Northwest Fishing Reports

As this article is being written, they still have not closed the three day openers for coho salmon (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) in the ocean, but by the time you read this, they possibly will have. While most anglers were still targeting chinook salmon, a few anglers did quite well on the ocean c...

Despite a ton of crabbing pressure, crabbing success held up surprisingly well through Labor Day Weekend. The annual Crab Bounty Contest began on September 1st and there was an immediate increase in people checking crab catching devices that were not theirs. The Crab Bounty Contest is one of the ver...

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That is exactly what I meant to write. I hope that sentence was redundant enough to be easily figured out by most readers. Thanks for paying attention.
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Pete Heley

Crabbing continues to be very, very good at Winchester Bay. The good crabbing extends upriver to more than a half-mile above the entrance to the East Boat Basin. There seems to be a lot of confusion about how long sport crabbing is allowed in the ocean and the answer is - until October 15th. Commerc...

Although the halibut fishing was somewhat disappointing, the last week’s tuna fishing more than made up for it - and a few anglers were able to successfully catch both species on the same trip. Out of Winchester Bay, the tuna were from 20 to 45 miles out and most anglers were fishing for them around...

The final statistics for the ocean coho season are now available and they show that 2,898 finclipped ocean coho of the 8,000 fish quota were actually caught and kept - or 36.1 percent. Brookings was the busiest port and provided the best fishing giving up .56 fish per angler trip. However, Brookings...

Well the ocean finclipped coho salmon season for the southern Oregon coast was officially over the evening of July 31st and as I write this column, the latest data I have available for the catch rates is through Sunday, July 29th. At that point, 2,478 finclipped cohos had been kept or 30.9 percent o...

Except for the pinkfin run ending a month earlier than it did the last couple of seasons, fishing and crabbing opportunities at Winchester Bay could not be much better. Salmon fishing has been relatively hot, virtually every boat over the last ten days that has pursued tuna has caught them and the c...

Despite receiving an additional 5,000 pounds of halibut from the uncaught portion of the spring all-depth halibut season, the near shore halibut fishery closed this last Monday. However, the summer all-depth halibut fishery is scheduled to begin on Friday, August 3rd. Cabezon are, once again, illega...

Sadly, there has been no rebound in the Lower Umpqua River pinkfin run. Although a few perch are still being caught, the fishing success is much, much better along area beaches where some anglers have recently caught near limits. However, the good news is that crabbing in the lower Umpqua River, at ...

The Umpqua’s pinkfin run has generally been disappointing the last ten days. There are still perch in the river from the entrance to the East Boat Basin up to Gardiner, but it appears that the perch have been hauled out at a faster pace than they have been replaced. Additionally, it is almost a cert...

I hoped very much to report good fishing for the finclipped ocean coho opener this last Sunday, but the Umpqua River Bar closed fairly early to most boats. The bar was actually more fishable than the ocean and while anglers like Mike Shannon, whose boat accounted for a 25 pound chinook near the bar,...

The last fishing days of the spring all-depth halibut season will be Friday and Saturday (June 29th and 30th). By choosing Thursday as the day to drop when all indications were that the quota would be exceded by allowing three days of fishing, the ODFW only gave retired and non-working anglers twice...

`Last weeks three day all-depth halibut opener was the best yet for the spring season. However, approximately half (48%) the spring halibut quota was uncaught going into that opener and there may be future spring openers remaining. If so, they will be on alternating weeks with the next potential ope...

Another all-depth halibut opener will run beginning this Thursday (June14-16). Since only 52 percent of the central Oregon coast quota has been landed, there should be more openers coming up. The few Umpqua River spring chinook anglers still trying for them caught some fish last week - including a 4...

Although a few diehard spring chinook fishermen, willing to deal with the increasing amount of moss in the Umpqua River, are still catching some fish, the best recent salmon-fishing news has been a rather consistent bite in the ocean between the Umpqua River Bar and Charleston. Over last weekend, wh...

Through last Sunday the redtailed surfperch or pinkfins have bit steadily in the first two miles of the Umpqua River above Winchester Bay. Although there undoubtedly surfperch in the river as far upriver as Gardiner, the top two areas, so far, have been Marker 12 and the first half-mile of the river...

The first limit of Umpqua River pinkfins was reported around noon last Saturday. As the run progressives, some very good surf fishing for the pinkfin will drop off somewhat as about half the adult pinkfins (the female perch) in the area will leave the beaches and head to that section of the Umpqua R...

It seems that quite a few Winchester Bay anglers took advantage of the “supermoon” on the night of May 5th (Saturday). One angler said that the South Jetty had numerous night anglers fishing that evening including about 20 people fishing inside the Triangle. He reported that the visibility on the ro...

Crabbing continues to be slow at Winchester Bay as the amount of freshwater coming down the Umpqua remains high. Some legal crabs are being caught, but even the best catches involve a lot of effort for the legal crabs taken. The South Jetty continues to fish well and although the most common fish ta...