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CONTENTS

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

MACK’S LURE

www.mackslure.com

WASHINGTON COAST 12 20 22 28 36 42

Sekiu summer Chinook Bogachiel River steelhead Humptulips River coho Grays Harbor fall salmon Westport offshore Chinook Buoy 10 fall Chinook, coho

NORTHWEST OREGON 48 52 57 60 66 68 70

North Coast waterfowl Tillamook Bay tidewater fall Chinook Nehalem Bay salmon Lower Columbia steelhead Columbia-Snake pikeminnow reward program Multnomah Channel spring Chinook McKenzie, Santiam Rivers summer steelhead

SOUTHWEST OREGON 76

79 82 84 87 90 96

Coos Bay, Coquille River fall Chinook Winchester Bay marina salmon Umpqua River steelhead Rogue Bay summer, fall Chinook Rogue River spring Chinook South Coast bottomfish Lemolo Lake brown trout

GREATER PUGET SOUND 102 Baker Lake sockeye 108 Snoqualmie-Skykomish River pink salmon 113 Tacoma pink salmon

WASHINGTON CASCADES 119 East Slopes mule deer, elk 127 Blewett Pass black bears 130 Yakima elk

INLAND NORTHWEST 136 138 140 148

Chewelah, Wash., grouse Potholes Reservoir, Wash., walleye Palouse, Wash., private lands hunting John Day River mouth, Ore., quail and steelhead 152 Clearwater River mouth, Idaho, steelhead 162 Eastern Montana deer hunting

Karyl Floor shows off a high-20s Chinook from one of the last king fisheries on Grays Harbor, in 2006. (TONY FLOOR)

SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Visit nwsportsmanmag.com NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN ATLAS is published annually by Media Index Publishing Group, 1201 1st Avenue South, Suite 309, Seattle, WA 98134. For display advertising information, call Media Index Publishing Group for a current rate card. Discounts for frequency advertising. All submitted materials become the property of Media Index Publishing Group and will not be returned. Copyright © 2013 Media Index Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be copied by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording by any information storage or retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher. Printed in U.S.A.

6 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman’s ATLAS Volume 4 PUBLISHER

James R. Baker ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

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Andy Walgamott MAPS CONDENSED FROM ORIGINAL STORIES BY

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Email letters, articles/queries, photos, etc., to andy@nwsportsmanmag.com, or snail mail them to the address below. ON THE COVER

Looking into the Rogue River’s wild and scenic section. (JIM CRAIG, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT) Brent Sanders shows off a nice summer steelhead from a westside river. (WRIGHT McGILL/EAGLE CLAW PHOTO CONTEST)

Robert Spani displays a beautiful Chinook caught in the western Strait of Juan de Fuca. (WRIGHT McGILL/EAGLE CLAW PHOTO CONTEST)

Casey Hayes took this remarkable mule deer buck in the Cascades. (BROWNING PHOTO CONTEST) Jake Nelson caught this pink salmon in the Snohomish River system. (SALMONUNIVERSITY.COM)

Get daily updates at nwsportsmanmag.com and like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

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8 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Hunting GPS Maps Growing for 2013 When out in the ﬁeld, imagine having the conﬁdence to quickly and accurately determine what land is public versus private. Remember scouting for deer and wondering who owned that perfect woodlot? How about

watching geese pile into a ﬁeld and wanting to know whose land is it? All of this is possible with a map from Hunting GPS Maps. Hunting GPS Maps is proud to announce the release of several new maps and features for 2013. The Missoula, Montanabased company, which has become the gold standard for landownership maps in Western states is moving east. New states for

2013 will include Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana, Texas, and several other states may become available as well. These easy to use digital PLAT maps for GPS and computer use have revolutionized the way sportsmen access and utilize public and private land. These maps are loaded with data including, public lands, private landowner names and parcel boundaries, 24K topo, roads, trails, hunting unit boundaries, geographic features, and state-speciﬁc access programs such as private lands open for hunting. Compatible with most Garmin GPS units, this mapping system allows you to discover new hunting opportunities that most people might overlook. Use the PLAT data to easily contact landowners directly for permission to hunt. Another new feature for 2013 is the ability to view the map on your computer. If you’re interested in doing advanced scouting from home, simply plug the chip into your PC or Mac to view the map on a large screen. Now

you can plan for a hunt by creating tracks and waypoints while you scout from the comfort of home. Hunting GPS Maps is also developing several mapping apps for smart phones and paper maps using our database to provide customers another avenue to get the most current data possible for hunting. Maps are updated at least once a year to make sure that you have the most current information available. For more information, visit www.huntinggpsmaps.com for product info, ordering, tutorials, and videos on advancedGPSandmappingtipsandtechniques.

2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 9

WASHINGTON COAST F

or a region drenched by rainfall, the Washington Coast shines for fishing opportunities. From the protected waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca down through the vampire-and-werewolf-haunted rivers of Forks to Grays Harbor and Westport — the “salmon fishing capital of the world” — and on down to world-famous Buoy 10, no other region of the Evergreen State sees more salmon and steelhead swim by on their annual returns.

10 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

WASHINGTON COAST

Fireworks in the Straits HAVE A BLAST FISHING FOR CHINOOK AT SEKIU

SEKIU, Wash.—Come July there will be fireworks shows over Washington’s inland saltwaters, but none will be better than the one in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The July 1 opener to the Chinook fishery here is, historically speaking, “prime time” for the big silvery slabs. No waiting for fishing to heat up before making your reservations at places such as Sekiu because if you do, you’re too late. The state Department of Fish & Wildlife actually timed this fishery perfect and this year’s season should make many anglers extremely happy through August 15 when it shuts down. Sekiu was once known for huge slabs that hit the deck – 40-, 50-, even 60-pound Chinook that brought people from all over the state for a shot at one of these mammoth beasts. But the show went on hold in the late 1990s. King fishing here was closed for four summers to protect low returns of wild stocks. While it reopened in the early 2000s with unmarked Chinook in the bag, since 2003, it’s only been open for hatchery fish. At first, season operated under a strict quota, but nowadays that yoke is off. ONE OF THE BEST THINGS about fishing Sekiu? Calm water! Oh, it can get ugly and safety should always be your top priority. But compared to the coast it can be like fishing on a lake. Clallam Bay protects the waters and cuts down on the amount of chop. You can get some pretty good swells, but they generally are smooth and there are longer periods of time between them. Another good thing about fishing Sekiu versus the coast is that you can see shore. But even being close to shore fog can be of concern here, so make sure you have a GPS. If you have radar, it’s a bonus. 12 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Map art: RJThompsonART.com

A Place Where You Can Really Breathe … ooking for the kind of renewal you can only get when you really leave it all behind? Places like that are few and far between, but we’ll tell you about one: Clallam Bay Sekiu. Nestled on the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the Olympic Peninsula, Clallam Bay Sekiu occupies a unique place in a spectacular region. Located on the rim of an eye-popping bay, these historic ﬁshing villages have long been a haven for those who crave a real Northwest experience any time of year. It's long been known that Clallam Bay Sekiu is the place for outstanding sport ﬁshing. For generations, anglers have launched their boats into the protected bay in search of record-breaking salmon and halibut. What’s also true is that Clallam Bay Sekiu offers great family adventures such as hiking, camping, birding, beachcombing, diving, kayaking, wildlife watch-ing – just about any outdoor fun that doesn’t require waiting in line or at stoplights (there aren’t any). There’s so much to do that a short trip will just whet your appetite for more. Check out the want-to-do list on our website for ideas on how to really savor Clallam Bay Sekiu. “Something for everyone” isn’t just a tired cliché here – it's the simple truth. For year-round renewal and a real Northwest adventure, breathe it in at Clallam Bay Sekiu.

