travis Glass. The Carpenter/Glass team also landed the tournament’s big bass at seven pounds four ounces. Tenmile has been producing some very large early season largemouths this year.

It seems that Polk County is asking for grant money to fund a a study regarding feasibility of constructing a dam on the South Fork of the Siletz River. I find this especially irritating since Boise-Cascade once had a dam on the South Siletz about a mile upstream from where the North Fork Siletz poured into the South Fork Siletz and the resulting reservoir covered about 400 acres. The reservoir was called Valsetz Lake and offered good fishing for rainbow, cutthroat and even brown trout as well as such warmwater species as largemouth bass, black crappie and brown bullhead catfish. If a reservoir on the South Siletz is a good thing, one can only surmise that it would have been much, much cheaper to purchase the dam, reservoir and perhaps even the company town of Valsetz (which had several hundred inhabitants) than to allow Boise-Cascade to remove the dam and reservoir and raze a perfectly good town than to build another dam from scratch.

A lotter will be held by the ODFW on April 27th to award 12 sea urchin harvest permits. The allowable number of permits is 30 and whenever the number of permits drops very far below 30, a lottery is held to bring the number back up to 30. The application fee for the lottery is $102 for residents and $152 for nonresidents. To retain the permit, 5,000 pounds, or more, of sea urchins must be harvested annually and after harvesting 20,000 pounds, a permit owner may sell or transfer his permit. Applicants must be at least 18 years of age and not currently hold such a permit. The applications for the lottery need to be received no later than April 15th at the ODFW Salem office. Unsuccessful applicants’ fees are refunded and successful applicants need to purchase an individual commercial license within 30 days at a cost of $82 residents and $132 nonresidents. Nearly 600,000 pounds were harvested in Oregon last year and they are processed in California or Washington before being shipped overseas - usually to Japan where consumers will pay up to $100 per pound for them and sometimes even more.