Wilson River

[jpjule]

Fished the Wilson River saturday afternoon for about three hours. The river is very low. Caught a handfull of very small trout and one that was about 9" in length. All were returned to the water unharmed. Caught them all on a 1/6 oz black roostertail. Tossed a red one for a while but nothing wanted it.


If I am reading the regs correctly, which is a big if, you can keep trout over 8"?!?!? IMO that is just way too small of a fish to keep. Am I reading wrong or are we supposed to make fishsticks out of those little things? 12" seems reasonable to me for a length cut-off.

 

[jtazzi]

u can keep 2 trout over 8"...i use an ultralite rod with 4lb line..throw the smallest gold trout hook u can find and a small splitshot 10 inches above it with a small piece of worm(doesn't need to cover the hook) and toss it in the small rapids running into deep pools u will catch lots of fish, went out there 2 weeks ago caught over 100 trout, went there today caught about 30 and a nice 13"

 

[SmallStreams]

Feel free to make your own, longer, minimum length requirements :clap:

For what it's worth, an 8" trout is considered to have reproduced once, which is why the general minimum is 8" in Oregon. It used to be <ahem> 6" up until the mid-90s.

If you're fishing for searun cutthroat (and only searuns), then a 12" minimum is a reasonable starting point... being down in the estuary and sea really allows a trout to grow fast. As I recall, the statistical charts for searuns has about 14-15" as the median length.

 

[jtazzi]

8" is not even worth the effort to get such a small meal from it...12" at least

 

[GDBrown]

You folks need to understand something about the 8" minimum rule for trout. It is the statewide standard for a reason. That is the size of the trout that are stocked in our waters. If they set the minimum any higher then they have to feed the hatchery fish longer!!!! I talked to a hatchery biologist a few years ago and he said the old rule of 6" was too small because the mortality rate was too high when transporting fish of that size, hense the change to 8".

The reason they don't change just the coastal rivers to 10 or 12 has to due with eliminating confussing rules for diferent areas of the state. Can you imagine what it would be like if evey species and every river or lake had a different size rule? Chaos for both fishermen and law enforcement.

Just my Three Cents worth,

GD

 

[Irishrover]

I might be dead wrong on this but ODFW doesn't stock the Wilson or any other free flowing river anymore. They switched that philosophy a few years back and started stocking lakes and reserviors where the stocked fish would stay put. I remember very well those days when they stocked the Deschutes and the limit was ten 6" trout. Now they have a 10" to 13" 2 fish slot limit. As I remember the whole idea is to create a non hatchery environment fishery in the streams and allow more salmon smolts a chance a getting to the ocean. Of course as I say I could be dead wrong

 

[SmallStreams]

Irishrover has most of it down. Cutthroats haven't been stocked at all, anywhere in the state, since 1994. Only rainbows have been stocked. Lakes, reservoirs, and streams above reservoirs are stocked. So... on the north coast, there isn't much stocking at all.

In the Willamette Valley, you've got to get above the dams to specifically find stocked trout, though there is downstream leakage. The lower Clackamas thus is catch & release for native trout, but you can keep two fin-clipped trout per day.

On size, the stocked rainbows used to be 4-6" and delivered very early in the year to let them grow in the streams. Now, partly for survival reasons and partly for the sport fisheries, the base size is 8-10" with occasional larger releases.