Southwest Oregon Fishing Reports From Pete Heley at PeteHeley.com The hottest thing going right now is shad fishing on the Umpqua River. Half-day catches of 40+ shad are common at a number of locations, but the best spot recently has been at Sawyers Rapids – and as the river drops it will get even better.…
From ODF&W Conditions for crabbing and rockfish and lingcod angling in Coos Bay should be improving as the mud and heavy freshwater runoff subsides from recent storms. Using a jig with a twister tail has been a great bait for catching rockfish. Anglers have been catching lingcod with a herring floated under a bobber. Trout fishing…
From Pete Heley at PeteHeley.com Umpqua River spring chinook angling is improving after last week’s heavy rains and there seems to be considerable fishing pressure directed at them between the Scottsburg bridge and Elkton. Anglers fishing spinners from the bank at Half Moon Bay and Osprey Point have reported very few hookups but springers were…
From Pete Heley at PeteHeley.com Heavy rains last week greatly raised pond and lake levels and caused muddy water and near flood conditions in many streams and it is highly unlikely that Johnson Mill Pond, located in a swampy, muddy area, received its trout plant on schedule. Eel and Tenmile Creeks are not muddy and…
From Pete Heley at PeteHeley.com The Charleston ODFW office showed me how to access the trout stocking schedule. I had been going to the home page, selecting “FISH DIVISION and then selecting “FISHING RESOURCES” and then clicking on the “TROUT STOCKING” ICON. This method no longer redirects you to the trout stocking schedule. After a…
From Pete Heley at PeteHeley.com As I am writing this on Sunday there have yet to be any verifiable reports of a spring chinook salmon being actually landed on the Umpqua River. If it doesn’t happen soon, the Umpqua’s first shad may precede it. The Umpqua’s first shad should arrive in early April and river…
From Pete Heley at PeteHeley.com A possible alternative to to area anglers planning to fish Owyhee and Brownlee reservoirs for crappie is Lake Shasta which is closer and produced a 19-inch crappie last week that weighed three and a half pounds. The crappie tournaments that started last month on Clear Lake in Northern California have…
From Pete Heley at PeteHeley.com Heavy rains and muddy access delayed the trout plant scheduled for Johnson Mill Pond near Coquille. The trout will be stocked later at a slightly larger size. Trout plants scheduled for this week include: Alder Lake (793 trout including 332 legals and 461 trophies); Buck Lake (702 trout including 566…
From Pete Heley at PeteHeley.com The first spring chinook was reported taken from the Rogue River two weeks ago and according to “The Rogue Outdoor Store” in Gold Beach, three have been reported caught so far. None of them were lunkers and they were caught between five and 12 miles above Gold Beach. As for…
From Pete Heley at www.PeteHeley.com Winter steelhead are in all of our local streams and fishing success depends on stream conditions in most cases. Two streams that never seem to muddy up are Eel Creek and Tenmile Creek. Eel Creek is extremely “snaggy” and difficult to fish, while Tenmile Creek is the exact opposite and…
From Pete Heley at www.PeteHeley.com The first Columbia River spring chinook was caught near Portland on the lower Willamette River on January 29th by Dave Frey. He was fishing by himself with a red prawn for bait. The springer was a finclipped hatchery fish of 16 pounds. While Oregon’s first springer each year usually is…
From Pete Heley at www.PeteHeley.com Crabbing has slowed down, but seems to better than normal for this time of year. A dock crabber last Friday caught a red rock crab in addition to a couple of legal-sized male dungeness crabs while crabbing off Winchester Bay’s “A” Dock. Red Rock Crabs, while fairly common inside the…
From Pete Heley at www.PeteHeley.com Trout plants in our area start during the second week in February (actually Feb. 4-8) with several Florence-area lakes being stocked. Alder Lake (3 acres) 738 trout (566 legals + 172 trophies; Carter Lake (28 acres) 750 trophies; Cleawox Lake (88 acres) 2,636 trout (2,000 legals + 636 trophies); Dune…
From Pete Heley at www.PeteHeley.com A current hot topic on the internet is the number of complaints regarding undersized crabs that are being sold in larger markets from Newport north to Astoria and in the Portland area. The complaints are surprising in that the commercial crab fishery is closely regulated to the point where any…
From Pete Heley at www.PeteHeley.com The main outdoor-related topic of conversation continues to be the new licensing system the ODFW started this year. While the new system seems to be a major step backward from the previous system which was in effect through mid-December of 2018, the ODFW does seem to be doing a pretty…