We have:

PLACES TO STAY • FOOD TO EAT FISH TO CATCH • DERBIES AND FUN

Call 360-963-2339 M

SALMON HALIBUT BOTTOMFISH For exact seasons, see marine area 4 and 5 in the Washington Sport Fishing Regulation Pamphlet.

sekui.com

clallambay.com 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 13

C O A S T

WORLD CLASS SALTWATER FISHING

W A S H I N G T O N

sekui.com • clallambay.com

WASHINGTON COAST

Sekiu’s among the best places to intercept Chinook headed for Puget Sound, as Robert Spani will tell you. He caught this 25-pounder there last year while fishing with his dad, Chuck.

Sun sets on Sekiu’s salmon fleet. (OLSON’S RESORT)

(LAZER SHARP PHOTO CONTEST)

Because of the calmer water and close proximity to shore you’ll see all sizes of boats fishing this area – 16 feet and above is the norm. Along with your GPS, a VHF and fishfinder/depthfinder go without saying – don’t leave home without them. YOU’LL WANT TO BE an early riser here and get on the water asap. The morning bite can be hotter than a Roman candle, but it can also burn out quickly. 14 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

The fortunate thing is, if you’re launching in Clallam Bay, you only need to go around the corner and hit the most productive king haven in the Straits, the Caves. Just off the kelp beds in 80 to 225 feet of water, fish tend to congregate in the morning looking for a meal as soon as the sun starts showing itself. I’ve found the early bite to be on herring. Cut plug or whole, green or blue label, mooch or motor mooch (depending on the movement) 30 to 60 feet down.

If downrigging, use a whole herring in a helmet 50 inches behind a Pro-Troll flasher in some shade of green – green glow, green spatterback or green coyote. If you see bait, stay on top of it if possible – that’s where the salmon will be. Speaking of bait, fresh is always preferred, but fresh, frozen, whole or cut plug, the one thing is make sure it spins tight! We’ve all heard that kings prefer a “slow roll.” That may be the case, but just make sure it rolls tight. If the bait doesn’t look perfect, don’t drop down. Fix or change it. The idea here is to maximize your chances at hooking up. A not-so-perfect setup may work fine for aggressive coho, but these are kings and they can be a little more particular. AFTER THE MORNING BITE, the fish tend to spread out a little, so either relocate bait and fish it hard, or troll with the tide to find either bait or fish. Once you find the bait stay with it because the fish will be there too. I also like to change tactics after the morning bite and switch from mooching to trolling with the Scotty downriggers. The standard 4-inch Gold Star Squids

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Northwest Sportsman 15

C O A S T

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W A S H I N G T O N

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WASHINGTON COAST – both UV and glow in green spatterback, army truck or purple haze – are a staple in this fishery and probably hook more Chinook than all other methods combined. An alternative to the hoochies which I actually prefer is the Ace Hi Fly, again in greens or purple haze. Whatever you prefer, it should be tied 42 inches behind, again, a green Pro-Troll flasher. Make sure and tie your leaders with 50- to 60-pound leader material to get the proper action. My friend and fishing partner Tom Nelson of Salmon University turned me onto the “White Lightning” Silver Horde Coho Killer a few years ago. The package may say “Coho,” but they are king killers! Ask anyone who used them, or better yet, ask the thousands of people who searched and came up empty-handed two years ago trying to find this particular spoon. Since the spoon has its own action you can step down to 25- or even 20-pound leader when trolling 50 inches behind a green flasher. The lighter the leader, the more action it will have, but some of these Chinook are huge and they do have some sharp teeth. Don’t go too light.

Another spoon which has been on fire during its testing phase and has just been released is the Silver Horde No. 3.5 Kingfisher Lite. Talking about matching the hatch, put one of these in Cookies ’n Cream up against a herring and you’ll see why these absolutely drive the kings nuts! But Irish crème and Irish flag, both recently introduced by Salmon University, have also been extremely effective, according to Silver Horde field tester Nelson Goodsell. Make sure and scent those hoochies and spoons up! Smelly Jelly in “Special Mix” (anise/shrimp) or Pautzke’s Krill Scent will do the trick. I also like to put some on the flasher. FROM KYDAKA POINT just south of the Sekiu River, all the way down to Ediz Hook you can fish the 120- to 225-foot lines and find numbers of Chinook down 90 to 120 feet. I would target the waters off Sekiu, Slip and Pillar Points. Any of these can be productive as fish travel this lane coming through the Straits to reach their destinations in the Sound. Just be careful of

SALMON UNIVERSITY BRINE RECIPE

This recipe will cure four to six dozen herring overnight. INGREDIENTS: 1 gallon of distilled water. You may use tap water, letting it sit out overnight to let chlorine evaporate first. 2 tablespoons Mrs. Stuart’s liquid bluing for brightness. Makes scales and skin brighter and more reflective. 4 cups non-iodized canning, rock, kosher or pickling salt. 1 cup powdered milk. This makes your herring firm without burning the bait. It’s especially good for herring that has been frozen too slow at the processor, or bait that is too soft. Garlic oil from a jar of minced garlic or one of the prepared garlic scents. Also try adding 2 tablespoons of pure anise oil. This solution will keep the herring firm for weeks if refrigerated. Once the herring have firmed up, plug cut them. You can also inject any number of scents to change the scent trail. –T.W. the closure areas north of Kydaka at the mouth of the Sekiu River, Freshwater Bay and also inward of Ediz Hook. Rather than working the whole shoreline from one area to another, I prefer to cruise to one of the points and target those areas staying within a few hundred yards on either side of the point but still maintaining the above depth guidelines. But don’t be afraid to raise or lower your presentation if you mark bait. Generally speaking, after the initial morning bite, the fish will drop into that 90- to 120-foot comfort zone. When fishing these areas, especially with bait, you have a good chance of hooking a halibut or lingcod. Nice bonus fight, but make sure and release them unharmed as they will be off limits for retention in July. –TERRY WIEST

Slabs line the deck at Sekiu. (TERRY WIEST)

16 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

W A S H I N G T O N C O A S T

2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 17

The Hewescraft Tradition of Performance

ewes Marine Company doesn’t measure success or company performance by the number of boats that it builds and delivers throughout North America; it measures its success in years. And for nearly 65 years (since 1948), Hewescraft has set the standard for roomy, rugged, reliable fishing boats. Hewescraft boats are not just built for a father-son fishing trip. They are built with room for the grandkids, too. After all, they’ll be teaching their own kids how to fish out of the same boat some day. Hewescraft is the number one selling boat in Alaska and throughout the Pacific Northwest because each heavy-gauge, all-welded aluminum hull is 10 times stronger than fiberglass

