April 18th column

[Pete Heley]

Spring chinook fishing picked up last week with slightly clearer water and fair numbers of fish were caught with the largest weighing more than 40 pounds. Of course, the improved fishing also meant that some of the upriver parking lots were more than full. There have been some very good catches of ocean chinook by commercial anglers, but they have not yet been able to stay on the fish for any length of time.

The ocean coho salmon season quotas are now set and the first season will run from July 1st through July 31st, or until a total of 8,000 finclipped coho have been retained. On a more upbeat note, the non-selective ocean coho fishery (includes both clipped and unclipped cohos) will be 10,000 fish and will be open September 1st through 3rd and then each Thursday through Saturday from September 6th through September 22nd - or until the quota is met. Like the spring halibut fishery mentioned later in this article, these salmon seasons tend to discriminate against anglers who work.

On May 1st, inshore halibut fishing resumes (inside of 40 fathoms or 240 feet). Bottomfishing is legal in the ocean only inside of 30 fathoms (180 feet deep). A potential problem is that bottomfish may be retained in your boat, but are illegal if you are fishing deeper than 30 fathoms. If you are plannning a combination trip, to be completely legal, you must do your halibut fishing first, if you are fishing deeper than 30 fathoms, and then move to shallower water (less than 30 fathoms) to catch your bottomfish. However, the all-depth halibut fishery starts on May 10th and, as usual, runs Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Bottomfish may be retained by inshore halibut anglers ONLY on the days that all-depth halibut fishing is closed. The inshore halibut quota for our area is 23,014 pounds, while the all-depth halibut quota is 168,766 pounds. The Stonewall Bank YRCA, located about 15 miles west of Newport, is completely closed to halibut fishing, or even the possession of halibut while fishing for other fish species.

As a strong critic of the Thursday, Friday and Saturday fishing days for all-depth halibut, I feel for the anglers that are lucky enough to have a regular job that runs Monday through Friday - who are very plainly discriminated against. I often do not have a better plan to offer when I criticize something, but in this case I do. The fairest way to have a three day halibut opener is to have it run from Saturday through Monday and the same solution could be applied to the ocean coho salmon fishery. Anybody is welcome to find fault with this “plan”, but I definitely have enough “ammo” to defend it.

An article by Jesse Higgins in the weekend edition of the World Newspaper was eye opening and depressing. It seems that crab thefts are not limited to sport crabbers. While commercial crabbers, at least the few that are morally deficient, do not usually steal another’s crab gear, they steal the crabs in the pots - often rebaiting the pot to disguise the theft. The article stated that a commercial crabber, at least the honest ones, could lose ten thousand dollars per season to such poaching. One can only wonder how much the dishonest ones gain. The article is definitely worth reading.

Anglers intending to target striped bass before they drop downstream from their upper tidewater haunts should do so in the next two to three weeks. While many anglers catch most of their stripers in the middle and tidewater reaches of the Smith and Umpqua rivers, non-spawning stripers in our area are never more concentrated than when hanging out upriver.

Cool water temperatures are still hampering the bass and panfish bite. While some very good-sized largemouth bass have been landed, the panfish and smaller bass bite has definitely been subpar for this time of year.

I had to see the new move, “Salmon Fishing in Yeman” because I wanted to see how much easier an ambitious fishing project would be in what is basically a one-party republic. While I found the movie far more entertaining than I expected, I could not stop thinking about how much more difficult such an ambitious project would be in the United States, since there would undoubtedly be far more lawsuits and many more “hoops” to jump through. The movie is definitely worth seeing.

Major trout plants are scheduled for this week. Alder, Buck and Dune lakes are each slated to receive 850 bare legal and 36 trophy-sized trout and Alder and Dune are also slated to receive 225 foot long rainbows and Buck is scheduled to receive 200. Elbow Lake was to receive 600 foot long rainbows, while Erhart Lake (this lake has several other names) is slated to receive 200 barely legal, 350 foot long and 36 trophy rainbows. Georgia and North Georgia lakes are each slated to receive 150 barely legal rainbows. Five hundred foot long trout are slated for Lost Lake while Mercer was to receive 2,250. Munsel Lake was slated to receive 3,150 foot longs and 150 trophy trout. Perkins Lake was scheduled to receive a plant of 250 barely legal and 200 foot long rainbows. Siltcoos Lake was slated to receive 1,000 foot long rainbows, while Siltcoos Lagoon was scheduled to receive 850 barely legal, 350 foot long and 106 trophy rainbows.

To the south, Tenmile Lakes was slated to receive 6,000 barely legal trout (3,000 each in North Tenmile and South Tenmile). Empire Lakes was to receive a total of 500 trophy-sized (16-inch) trout. Bradley Lake was to receive 200 trophy trout. Most of the Roseburg area lakes that receive trout plants were scheduled to be stocked this week with Loon Lake receiving a plant of 1,000 barely legal rainbows.