By Pete Heley
The ocean coho salmon opener Sunday was somewhat disappointing. Simply judging from angler complaints, the biggest problem was that far more Chinooks and native cohos were hooked than were the keepable finclipped cohos. Unless angling success picks up, it appears the season will last longer than many anglers expected. At least the cohos were a little larger than many anglers expected.
While many salmon anglers are not happy with recent fishing restrictions, my biggest pet peeve remains the fact that Winchester Bay and Florence don’t have bottomfishing options for half of each year. It seems that the two communities could combine forces and convince the proper decision-makers that they either need an exception to the 40-fathom rule, or the 40-fathom rule needs to become the 55- or 60-fathom rule.
The area’s hottest fishery remains for redtailed surfperch, more commonly called “pinkfins” in the lower Umpqua River just above Winchester Bay. The best fishing has been on the incoming tide, but the early morning fishing, regardless of tidal stage, has been even more consistent. Some anglers have been making good catches before they head off to work and some of the recent perch catches have weighed from 2 to more than 3 pounds. Sand shrimp remains the best bait with many anglers using Berkeley Gulp products for insurance should they run out of shrimp or to make sure that at least one hook has a bait on it. Most of the catches have been made in water between 10 and 15 feet deep, but there have been some good catches made recently that were in water less than 8 feet deep. The status of the small perch inside the adult female perch would indicate that the fishery should last into July.
It’s kind of ironic that the best crab catches made over last weekend were made my anglers from such central Oregon locations as Bend and Prineville. On Saturday, Shawn Olson and Evan Gaither of Bend caught 21 legal crab, including one that measured 8 inches. They were crabbing in the ocean slightly north of the North Jetty in about 30 feet of water.
Saturday evening, a group from Prineville went out for an hour and landed nine legal crab. They also crabbed in the ocean north of the North Jetty in water about 30 feet deep. Crabbing in the river is somewhat less productive, but slowly is improving.
Striped bass fishing pressure on the lower Smith River has increased and some decent catches have been made. It seems that most of the fishing pressure has been from the bank.
Last Thursday, Kurt Thompson of Specialty Charters got his three clients into nine solid sturgeon hookups and each client went home with a legal sturgeon. Kurt was fishing near Marker 25 below Reedsport. Many sturgeon anglers have started fishing below Reedsport, despite problems with crab or sculpins, because the anadromous green sturgeon are entering the river and tend to stay in the lower reaches.
Smallmouth fishing pressure and success is improving on the Umpqua River above Scottsburg. But the river still is high enough to make hiking the shoreline difficult.
Shad fishing seems to be slowing down, but some good catches are being made. Lower river levels have made the shad fishing a little easier.
Bass and panfishing is fair to good in most area waters for anglers willing to fish early morning and late evenings.
A lot of anglers have recently been griping about the high cost of fishing licenses — even though they haven’t increased in cost in about five years. Those anglers might be interested in what last year’s anglers in the neighboring state of Nevada paid for the right to fish.
Nevada’s basic fishing license costs $29, but if the angler wants to fish for trout, he needs to purchase an additional trout stamp at a cost of $10. Even non-resident anglers who paid $69 for their yearly Nevada fishing licenses needed to pay the $10 to fish for trout. A one-day non-resident fishing license in Nevada cost $18 last year, far more than Oregon’s one-day license fee of $12. Youths need to buy a license as soon as they turn 12 years of age, instead of age 14 as in Oregon. Nevada’s Junior License is for kids from 12 through 15 years of age and costs $13 ($21 if they live outside of Nevada) and they still need to purchase a trout stamp.
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A note on the final game triumph by the Boston Celtics over the Los Angeles Lakers is warranted. Almost every NBA expert, whether with a newspaper, TV station or online, predicted a Laker victory. Boston’s series-clinching 131-92 victory was the biggest ever in an NBA Finals clinching game. But the game was even more lopsided than that as the Celtics outplayed the Lakers in every aspect of the game. Boston had four blocked shots to the Lakers none; they had fewer turnovers, 7 to 19; they had 19 more rebounds and 18 steals to LA’s four.
The more one looked closely at the game’s statistics, the more impressive was the Celtics complete domination. Not only did the Celtics outscore the Lakers in every quarter, they outshot them from the field (49.4 to 42.2 percent), from the 3-point line (50 to 37 percent) and from the free throw line (86.5 to 73.7 percent). One can state with almost complete certainty that such Western Conference teams as San Antonio, Charlotte and Phoenix would have fared better.
against the hardworking Celtics than did the Lakers.
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