18 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

so each boat can last for generations. Hewescraft’s family-run company knows the value of ensuring that your crew is comfortable and safe on every journey, whether it’s in a freshwater inlet or on the open sea. The New Hewescraft Extended-Transom ProV Although Hewes Marine Company has been built on a solid, decadeslong tradition, it is also a boat builder that continues to innovate. Recently, after years of proving the all-around excellent performance of its ProV hull, Hewescraft added an extended transom (ET) option to this 6-footwide-hulled do-it-all boat. This new ET provides more lateral stability and a longer running surface than its com-

petitors. The extended-bottom transom is longer (by 7 inches) and wider (48 inches instead of 24 inches) than competitive models. This boat also provides a larger carrying capacity at a lighter all-up weight—making it more fuel efficient when on the water, easier to tow, and (pound-for-pound) the most capable boat in its class. Visit www.hewescraft.com to find the Hewescraft dealer nearest you and to find out more about each of Hewescraft’s roomy, rugged, and reliable boat models — from the small (but tough) 16-foot Open Fisherman all the way up to the 26-foot, selfbailing Pacific Explorer cuddy cabin cruiser. There’s a Hewescraft that will help you start your own family tradition of fun on the water.

WASHINGTON COAST uc

LEGEND

er v i R

D ol

1. Hatchery Drift: drift, float fishing 2. Calawah Confluence: drift fishing 3. Tall Timbers: drift, float fishing; divers, back-trolling 4. Crescent Hole: plugging, float fishing 5. Ice Box: drift, float fishing; divers, back-trolling 6. Hundley Flats: drift fishing 7. Mary Lou: back-trolling, drift fishing 8. Goodman Mainline: plunking, divers, plugging

S Q

yute uilla

Roa

Forks

Calawah River Bo

us aP

ine R

110

6 4 5

101

Bogachiel River

ainl

Wilson’s Bridge

dma

Mapped Area

G oo

Maxfi

ay lW

The Ponds

3 2 7

ie ach

Boat launch

Leyendecker Park

110

eld Cr eek 0

1/4

Murphy Creek

1/2

scale in miles

Map information courtesy National Geographic Maps

Bogachiel River Steelhead FORKS, Wash.—Many times when taking off steelheading, I’ll simply say I’m going to The Coast, The Peninsula, or Forks. Most often it’s because I really don’t know which river – or rivers – I’m going to end up fishing. But when it comes to December, I will be on the Quillayute River system. After that it’s an easy choice – the Bogachiel, or Bogy. Why? I consider it two for one. All the fish that are returning to the Calawah River have to come up the Bogy until it branches off at the confluence. Not only do we get to try and intercept those headed for the state hatchery on the Bogy itself, but we can double up on the Calawah fish. It’s a no-brainer where to target: from the rearing ponds downstream. I start at 20 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

the state hatchery at the end of Bogachiel Way west of Forks and work my way down to the confluence of the Calawah. It’s usually drift fishing your normal gear (eggs, Corkies, pink worms). Want multiple hookups? Drift the Bogy. Mike Zavadlov of Mike Z’s Guide Service (360-640-8109) suggests concentrating on the tail-outs. “The fish tend to stack in the tailout of each hole before moving up to the next section of holding water,” Zav says. Because these are hatchery-bound fish, the Hatchery Drift is your only real choice of a float. Launch at the rearing ponds and take out at either Wilson’s Bridge, at the end of Wilson Road, or Leyendecker Park, at the confluence with the Sol Duc.

From the top of the hatchery drift to Wilson’s is 3.4 miles cram-packed full of fish waiting for your offering (also crampacked full of fishermen). To cover more water, Leyendecker is another 5.0 miles downstream. Neither are long drifts, but there’s a hole on every corner. And while we’ve all heard the horror stories of boats going down on coastal streams, the Hatchery Drift is probably the easiest and least technical. That said, with any river it’s not a bad idea to hire a qualified guide the first time out to show you the river and how to fish it. –TERRY WIEST Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going. Map art: RJThompsonART.com

W A S H I N G T O N C O A S T

2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 21

WASHINGTON COAST

High And

The author (far left, far right) and fishing partner Grant show off high- and lowwater coho from a Grays Harbor tributary. (JASON BROOKS)

Low Coho

ADAPT TACKLE, TECHNIQUES TO DEAL WITH FLUCTUATING FALL RIVER LEVELS WHEN FISHING FOR THE LATE-RUNNING SALMON. HUMPTULIPS, Wash.—Two days before Christmas last year, when most Northwesterners were frantically running around malls for last-minute stocking stuffers, I backed my drift boat trailer down to the edge of the river and slid the Willies into the rising waters. The rain had been pouring during the two-hour drive to the coast, and as I put the oars in the locks, I noticed the river was quite a bit higher than when we had floated it in early fall. In fact, back in October, the river had been flowing at 600 cubic feet per second – a bit too low, it turned out, causing us to get out and push the boat across a few gravel bars. Now, in late December, it was running 2,400 cfs and rising. However, one thing that was the same for both of these days was that we caught 22 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

coho. So how did we do so under completely opposite water conditions? Simply knowing what works in each condition and where the fish would be.

FIRST, LET’S BREAK DOWN fishing in lowwater conditions. Though unlikely in November, if the weather turns cold and moisture falls as snow, the river can drop to lows. Coho are an aggressive fish, and being a salmon, have one thing on their minds when they enter freshwater: get up the river and spawn. If streams are low, the fish will hold in slack waters to conserve energy and wait for rising waters. Knowing this I like to target back sloughs, eddies and deep pools, especially ones with cover such as log jams. In low water I have found that twitching jigs is deadly for stacked coho. My favorite offering is a 3⁄8-ounce black-and-purple

Mack’s Glo Getter tied directly to my mainline, a 20-pound braid on a fairly stiff rod like my Laminglas 8½-foot, 10-20-poundtest spinning rod. For fish in very shallow back sloughs, I like to change to a ¼-ounce jig, while for those in swifter back eddies I will go up to a ½ ounce. But 3⁄8-ounce jigs are a great all-around size. To twitch the jig, cast out and count to five to let the lure get down in the water column. Then, start with the rod tip just above the water and jerk like you’re setting the hook. But – and this is very important – stop a foot to 2 feet off of the water and immediately push your rod tip back to just above the water. Turn the reel handle one crank and repeat the motion. Coho will take the jig on the fall and when you go to twitch it again you could be setting the hook which

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Northwest Sportsman 23

C O A S T

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W A S H I N G T O N

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WASHINGTON COAST Stevens Creek Hatchery

Humptulips Highway 101

patr ick

Roa

101

Kirk

Reynvaan Bar

Mapped Area

Copalis Station

Humptulips River

Copalis Crossing

LEGEND

Bank fishing Best late season water

Thorberg

Boat launch

Tulips Oce

Bea ch

Roa

New London

Morley (Jet sled launch) 109

Grays Harbor

101

scale in miles

is why it’s important to twitch with force. While twitching is no longer new on Northwest rivers, there may be some nearby anglers who have never fished this way or seen it done, and may think you are snagging fish. While foul hooking can be a problem when you find coho stacked up in deep holes, simply release those not hooked in the mouth and soon those around you will see the difference from the cast-and-jerk-10feet style of snaggers to the smaller, quick24 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

twitching motion of legitimate anglers.

