hey @troutdude, i took a pic of one of those beauties a couple weeks ago: View attachment 639638
a lot different looking than your typical coastal resident
Poetry in motion. Alsea locals (maybe others) named them Bluebacks—because their backs change to blue (even darker than the beauty above). Great pic indeed.
Siltcoos and Tahk are open for trout fishing all year with some resident cutthroat and at times good of ocean run cutties. SRC do not venture very far in the ocean and tend to come and go as they want, with most (and definitely the larger ones, my PB is about 20" SRC during coho season at Siltcoos) returning in late Summer and Fall in order to spawn. The searun fish are very shiny and silver, the residents that just never feel the call of the ocean have the darker heavily spotted colors.
Caught these 2 'footlong' cutties back on a sunny June 14 to bake up for dinner, we were up the Mallard arm of Tahk.
Bo Peep
The Coquille River has a great run of Stripers I know a lot of people put in down town coquille and Riverton and do well fishing for them. Most i know cast large Rapala's not sure of color or exact size.