Central & South Coast Reports – Charters out of Depoe Bay have been doing well on combo trips, returning to the docks with good catches of rockfish and coho while the lingcod bite has slowed. It’s been mostly limits although filling hatchery coho has been challenging at times as native fish are also plentiful offshore.
Tuna are being caught out of Newport and Depoe Bay but it has required an offshore trip of 30 to 40 miles which, between the getting there, getting back and search for schools can mean a round trip of 100 miles or so. Albacore have been running in the small to medium class.
While ocean crabbing remains excellent for numbers out of central Oregon ports, there are more softshells in the mix at this time of year. Often over half are culled out.
Offshore conditions are forecast to be mild over the coming weekend and into the week to follow. Swells are predicted to be low and the duration long while onshore breezes will be less than 10 mph for most all that time.
Tenmile Lake has been kicking out catches of largemouth bass to anglers using soft plastics. While these are warmwater fish, the better results will come first thing in the morning and again in the evening hours. Bass well over the three pound mark have been landed this week. Visibility is limited to just over a foot with the water soupy from algae growth.
Offshore boaters are doing well for rockfish out of Reedsport. Fishing for hatchery coho has been good with many anglers scoring two-fish limits in water less than 200 feet deep. Crabbing is good in the ocean although sorting of softshells is necessary while bay crabbing remains slow. Fall Chinook should start to show around the first of August and thanks to a last-minute rule change, they’re all fall fish as of that date where tagging is concerned. Pinkfin perch are continuing to run up the Umpqua to the area of Marker 12 but consistent catches have been challenging. Smallmouth bass fishing remains good around Elkton although larger fish have been difficult to entice.
Tuna boats out of Charleston have been scoring albacore about 30 miles out, which distance is not daunting to tuna skippers. Warm water is expected to move close to shore through July and with it, the pelagic fishes, which means tuna fishing will only improve.
The Coquille River has become a worthwhile smallmouth bass fishery in the hot weather with anglers taking decent numbers of them around Myrtle Point.
When boats have been able to get out at Gold Beach, bottomfishing has reliably produced lingcod limits while rockfish have been abundant and more colorful with vermilions showing in many catches this week. Ocean crabbing remains good. Rogue Bay has been productive for trollers at times but has been on one day, off the next. Anglers do have an entire season to anticipate, however, as Rogue River flows are excepted to remain low for the remainder of the season which should result in decent bay fishing as salmon will stay put where the water temperature is cooler. For the best chance at hookups, troll anchovy/spinner combos around the jetties at low tide, moving to the top of the bay at high tide. With the water in the Rogue reaching the mid-70s or higher, Chinook won’t venture out of tidewater. Flows at Agness are about 1,000 cfs and are not expected to change for some time to come. Water in the middle river is similarly low and salmon fishing in this stretch has been poor to slow for most of the season regardless. While the US Army Corps of Engineers was increasing flows out of Lost Creek Reservoir on the upper Rogue while spring Chinook were running, with that run about over, so is the need to create additional current in the river. Steelheading is fair on the upper Rogue but should improve with the run.
Ocean salmon fishing out of the Port of Brookings has had it moments but most trollers think those moments all to brief. There were a couple of days, the past Saturday and Sunday, for instance, when scores of salmon were taken but what followed this week was slower action where only a couple came over the gunwales for the entire fleet. Good catches of rockfish and lingcod has helped soothe the sting caused by an absence of salmon.