AS THE RIVER RISES, say on a day that starts off with a sprinkle and turns into a downpour, I switch from the dark jigs to brighter colored ones, especially those with chartreuse (fluorescent green). As the water colors up, the bright colors help entice a strike. This year I am going to try some Mack’s Lure Smile Blade UV Jigs that I’ve added

some marabou to. These come with a blade placed on the jig just behind the head, and are a combination of a spinner and a jig – we’ll see how they work; I think they should be deadly. Continuing with rising water conditions, keep in mind again that coho will be on the move as there is more water for them to get upriver. Also remember they are an aggressive fish, and this is where spinners shine. My favorite are sizes 3 to 5 Vibrax in silver and chartreuse or silver and fluorescent red. You want to find the travel areas for coho, such as where the fish had been stacked up in holding water and the seam by fast water. Coho will push out of the holding water and use the seams to travel, so not to fight the rising waters. Cast the spinners out into the fast water, reel fast a few cranks to straighten it out and get the blades turning. Then let the spinner swing across the river and through the seam into the fish. In case you’re wondering how I figured this out, I will save you the same heartache I went through late last year. As we started off the day we hit the hole right at the hatchery. In the first hour of the day we hooked several coho twitching jigs. The fish were held up waiting to get into the hatchery and the water was clear enough that the jigs drove them crazy. Mark Coleman of All Rivers and Saltwater Guide Service (425-736-8920) pulled in behind us with some clients. We have fished with Mark before and out of respect, we let him have the hole. As I pulled anchor I noticed one of his clients was fighting a fish. The other client reeled in and I saw the large Vibrax dangling off the rod. Knowing how good of a guide Mark is I should have taken the hint. I spent the rest of the day twitching jigs until we met up with Ray Vermillion, an associate guide with Coleman. We shared the hole and I tried jigs while I watched his clients catch fish after fish on spinners. By the time it dawned on me that the rising water conditions and off color added up to spinners producing more than jigs, it was too late. The daylight was fading and we had several miles of river to float. We followed Ray and Mark to the takeout where they proudly showed off their client’s limits. Mark even mentioned how they went 9 for Map art: RJThompsonART.com

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Northwest Sportsman 25

WASHINGTON COAST 11 that day. Don’t let this happen to you. Read the water conditions and don’t be afraid to mix up the offerings.

AS FOR WHERE TO FISH, earlier in the year you can find coho throughout entire river systems, but by the late season, most lower stretches are void of fish. What fish that are still entering the rivers are heading straight for their destinations, such as the hatcheries. You can intercept them from time to time, especially by pulling plugs like Wiggle Warts in black with silver sparkle (known as the “Michael Jackson”) or in bright greens and oranges, but late-season water conditions usually allow for easy travel to journey’s end. By targeting the holding water near the hatcheries, you will find stacked fish. Then adjust to the water conditions to catch them. Tops on my list of rivers to hit is the Cowlitz, which gets a larger run of late coho. Head to Barrier Dam where the fish will be kegged up. If the crowds of people are a bit much, float down a little ways where fish will be slowing down as they reach this stretch of the river. Continue down to Blue Creek and fish the deep runs with plugs just below the launch. As you head downstream you will run into several back sloughs perfect for twitching jigs. There are several stretches where spinners will be the ticket. When you come to “The Wall,” a large clay bank just past the halfway point to Mission Bar, switch back to pulling plugs, or anchor up across from the wall and pitch spinners. The lower river is popular in the early fall for the chance at big kings, bright coho and even some steelhead. But by November it’s basically a highway for the latecomers to catch up to the pack and fish will usually be cruising through. That said, the mouth of the Toutle is always a good bet, and spinners and pulling plugs remain top producers. The lower river is also your best chance at a combo trip with late coho and an early winter steelhead. Next on my list are the rivers that feed into Grays Harbor, where 133,054 coho are expected this fall. Starting with the tiny Skookumchuck, a tributary to the Chehalis, there’s bank access in the upper stretches where the fish 26 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

will be stacked up. This river is small enough that you need to downsize your offerings as well or else plan on donating a lot of gear. I recommend using ¼-ounce jigs and size 1 to 2 Vibrax spinners. Even if the quality of the fish at this time of year this far up isn’t up to a barbecue, it’s still a fun river to fish with some exciting action on light gear. You might also get lucky and tie

Several drainages to the west is my favorite, the Humptulips. This year some 20,840 fish are expected, and it is the river where we launched the drift boat for those Christmas coho that I detailed above. The Hump starts getting big coho in September and provides good fishing all the way to the season’s end – the end of January! And I do mean big coho. All of the fish Winston McClanahan shows off a nice November coho from the Humptulips. (WRIGHT & McGILL/ EAGLE CLAW PHOTO CONTEST)

into an early winter steelhead, though that run typically peaks later in the season. While the mainstem Chehalis feeds several other well-known coho hot spots, the big river itself can be a great producer. Watch for nets and check the regulations on this one, though. For instance from the mouth to Fuller Bridge the current printed regulation states you must release wild coho here. But then Fuller Bridge to Porter Bridge you can keep wild coho, but only for the month of November using single-point barbless hooks. After that you must release them and at that time it’s OK to use treble hooks on your lures. You can target fish from the bank right at the edge of Aberdeen. Here it’s a pure spinner fishery as the bank can become crowded, turning it into a “do as everyone else does” outing. However, if you get a spot where you can pitch plugs and retrieve them back to shore, expect action. The Satsop offers a great drift boat fishery. Here you are allowed to keep two coho but only one of those can be unclipped. Until November, make sure you switch out your hooks on the spinners and plugs to a single siwash with the barb pinched.

we caught last year were between 12 and 17 pounds with the exception of one 3pound jack. As the year gets long and the days shorter, work around the hatchery. For bank anglers this is good news as this is where most of the access is. If you have a drift boat, this river is made for you. Don’t float past the dangerous boat chute below the Highway 101 bridge without pounding the water for fish stacked up around the hatchery. As you float down and leave the coho behind, switch over to steelhead fishing and float the jigs under a bobber for a chance at an early winter-run. For late-season coho, rising waters don’t mean it’s time to head to the shopping mall. Rather, it’s time to switch it up a bit. Be flexible with what you throw at them and use the water conditions to your advantage. While fish this late in the season can be nickel bright to Christmas-light red with big hooknoses, either way, nothing beats a fresh coho fillet or some smoked silvers at the Thanksgiving table. –JASON BROOKS Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

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‘Either Awesome Or Beyond Awesome’ HIGH EXPECTATIONS FOR FIRST-SINCE-2007 GRAYS HARBOR CHINOOK FISHERY WHICH WILL BE FOLLOWED BY HUGE 200,000-COHO RUN.

