June 3rd Fishing Report

[Mike Carey]

Despite people with depth finders marking hundreds of fish, the redtailed surfperch that have ascended the Umpqua River as far as three miles above Winchester Bay, have not been very cooperative. Anglers fishing for the perch in the surf have had better success and some sizeable pinkfins were caught near the third parking lot last week. As for those upriver perch, they could start biting any any time and temporarily stop biting just as quickly.

Although I have not yet seen the picture of it, there is word of a 54 pound striped bass taken in the last two weeks from Smith River. Even rumors are almost always based on something and this has been the best striped bass season in recent memory. Of course, those of us who still retain their “long-term memory” are most likely going to remain unimpressed.

The ocean chinook salmon fishing is still being pretty much ignored by sports anglers, but those trying it are usually catching fish. One angler over the weekend, managed to cast, hook and actually land a salmon while attached to the Zodiac prior to to being inspected.

Spring chinook fishing is becoming ever more erratic, but good catches are made daily. Some of the fishing pressure has moved farther upriver closer to Roseburg, but some fresh fish are still entering the river.
The South Jetty continues to fish well for striped surfperch and bottomfish. Toby Garber dodged the waves while flycasting along the rocks for striped surfperch to nearly two pounds. His technique was to move down to the river’s edge between swells and cast parallel to the rocks and strip his fly in quickly and then move upward to avoid the next swell. He was using one of his favorite steelhead flies - a white streamer barely one-inch long to catch his fish.

Halibut fishing out of Winchester Bay was much better during last Saturday as Mike Lavender of Oregon Custom Charters and Jerry Pifer of Reely Addicted each managed to get a halibut for every one of their passengers. Although not official, it is very likely that there will be at least one more three day opener and quite likely two on (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) spaced two weeks apart.

A very reliable source reported to me that the reason that the spring halibut fishery is on Thursday, Friday and Saturday rather than Friday, Saturday and Sunday like the summer season is to decrease the odds that the quota will be met too quickly. While I agree that it would most likely extend the fishery for a couple of more days during some years, it is so grossly unfair to those who work a regular Monday through Friday job that it needs to be changed. Many of those happy Saturday halibut anglers had waited the entire three day opener before getting the right conditions to actually reach and catch a halibut. A Friday-Saturday-Sunday three day halibut opener would give most working people twice the chance to actually get a halibut trip in. Unfortunately, the late ocean coho salmon season beginning on September 1st this year will also run Thursday through Saturday meaning that most working folks will most likely get one day (the first Saturday) to actually participate in a season, that otherwise, is a wonderful idea.

Shad fishing on the Umpqua has been disappointing for most people, but there has been a very few exceptional catches. A rise in Umpqua River temperatures would almost certainly spark a major improvement in the catch rate. A reduction in river flows would allow bank anglers to fish for the shad more effectively.
Florence area lakes that were stocked with trout last week include: Alder, Buck, Cleawox, Dune, Erhart, Georgia, North Georgia and Perkins. Cleawox is also scheduled to receive trout the week before Free Fishing Weekend on June 11th and 12th - as is Lake Marie. Loon Lake is slated to receive a trout plant the first week in June. Empire and Tenmile lakes are both slated to receive heavy trout plants the second week in June with Empire to receive 6,300 trout including 300 jumbos and Tenmile scheduled for 6,000 fish. After the second week in June, trout plants on the coast will drop off drastically even though, for this year, warm water temperatures will not be a problem.

A friend of mine attempted to catch some smallmouth bass in the Tyee area last week and could not even cast to his favorite ledges from shore due to high river levels. He finally caught several nice bass by casting Berkley power minnows or fishing a senko beneath a bobber. Current bassfishing conditions on the Umpqua definitely favor boat anglers over bank casters.

In a mid-April issue of Science News, a couple of topics were covered that may affect sport anglers. One, is that a shortage of krill may be responsible for shrinking populations of Adelie and chinstrap penguins across the West Antartica Peninsula. Krill are a bulwark food item at the bottom end of the oceanic food chain and may indicate a decreasing food supply that will effect salmon and other gamefish. Krill populations have decreased by as much as 80 percent in parts of Antartica.

It now seems that human sport anglers have yet another set of anglers that they will have to compete with. An article by Bruce Bowen in the same Science News issue reveals that Orangutans in Borneo have been found to gather dead and dying fish from ocean beaches and lake shorelines and eat them. Some orangs have even been seen grabbing fish from shrinking streams or ponds. It seems that these increasingly competitive primates may become an even bigger problem in the future since, over time, high protein diets may allow for greater brain development - which may come to mean that these red-furred primates may compete with us in ever more insiduous ways.

By Pete Heley