No luck at St. Louis

[Shallowbay]

I was out there for about 5 hours on Tuesday. I fished at least one part of all 7 ponds. Absolutely no luck. I tried powerbait char & orange , power eggs char and pink, kastmasters, berkley power trout worms, and even some real worms I dug up out of the soil under a bobber. No takers. It rained on and off all day. My advice is to print out a map and take it with you. It can get confusing as to where you are when you are in that canopy of trees. I walked a lot further than I intended after getting turned around. Especially since the gate is closed for the season.

When I was walking between pond 3-4 I heard a rifle/shotgun shot. Stopped me in my tracks, because you can't really tell where it came from there because of the echo. When I got out to pond 5, as I was walking over to pond 6, I saw a bunch of ducks floating. Probably 10-15 or so. Had a weird since that something was wrong because there's never many water birds out there. As I walked closer I noticed a black dog pop his head up and it donned on me that someone had decoys on pond six and was duck hunting. Had a blind set up and everything. I stayed back and waited for him to leave. I no nothing about hunting but I'm 99% sure that is highly illegal out there. I know that there is the training area for the dogs, but that is extremely dangerous with the public wondering around. Plus I know the sign say it's unlawful to discharge firearms out there. If my phone would have had reception I would have called it in.

Anybody know anything about this or ever ran in to it?


-Shallowbay

 

[Growbug]

I have heard shotgun's recently whilst i have been out at St Louis, but not seen anything like that.
Did you see the blind? Its definitely illegal to be hunting out there.

 

[Shallowbay]

re: No luck at St. Louis

I figured that was the case. Seemed really unsafe, but hey who knows. I saw the blind as I got closer. It was camo and I didn't notice it at first because of all the down trees and shrubs on the ground. Plus it was raining pretty hard. Funny side note though. About 5 minutes after he left some ducks landed near the pond. Didn't see any until he left

 

[Anyfishisfine]

I've heard shooting there too. The south part of the park is a hunting dog training area. It seems weird that someone would do that in a area with so much traffic.

 

[Growbug]

With so many "NO SHOOTING" signs.... not weird... blatant disregard to law.

 

[micah_man1]

If you look at the "Oregon Hunting Access map", on the ODFW website, you will notice that the St. Louis ponds ARE a designated bird hunting area. I've never hunted there personally, but if it's like all the other bird hunting areas managed by the state, the "no shooting" signs you guys saw probably said it is illegal to discharge rifles or handguns, meaning that is limited to archery and shotguns only. But, in my opinion, it is stupid/dangerous for them to allow hunting AND fishing at the same time there. They've got it right with E.E. Wilson, beacause there fishing is only legal when the hunting seasons are over, and vice-versa.