HOQUIAM—No matter how you spin it, a 26-percent increase in anything is a big deal. If you’re a fall salmon angler who skulks the banks of the lower Olympic Peninsula, a sledder who works the lower Chehalis River system or a salty dog who trolls herring off the mouth of the Johns River, your 26-percent, big-deal boost is about to arrive: 595,265 coho bound for the Washington coast. There are some significant improvements inside those 595,000-plus forecasted Class of 2012 fish: • 62,554 headed for the Queets River versus 29,610 in 2011 • 170,099 returning to Willapa Bay versus 112,446 in 2011 • 198,012 bound for Grays Harbor, a 33 percent bump over 133,054 in 2011 • 14,322 due back to Forks’ Hoh River, a nearly 25 percent rise over last year These numbers trend in the opposite direction of the year’s forecasts for Puget Sound and the Columbia River system, which are expected to see 249,000 and 45,000 fewer silvers this year, respectively. 50 SHADES OF GRAYS HARBOR The third of the abovementioned coho highlights, the Grays Harbor estuary fishery, will be one of the places to be on the West Coast come this month, thanks to both the coho windfall and the opportunity to whack a Chinook in the bay for the first time in several years. “Grays Harbor will be either awesome or 28 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Grays Harbor salmon, like this mint-bright coho Bob Cannon of Westport caught near the mouth of the Little Hoquiam River, are kamikazes for flasher-and-bait combos. “A 6-inch chrome Kone Zone followed by a tight spinning green-label plug cut herring is a deadly fish attractor in this early fall fishery,” reports expert Tony Floor. (TONY FLOOR)

beyond awesome,” predicts veteran Johns River troller, Tony Floor of the Northwest Marine Trade Association. “We’ve been waiting for a year like this for a long time: excellent coho numbers plus kings. Are you kidding me? If you’re not fishing Grays Har-

bor the last two weeks in September, the first two weeks in October, don’t even talk to me, brother.” The predicted 65,000-coho bump from 2011 can be mostly attributed to a spectacular survival year for the drainage’s wild fish.

“Meeting Skip and graduating Flagship Maritime Training has been an interesting and rewarding adventure. After obtaining my Captains license from Flagship I was earning income from a charter fishing and commercial fishing businesses. I easily paid for my training the first few months of operation. I feel much safer on the water having proper training and expanded knowledge. Skip’s years of experience are reflected in his classroom training. I recommend Flagship Maritime Training to everyone who is on the water with their family, friends or clients.” —Captain Harold Scott “Captain Anderson is a true professional mariner and instructor. He teaches the material, not the test. He is the kind of dedicated mentor that remains in the classroom for as long as it takes to ensure his students understand the myriad of details associated with being the master of a vessel. With a full career under his belt as a U.S. Navy officer, he uses his thousands of hours of experience at sea to facilitate understanding of the many esoteric procedures, customs, and traditions specific to the marine environment. After course completion, he remains “the” professional resource I turn to when I have a question, need counsel or follow-up with regard to maritime operations. His facility is modern, organized and provides the professional backdrop for delivery of the course. Skip is a “Captain’s Captain,” a gentleman, and a known expert in marine matters in the Puget Sound area.” —Officer Philip Johnson, FWO3, Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife

Director, Head Instructor A graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, Skip earned his B.S. degree in Operations Analysis. He was also a letter-winner on the USNA Varsity Sailing Team, and went on to compete in several national and North American championships, and one Olympic trials. He earned his M.S. degree from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. His naval career spanned twenty-four years, including service aboard three destroyers, one frigate, three aircraft carriers, and a battleship. His travels spanned the globe, to all continents, through over thirty countries and countless harbors. He founded the Tacoma Tall Ships Society and Tacoma Community Sailing. He is a certified sailing instructor and a certified US Sailing Race Officer, conducting races and teaching race management seminars throughout the region. He is the past President of the Tacoma Waterfront Association, and formerly served as dock master, harbormaster and yacht club commodore in a variety of locales.

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Northwest Sportsman 29

C O A S T

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WASHINGTON COAST

“We scratch our heads about coho, honestly,” admits Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife salmon policy coordinator Pat Patillo. “They’re really a mystery – it’s always a challenge to correctly forecast them, particularly the last several years. That said, both Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor should have good, strong wild runs, and should both be really good.” And 2012 regulations account for good opportunity to take advantage of the raw numbers: from Sept. 16 on, regulations allow the retention of one Chinook and two wild coho a day in Grays Harbor. “The timing is really more about Chinook in Grays Harbor because that’s what everybody gets excited about, but those coho are beautiful fish,” Patillo says. “I love the fact that you can get into coho of that quality while you’re fishing for Chinook.” 30 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

GOING GRAY Both Patillo and Floor speak of Grays Harbor in whispered tones, much like golfers speak of Augusta and boxers speak of Madison Square Garden. The bay fishery is one of the signature fisheries in the state, owing to both its geography and the quality of fish available in such shallow water. “It’s such a unique fishery,” Patillo says. “There aren’t that many places where you’re fishing so shallow, and in those troughs (in the bay). It’s so diverse too: You can fish it over on the Humptulips River side, you can fish right out of Hoquiam or you can fish way out on the outside. This year because the Chinook run is stronger, we don’t have that (Grays Harbor) control zone closed outside of Westport. If those fish start moving in, it’s possible that we could have some really good coho fishing near shore too.”

Ah, but it’s the shallow-water troll deep inside the bay that causes salmon sharpies like Floor to reserve weeks at a time at the Tradewinds in Tokeland, and for hotels and RV parks in Westport, Ocean Shores and Aberdeen to load up come early fall. Indeed, gird yourself for company: Grays Harbor will be a busy fishery the last two weeks in September. “If I could pick just one week to fish it, it’d be the last week in September,” Floor says. “It’ll be busy, but what outstanding Chinook and coho fishery isn’t?”

NUTS AND BOLTS The fishery is served by three launches: 1. The 28th Street Ramp in Hoquiam inside the mouth of the Chehalis River, which provides quick access to the north channel; 2. The Johns River, a two-lane ramp with Map art: RJThompsonART.com

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WASHINGTON COAST no dock that’s best for smaller boats. This launch will be crowded, so plan accordingly; 3. And the Westport Boat Basin ramp, an excellent, four-lane facility. The most well-known/popular spot inside the bay stretches across the mouth of the Johns River, a long trough that runs along the South Channel toward the mouth of the Chehalis River. The meat of this troll is in 15 to 25 feet of water, using Stearns Bluff as a central reference point; Stearns Creek is another landmark. The trough parallels the shoreline along the eastern edge of the bay, well past the bluff. “You’re fishing with the current, covering ground,” Floor advises. “The best run there is from the Goal Post, which is an old set of post pilings in the central Johns River estuary, down to Stearns Bluff, on an eastern shelf that runs along the Johns River. As young as this fishery is, that’s one area that’s really been developed as a focal

once you get across the mouth of South Bay, you’re good. A much less populated option is along the main shipping channel, running north/northeast inside the throat of the Chehalis River estuary, across the mouth of the Hoquiam River on the north side of the bay. The channel splits to the north roughly parallel to the Goal Post, and runs straight down the middle of the bay. “Most boats fish from the (Bowerman) airport down inside the throat of the estuary of the Chehalis, by the little Hoquiam River,” Floor says. “That’s a good plan B: I’d guess that maybe 10 percent of the people who fish Grays Harbor fish that area. You want to stay 1 foot off the deck there, right on the ledge of the main shipping channel if you’re fishing for coho. Otherwise, you’ll come dead center down the middle in the deepest water. We know what lives in the deepest water, and it rhymes with ‘Chinook.’”

