Salmon fishing 7/19

[FishLife89]

Taking my boat out this weekend after getting it tuned up. Has anyone had any luck on the nehalem lately? I love fishin the wheeler area, but not sure if it's worth it yet.

 

[eugene1]

Not sure about this year. However that is one of the bays with one of the earliest runs, so worth a try for sure. The other one to try early is the Umpqua tidewater.

Good luck to you.

 

[FishLife89]

Thanks for the response Eugene. Appreciate it, yeah last summer it was runnin pretty good end of august and I've heard there is summer fish in there with early fall fish. The regs are kind of confusing for summer fish though.

 

[eugene1]

10-4.

I just looked at the regs on page 32. Says it's open for Spring chinook until July 31 and fall chinook begins Aug. 1. Different wording from the Umpqua though, which is weird.

I *think* you're good to catch and kill nooks there now, but maybe someone else will know more. I never fished that area in July myself. If in doubt give ODFW a call; they have always been pretty pleasant when I called. http://www.dfw.state.or.us/agency/directory/local_offices.asp

Best,

 

[FishLife89]

Good point, might as well go straight to the source. Just confused that it says spring chinook when there's no hatchery spring chinook unless you can keep the native summers. Hmm interesting. Maybe someone else does have an input. Thanks again eugene

 

[DrTheopolis]

Was just in Wheeler a couple of hours ago, crabbing the evening high tide. We saw some on the finder when we were crawling through the no-wake-zone (certainly not many). Talked to a couple of guys at the ramp who said they marked a few, and saw a couple caught. While sitting on the deck at the Tsunami Grill, watched some guys dork one off right at the boat (looked big from the splashes), right in front of the ramp.

Didn't sound red hot (might toss a plug out tomorrow morning), but one here and there for some "hard" work. Whatshisface at Wheeler Marina says you can keep highfinner Chinook, but not coho. They have the current regs on a sign right at the ramp.

Plenty of people fishing for this time of year -- even saw a couple up by the Forks.

And crabbing didn't seem all that horrid for July... we mostly went just to kill a couple of hours and grab a bite to eat (I'm helping out a friend in the area the last couple of days).

 

[FishLife89]

Thanks a lot! That's about as good of a report you can get. Sounds like they're in there. Might as well go out and give it a shot, not going to catch them sitting around!

 

[DrTheopolis]

I love it when people ask questions I know the answers to, since I'm generally an idiot the rest of the time.

 

[FishLife89]

I highly doubt that!

 

[cwsmith]

Pulled a 40 pounder out of there on July 25 a couple years back. Could show ya where if you want to go fishing!

 

[FishLife89]

That's a big one. I've lost good sized fish in there before. I'm always looking to fish! My buddies and I went out of garibaldi yesterday and it was slooooow. Lost the first fish that pinned like a chinook. I lost a fee and landed a couple natives. My buddy's first time fishing he got a nice coho so that was an accomplishment.

 

[DrTheopolis]

That's a big one. I've lost good sized fish in there before. I'm always looking to fish! My buddies and I went out of garibaldi yesterday and it was slooooow.

You went outside?

"Slow" is rare out there.

How was the ocean/bar?

 

[FishLife89]

You went outside?

"Slow" is rare out there.

How was the ocean/bar?

We did go outside at about 530 am. The one day it's nice out it was slow. Fish checker said it was slow for everyone. We had 4 in the boat but worked for them, they were scattered. Water was 62 degrees.

 

[FishLife89]

We did go outside at about 530 am. The one day it's nice out it was slow. Fish checker said it was slow for everyone. We had 4 in the boat but worked for them, they were scattered. Water was 62 degrees.

The bar and ocean was glass for most of the day. We all got burnt pretty bad it was almost too nice for fishing to be good haha