July 29th column

[Pete Heley]

Last Thursday, the 40 fathom closure to bottomfishing along the entire Oregon coast became the 20 fathom closure. In our area, it means that every boating bottomfish angler will be fishing the Charleston area or even farther south. When this happens, it seems that the lingcod fishing can drop off due to increased and more concentrated fishing pressure, but fishing for rockfish seems to hold up surprisingly well. Despite dropping the daily limit on cabezon to only one fish in an attempt to allow both bank and boat anglers to retain cabezon throughout the entire year, as of July 21st (Thursday) cabezon became illegal to keep when caught from a boat. Bottomfishing off the South Jetty at the Umpqua River mouth remains productive, but angler pressure has dropped due to the many other angling options now available.

For the week ending on Sunday, July 17th, Winchester Bay and Charleston were the only salmon ports in their region that showed improvement in salmon fishing. What this actually means is that the poor salmon fishing in these ports actually improved while the salmon fishing at every other port in their zone dropped off. The fishing still has a ways to go to be labeled good, but it is improving for coho salmon and the number of chinooks taken near the Umpqua River Bar and in the lower river is steadily increasing. As long as the Umpqua River remains warm, and it is, these salmon will not likely ascend the river above Reedsport, since tidal effects will keep the river several degrees cooler than the water farther upriver. There should be fair numbers of chinooks stacked up below Reedsport in the very near future. According to Bill Gates, Winchester Bay’s senior fish checker, the the retained catch rate at Winchester Bay was about three salmon for every 10 anglers. Of course, the guides and charterboats did much better.

When it comes to Oregon coast salmon fishing, it is always good to have a “Plan B” and by the end of this month, there should be enough fall chinooks in the lower river to offer would-be ocean salmon anglers a very viable “Plan B” when the bar or ocean is too rough or the ocean salmon too difficult to find. Some anglers did quite well in the lowermost mile of river over last weekend including some large fish. Outside of Ray Cool, who landed a 30 pound chinook on a plug cut herring fished near Half Moon Bay, the best catches over the weekend went to fishing guides targeting the chinooks. One unlucky angler who was fishing off the South Jetty for bottomfish with a metal jig hooked a sizeable chinook and completely played it out only to cut the line when he attempted to gaff it.

Last week’s salmon fishing results proved that Newport must have an “advertising angel” that manages to inflate the quality of fishing the port offers. Due to a misprint in the number of angling trips last week (July 11th - July 17th), the retained catch average came out to 3.45 salmon per angler trip - or 1.45 more salmon per angler trip than is legally possible. One can only wonder how many people went to Newport last week to take advantage of the wonderful salmon fishing.

Tuna fishing has been consistently good for anglers fishing out of Winchester Bay except when the ocean is rough to the point where it is very difficult to fish. Most of the tuna have been caught between 30 and 35 miles, but fair numbers of them have been caught less than 20 miles out. So far, it seems that the average size of the tuna taken has been larger than normal. Tuna anglers out of Charleston encountered tuna, last Saturday at less than 10 miles out - which means that it was one of those rare times when the tuna were actually inside the coho salmon.

Trout anglers should target the larger lakes that either have carryover, native or searun trout populations. Bass and panfish angling is becoming more consistent and the most pleasant angling is in the early morning before the winds pick up. Smallmouth bass fishing in the Umpqua is now consistently good with fish down as far as Brandy Bar, but the very best fishing is above tidewater. This may be the year to float the South Umpqua since river flows are higher than normal. Although the river is closed to all fishing during the very best smallmouth fishing periods, it still fishes quite well between mid-May and mid-September.

I haven’t yet received any feedback from last week’s meeting in Roseburg regarding the Umpqua Basin’s steelhead and smallmouth bass populations. While I don’t have any really strong opinions regarding management of the steelhead, I do when it comes to smallmouth bass. What I would like to see is a 20 to 25 smallmouth bass limit with only three of them being longer than 12-inches. I would like to see the continuance of the Umpqua as a world-class smallmouth fishery, while at the same time reducing the impact of the numerous smaller bass on such forage as small fish and crayfish. An ideal response of such management would be even better fishing for larger smallmouth as usually the smaller bass get in the way when an angler targets the larger bass. As for those anglers that would complain about the small amount of meat in the smaller bass, I would inform them that it’s as much meat as the average-sized planted rainbow trout they catch so many of has. Maintaining the quality of the river’s smallmout fishery while actually improving it for the larger bass and at the same time creating more space for other desired fish species should be a very good thing.

A jumbo kokanee from Wallowa Lake seems quite likely to be certified as world line class record for line testing less than four pounds. The 26-inch long, seven pound eight ounce fish was caught June 19th by Brian Russell of Bend.

An article by Susan Millus in the July 2nd issue of Science News suggests that increasing acidity in the ocean my be detrimental to certain fish species in a new and surprising way. Young orange clownfish, when raised in conditions that attempt to replicate the increased acidity of future oceans, tended to swim towards any sounds, even though almost any sound meant the presense of a potential predator to their less than half-inch long bodies. Similar -sized clownfish in less acidic waters avoided similar sounds. These changes in some fish due to increased acidity of the waters they swim in may be tough to study in future years as the fish with the least developed self-preservation instincts get eliminated from the gene pool thereby hiding how severe the problem may be. As yet, scientists are not sure if a fish’s hearing or other senses are effected by the increased acidity causing unusual behavior. The effect of such behavior would initially be some well-fed predators that would then struggle for food as the numbers of cooperative smaller fish shrunk.

In the August issue of Popular Science, an article by Joshua Saul reports that there is good news for boat owners when it comes to controlling barnacles. Most attempts at barnacle control end up causing harm to the marine environment, but medetomidine is a chemical that has been shown to activate the octopamine receptor in barnacle larva, causing them to flee before they attach to a boat hull and then harden. Unless the chemical is widely used, it seems that it would merely shift barnacle damage to nearby unprotected boats.