Karyl Floor shows off a high-20s Chinook from one of the last king fisheries on Grays Harbor, in 2006. (TONY FLOOR)

point. Once you find where fish are stacked, staging, it’s like shooting ducks in a barrel, with the barrel half empty.” This area is also fishable during a fall storm, protected from southerlies by Stearns Bluff. You’ll get buffeted running across from the Westport launch, but

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You can predict traffic on Grays Harbor simply by looking at the regulations manual: Chinook retention closes on Oct. 7, and by Oct. 8, the crowds die down. “Once Chinook retention ends the first week of October, 90 percent of the fleet goes home and we have gangbuster coho fishing,” Floor says. “With all the coho on their way this year, it should be fantastic. And these are some of the biggest coho in the state: They’re a late-running stock that are as chrome as a bumper on a ’57 Chevy. They’re big, bright and snappy in October.”

Sandra Sandra er Hille Hiller

C O A S T

Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

W A S H I N G T O N

GEARING UP Grays Harbor has always been the land of gigantic herring and attractors, but many anglers are backing off the blue and purple label, scaling down to more Puget-Soundy green for, as Floor puts it, “a better, tighter spin and a better plugcut in general.” All three sizes are applicable, fished 6 feet behind a chrome/chartreuse, red or green Fish Flash, Kone Zone or similar attractor. The key here is to keep your bait one foot off the bottom; that requires a 4- to 6-ounce dropper if you’re fishing with the current and up to 8 ounces if you’re moving against the current. “The bottom line here is that you have to keep it in the strike zone, which is pretty tight to the bottom,” Floor confirms. “Fish will be drawn to the Kone Zone, they’ll come in to investigate, and there’s that nice spinning herring. They’ll lick it up like lollipops. These fish are aggressive. You don’t get bit, you get attacked.” Consequently, it’s a smart idea to scale up your gear slightly – a minimum is 20pound test. “You have no benefit here by going with light leaders,” Floor says. “As a matter of fact, it’s pretty dangerous to fish with anything less than 20-pound test. There’s a tremendous first impact, a head shake, you have the drag set pretty tight. You’re really loading up your gear on these fish. They’re not leader shy, so by all means, go heavier.” —JOEL SHANGLE

Sculptured S c u l p t u re d L Leather e at h e r Art A rt

Sandra Hille Hiller er The Saddle Tree.. Phone: 509-292-8300 509-292-83 300 e-mail: sdltree@aol. sdltree@aol.com com www.thesaddletree.net www.thesaddletree e.net 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 33

WASHINGTON COAST

Chinook Prospects Shine Off Westport FIFTY PERCENT BUMP IN THE KING GUIDELINE, AND A HOT START TO SEASON LAST MONTH Ocean City 109

Mapped Area

115

Hoquiam

Ocean Shores

GRAYS HARBOR 105

12-18 miles heading 270 Westport

Westport Chinook

Ocosta

Grayland

LEGEND 105

In-shore Chinook General fishing grounds Starting point Boat ramp

scale in miles

WESTPORT—This small fishing community on the Washington coast used to claim the title “Salmon Capital of the World.” Those days are past and now other destinations claim it, including ports in Alaska, Canada and even the Great Lakes. Youch, really – the Great Lakes better than Westport? But as for the West Coast of the Lower 36 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

48, I’ve got to say Westport remains the undisputed champ in my mind. Other Washington and Oregon harbors absolutely produce salmon – La Push, Ilwaco, Astoria, etc. – but for consistency and as close to a sure bet as there is for hooking Chinook and coho, Westport is it. Especially this year. Nearly 18,000 more kings than in 2011

Tokeland WILLAPA BAY

101

are available for harvest this summer off the Washington coast while the coho quota has been bumped up slightly as well, thanks to improved returns to the Columbia River, the main driver for ocean fisheries. All totaled, the king guideline is 51,500, the coho quota 69,720. Westport and its Area 2 waters’ share is half of the former and 36 percent of the Map art: RJThompsonART.com

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WASHINGTON COAST latter. The Chinook guideline is 25,600 (compared to 16,900 last year) while the coho quota is 25,800 hatchery silvers (versus 24,850 in 2011). With plenty of salmon, fishing here is open Sunday through Thursday, daily limit two, but only one king and only hatchery coho can be retained. The start of Juneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s selective fishery found good numbers of kings around. Kevin Lanier shows off a bright Westport Chinook. (CYNDI LANIER)

38 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

BEFORE GOING OUT, a couple words of wisdom. The channel that separates Westport from the open ocean can become extremely treacherous; above-average boating skills are required to navigate these waters safely. Salmon University provides a great reference on how to read and cross the bar. Then, right outside the bar is a minefield of crab pots out to the 100-foot line to beware of. These are commercial pots that, if you get caught, can take your boat down. Make sure you have someone helping you navigate as many of the buoys are

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Northwest Sportsman 39

C O A S T

In the ‘80s salmon sport fishing was forever changed as regulations designed to protect salmon runs in distant rivers limited the number of days per year the ocean could be fished. Stalwart skippers dug in their heels and kept the decks wet by broadening the Westport fishing experience to bottom fishing, halibut and albacore. Even with the addition of other exciting fisheries, the heart of Westport’s fleet remains hooked deeply to salmon fishing. The opportunity to connect with friends and family while hooking into a powerful king salmon exists today as it did in the ‘70s. The community has created a festival to celebrate that history and heritage called “Salmon Tales”. This annual event is held on the last weekend in September each year and showcases all things salmon! Fishing derbies, salmon related vendors, music, beer garden, historic displays and a competition to crown the “Best Smoked Salmon in the Pacific Northwest” make this exciting weekend worth coming to the coast for. To find out more visit the festival website!

W A S H I N G T O N

Through the booming salmon ﬁshing years, Westport boasted great food and great entertainment. John Wayne ﬁshed out of Westport each year, the Kennedy family enjoyed hooking salmon there, and Freddie Steele, middleweight boxing champion of the world, opened a restaurant and lounge at the dock. Generations of Washington families visited the coast each year to make Westport the “Salmon Fishing Capital of the World”!

estport, Washington… Each year this quaint coastal community welcomed tens of thousands of visitors in search of the mighty king salmon. They came from all over the country and from all walks of life. Generations of fishermen rose before dawn to find their way to the Westport marina, where nearly 300 charter boats awaited to deliver them to the fertile fishing grounds. Pioneers of the sport fishing industry like Bob Williams, Bud Fender and Neddie Farrington helped many create lasting memories at the end of high test monofilament.

WASHINGTON COAST not that visible, especially when the water is rough or it’s raining. GPS, VHF and cell phones are musthave pieces of equipment I would never leave Westport without.

