March 7th Column

[Pete Heley]

The February 23rd issue of Science News had a couple of very interesting articles that should be of interest to outdoor sportsmen. An article by Erin Wayman quotes an online article in Geophysical Research Letters that reported that evaporating water from irrigation canals and fields resulted in an increase in summer rains and an increase runoff to the Colorado River. The entire article makes interesting reading and the conclusion reached in the article was that evaporating irrigation water affected a number of climate factors and the end result was that there was a 15 percent increase in regional summer rainfall including Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah and while runoff to the Colorado River increasaed 28 percent. This article will undoubtedly be much quoted in the ongoing battle over water rights between farmers and outdoor recreationists.

The second article, written by Susan Millus the incredible number of birds and small mammals that are killed each year by feral cats and domestic cats that are able to roam free outside the home. The article quotes Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute as saying such cats “kill between 1.4 billion and 3.7 billion birds each year”. What was less clear was what proportion of the total bird population the cats killed each year and how could the problem be addressed.

A good way to keep up on marine fishing topics is to go to the ODFW website and subscribe to receive information via emails or text messages. To sign up go to http://dfw.state.or.us/MRP/bulletins/index.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and enter your phone for text alerts and e-mail information to subscribe to email updates. It’s easy to unsubscribe at any time. Your phone and e-mail information will remain confidential. Six different lists of interest to ocean enthusiasts are available: Bottomfish (recreational), Halibut (recreational), Ocean Salmon (recreational), Ocean Salmon (commercial troll), Commercial Nearshore Groundfish, and Marine Reserves.

The end of this month marks the annual six month closure to fishing the ocean for bottomfish in waters deeper than 180 feet (30 fathoms).

Locally, crabbing remains good at Charleston and only fair at Winchester Bay. A lack of commercial crabbing near Winchester Bay, coupled with gradually declining Umpqua River flows should allow crabbing to gradually improve, but right now the boat crappers which are crabbing in and acrooss the river from Half Moon Bay are doing better than the dock crabbers who can only crab as far downriver as the Coast Guard Pier. The few crabbers that use crab snares or are dragging small craft into the Triangle Area are doing rather well on both dungeness and red rock crabs.

While the South Jetty is still fishing well when the weather and ocean conditions permit, most of the recent catches of lingcod have been small. Greenling and striped surfperch, as usual, dominate the jetty catch and the numbers of striped surfperch caught recently has increased. On an unusual note, a couple of anglers reported to a friend of mine that they caught some surfperch and rockfish near the pilings straight out from the Coast Guard Pier.
In the last month, fishing for hybrid striped bass in Ana Reservoir has been good, but a large percentage of the bass landed have been fish that have been stocked within the last couple of years and are short of the 16-inch minimum length limit. Ice fishing for rainbow trout at Diamond Lake remains fair to good, but as more trout are pulled out of the lake, it is reasonable to expect fishing to gradually slow. Recently, anglers have been averaging around one trout landed for every two hours of fishing. Managing the lake now that it is open to year-round fishing will probably be a learning experience for ODFW personnel, but a slightly reduced trout population should mean even faster trout growth than normal.

The number of cutthroat trout weighing nore thabn ten pounds that have come out of Nevada’s Pyramid Lake is hard to believe and some of those trout have weighed between 17 and 24 pounds. This year’s catch of truly lunker cutts has been several times that of most years - and hopefully future years won’t suffer because of this year’s success.

Josh Lindberg of Eugene had more than his share of excitement while visiting Winchester Bay last weekend. Josh and two of his friends were fishing off the South Jetty inside the Triangle, on Saturday, when a sleeper wave came across the jetty and threw them into the water with enough force that Josh said he felt his cheek brush the bottom. Despite wearing backpacks, all three managed to swim to safety, but they suffered some serious scapes and contusions. They lost their stringer of fish. Josh lost his wallet. But one of Josh’s friends proudly held up a bag he had managed to hold on while he was treading water only to discover that it was the plastic bag they had put their trash into. Ironically, Josh’s other friend hooked a small flounder while he was treading water and the feisty fish, despite wrapping the line around Josh, was landed - allowing the group to keep the group from going fishless.