GENERALLY WE HEAD STRAIGHT out at a compass reading of 270. We don’t look for our saved GPS coordinates, but rather for the fish. When they school you’ll see them on your fish finder. Also look for birds. Birds eat the same baitfish salmon do. As a rule of thumb, a good starting point are waters from 175 to 200 feet deep, roughly 12 to 18 miles out. We’ve also had to travel out as far as 275-foot water. But don’t overlook the shoreline fishery, which paid off well for some anglers last year. “Pay attention to the possibility for kings on the beach, off Ocean Shores in shallow water,” noted Tony Floor, fishing affairs director for the Northwest Marine Trade Association in his newsletter last month. “It’s a blast, trolling a herring at mid-depth, in about 35 feet of water. The kings don’t bite your bait, they crush it!” Once you find the fish notice your depth. Most likely you will find good concentrations of them as you move north or south along that same line. If the fish stop biting, move deeper or shallower depending on where the other boats are. Northwest Sportsman salesman Jim Klark mooched up this Westport Chinook last season while fishing aboard the Fury and the rest of charter fleet. (JIM KLARK)

In fact, keep an eye on the fleet. As with birds and baitfish, where the boats are the salmon are. If the boats are continually moving, they haven’t found the fish yet. Also, when we drop down and begin to fish, if we don’t hit a fish within 15 minutes we’re moving. Yes, a quarter of an hour is all we give a spot – it should be that good, and that’s what I’ve been accustomed to in these salmon-rich waters.

HOW SHOULD YOU entice these wonderful fish? The table is open. The best answer is, whatever you’re confident with. I prefer to set up the downriggers and troll. The more water I cover the better. Once we hook up I like to set the GPS and do figure-eights over the spot – large ones since these fish are moving. Some people will mooch herring once they find the fish. It can be an exciting and effective way to fish – it’s what the charter fleet will be doing and they must know something about putting people on salmon. But I like to troll so I can target the depth at which I see the fish. In the early morning I like staggering the downriggers at 15, 30, 45 and 60 feet. You’d think the coho would be at the top and the Chinook would be down deep, but early morning you’d be surprised how often it’s just the opposite. We generally will get both at each depth we’re fishing. As the sun

comes out the fish will tend to go a little deeper, but not much. Around 65 feet is my most common depth all day. These fish are traveling so they don’t always hug the bottom as they are later in their saltwater journey to the spawning grounds, such as in Puget Sound. I rarely fish below 120 feet, but that’s not to say we haven’t hooked fish down 200 feet. Some of my favorite setups include a green flasher followed by a green hoochie, Ace Hi Fly or Kingfisher spoon. If I’m not using green I’ll switch over to purple haze. I’ll also use cut-plug herring, either with or without a flasher if we can troll slow and there’s not much garbage in the water. Once we’re on the fish, herring can keep the bite going like crazy. For both species I prefer a nice tight, fast-spinning herring. If we’re scouting for fish, I’ll generally troll a little faster and use one of the other selections mentioned above.

IF YOU DON’T HAVE downriggers but want to troll, not a problem. In this instance I’ll use a green Fish Flash instead of the traditional flasher with a cut plug behind, using either a 6-ounce mooching weight or a diver of sorts. If we have more than two rods out we try and have two divers out the back and the others with mooching weights out the side. It doesn’t hurt to motor mooch in this case as the variance in trolling speed will many times trigger a bite. If coho are around, we also try and put out a rod with only 2 ounces of lead and a cut-plug herring 50 or more feet behind the boat. This can provide lights-out fishing at times. This is also a great light-tackle method to make the fight more fun. After the day’s over remember you still have to cross the bar coming back in. Stay alert! The following seas can be extremely difficult to navigate. With this year’s fishing forecast, once you’re back at the dock, you just may come to think Westport is again the Salmon Capital of the World – or at least the Washington coast. —TERRY WIEST Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

40 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

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WASHINGTON COAST

The Buoy 10 Commandments 1. THOU SHALT STUDY THINE TIDE BOOK Everything about the Buoy 10 fishery is being at the right place at the right time, and you can eliminate fishless water and plan a trip that best suits your personal work schedule by following a few axioms. “The first half of the (outgoing tide) offers the very best fishing in the north and south channel above and below the AstoriaMegler Bridge alongside Desdemona Sands for a mixed bag of Chinook and coho,” says

THE GOSPEL FOR CATCHING FALL KINGS AND COHO AT THE MOUTH OF THE MIGHTY COLUMBIA RIVER All those classic photographs of boats fishing in what appears to be a boiling can of soup are folks fishing near the actual deadline on an outgoing tide. “A big flooding tide, especially for coho, is when it’s the best at Buoy 10 itself,” notes Ramsey. “Don’t get here too early because the water can be very rough and unpleasant. But as soon as the tide starts to flood in, it calms the water. So the best fishing there is through the first half of the flood.”

Buzz Ramsey, brands manager for Yakima Bait Company (509-854-1311). “The downstream troll is best.”

2. THOU SHALT NOT FISH NEAR BUOY 10 ON AN OUTGOING TIDE The biggest mistake people make is thinking that one must always fish near the numbered buoy in order to catch fish. In the course of a day you may never see Buoy 10, yet still catch plenty of Chinook and coho.

101

101 Map art by RJThompsonART.com Map information courtesy National Geographic Maps

Ilwaco Baker Bay McKenzie Head

DEADLINE

Sand Island

Mapped Area 101

Chinook

Knappton Pt. Ellice

Buoy 10

401

ria Asto

-M e

Fish the first half of the outgoing tide for a mixture of Chinook and coho

Youngs Bay

Desdemona Sands

Brid

Hammond

LEGEND

Fish the actual Byoy 10 area only during the first half of the incoming tide, starting at low slack for coho

gler

t pi p S

BUOY 10

scale in miles

N TO NG N I O SH WA REG O

Astoria

Warrenton 101

Boat launch

42 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Map art: RJThompsonART.com

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2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 43

WASHINGTON COAST Granted that fishing near Buoy 10 itself on a flood tide generally produces the best fishing conditions for that particular float, but that does not mean it is the best place to catch fish because by that time a significant number of the fish have moved upriver. 3. CRANKETH THINE FISHFINDER’S GAIN Buoy 10 has several unique situations that need to be addressed. Right at the buoy, which is the western fishing deadline, you will find multiple current flows of varying strengths depending where incoming saltwater meets the outgoing river water. Find this current break and you will find fish. That means turning the gain up on your fishfinder till you see a distinct horizontal line separating two depths of water. “Right at the Buoy 10, the ocean water floods in underneath the surface water,” adds Ramsey. “You can see a line on your fish finder where that incoming ocean water, which is denser, floods in underneath the less dense surface water. If you fish too deep, especially when the tide really gets clipping, you can’t tighten your drag tight enough.” Ramsey advises turning up the sensitivity (gain) on your fishfinder to find that line, and then placing your lures or bait just above the break. Since salmon will be coming in the ocean water below that line, and because a salmon’s eyes naturally look up, they will travel upward to chase your bait in the surface water. 4. IN THE BEGINNING OF THE FLOOD, THOU SHALT BACK-TROLL Here’s something most people don’t know about Buoy 10, and if I hadn’t been on Buzz’s boat watching him do it, I would not have caught on either. When the ocean water is flooding in at the jaws (the place containing the strongest current), the salmon are actually underneath that current break being back-bounced upriver. They are actually moving backwards – tail-first! It’s not that hard to imagine. The fish are coming in fresh from the ocean, so naturally they are wanting to hug that ocean water near the bottom. Since Chinook always take the path of least resistance, they let the ocean push them upriver. The natural geometry of the fish keeps their heads angled into the current and slightly upward. This provides you the perfect back-bouncing opportunity. “As the ocean water begins to flood in, you nose into the current with the bow pointing west, and you’re basically back-trolling with that flooding water waiting for the ocean to push new fish into you,” suggests Ramsey. 44 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

“That’s best when you’re fishing for coho.” 5. HE WHO RUNNETH THE MOST GEAR KEEPEST THE MOST FISH “It always seems like the more gear you have on your line, the more fish you catch,” notes Ramsey. That funky rig Buzz used in the August 2009 Northwest Sportsman Rig Of The Month showing a diver equipped with all the flashy tassels, a flasher, a salmon bungee and a red-and-white striped spinner (email andy@nwsportsmanmag.com for a PDF) is exactly what we used to limit out the boat with silvers and Chinook. Buzz’s nephew Jason even caught a large summer steelhead trolling around 40 feet deep while we were fishing for salmon. That’s Buoy 10 for you! 6. THOU’S DEPTH DICTATES HOW DEEP THEE FISHES “If the water is 30 feet or less, the chances are you are going to do the best if your gear is related to the bottom,” Ramsey says. “If the water is over 30 feet, then you might find your best success suspending your gear 20 to 30 feet down.” 7. BRINGETH DIFFERENT SIZE HERRING It never ceases to amaze me how people will spend $25,000 or more on a new sled, motor, trailer and a truck to pull it with, yet scrimp on the most important item – bait! But for Buoy 10, don’t just bring one size. “Fish a mixed bag of different size plugcut and whole herring and let the fish tell you what they like,” emphasizes Buzz. Take green-, blue- and purple-label herring. You may find that on one particular day herring gets bit more often than lures. On other days your herring might not even get scratched yet your lucky spinner will – but if you don’t have plenty of bait with you, you’ll never find out. 8. THOU SHALT WAIT FOR THINE ROD TO BE COMPLETELY BURIED This is my pet peeve. A salmon’s mouth does not contain the most flexible set of tissues in the world, certainly not like a largemouth bass that can engulf a large plastic worm in one fell swoop. You absolutely must give a salmon time to munch on a bait. In fact, I think that a salmon is one of the only fishes in the world that can dine on a bait while it is being trolled fairly rapidly and avoid being hooked. Both Chinook and silvers have to turn that bait around in its mouth, just like they

do in the wild. First they will grab a big lively sardine and kill it – bite No. 2, and maybe 2. Then it has to turn it around in its mouth – bites 3, 4, 5, ad infinitum. If you make any hay-bailing hooksets while your bait is being killed,turned and munched, you will yank it right out of its mouth. So unless you have proven to your captain or guide that you are proficient at holding your rod with 100-percent self control, stick your rod in a holder and wait until your rod has doubled over with line coming off the reel before giving it a modest to-theshoulder hookset. Most of the time the fish will set the hook on its own. 9. THOU SHALT BRINGETH SPINNERS, AND HOW It really doesn’t matter what size, type and color spinner you bring with you as long as it’s a Toman by Yakima Bait. OK, so that might be an oversimplification, but on that day with Buzz and three other gents, every single one of our fish was caught on that very blade. “You want to try different styles and colors, but a 6 1⁄2 Cascade blade in red-and-white, chartreuse and green dot are some of the most popular colors,” adds Ramsey. “And I had good luck earlier the week we fished on just a nickel red dot Flash-Glo. Having a spinner with a built-in pink or chartreuse squid on the end can also be good.” 10. THOU SHALT KEEP THINE HOOKS RAZOR SHARP Now that the most popular file on the market, the Luhr Jensen model, is getting harder to find, I have noticed a significant portion of the angling population not bothering to touch up or even test their hooks for sharpness. Do not use the words “Laser Sharpened” as a crutch. Before you put a hook in the water, grab the eye of the hook and drag the point of the hook along your thumbnail. If that hook point does not stick immediately, guess what? Your hook is dull. Just one or two quick swipes with your hook file along one side is usually all it takes to get a hook as sharp as it can be. A lot of newer stainless steel hooks are incredibly difficult to sharpen – but not impossible. It may take a lot more work to get these ultra-hard hooks needle-sharp but in the long run your hookup ratio will climb. –LARRY ELLIS Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

Big B ig Creek ig Cre reeek ek Fishing Fiissh Fi shing ng Club Clu lub LL L LLC LC L Big Creek Fishing Club LLC. and overnight facilites are located just a 1/4 mile off Hwy 30 in Knappa, Oregon. We have day fishing rights and beautiful settings for overnight visits in our facilties. We offer discounts to large groups so call about rates. Big Creek offers Steelhead, Spring Chinook, Fall Chinook, Silvers from its waters year-round, with only a month closure in September. Come join us for you may have the oppourtunity to catch a fish out of Big Creek.

W A S H I N G T O N

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nwsportsmanmag.com www.facebook.com/NorthwestSportsmanMagazine twitter.com/@NWSportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 45

NORTHWEST OREGON

TILLAMOOK MEATS

SANDLAND ADVENTURES

46 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

hen it comes to Northwest Oregon, the sporting emphasis is definitely on salmon and steelhead. Millions of fish course up the Columbia and Willamette Rivers and into coastal systems annually, leading to spectacular fishing in the Multnomah Channel, tribs of the Willie such as the Santiam and McKenzie and bays such as the Tillamook and Nehalem. But thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not all the bounty to be had. Once the salmon boats clear out, waterfowlers take to the tidal waters of Northwest Oregon.

NORTHWEST OREGON

Tidal Ducks HOW TO HUNT THE COLUMBIA ESTUARY AND COASTAL BAYS FOR WATERFOWL

Dogs or chase boats are a must when hunting estuaries and bays. The author’s fishn-fowl hound, Oliver, earns his kibble on Tillamook Bay. (ANDY SCHNEIDER)

ust after setting out a small spread of decoys, flocks of six to 10 birds began moving in with the tide. Pintails and wigeon were in the vanguard, winging in low, looking for freshly flooded grass to drop into and start feeding. The two dozen dekes were doing a good job of drawing the birds straight to the hunters hiding in the tall grass. Most birds keep flying with the tide, but every third or fourth flock swung wide and dropped in right next to the faux fowl. While wary ducks will sit and survey their surroundings after first setting down, these wigeon started skimming the water immediately with their bills, feeding on the floating seed and mullet. It was almost as if these tidal ducks hadn’t been hunted much …

TAKES WORK, NOT LUCK Sauvie Island, Fern Ridge, Ridgefield and Umatilla are all great places to hunt waterfowl. Put in your application and see how well you do, or show up early and draw a good chip. But either way, your success at one of these wildlife “management” areas is all about luck. If the only luck you have is bad luck, 48 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Map art: RJThompsonART.com

or if Lady Luck is giving you the cold shoulder, you might look at alternatives to the waterfowl lottery. The Columbia River estuary is a massive and daunting section of water, and Tillamook and Nehalem Bays aren’t much It’s worth illustrating what it means to hunt ducks on the bays – water levels go up and down. While the covering and uncovering of feeding and loafing areas can make for better hunting than inland areas where there’s often a very long lull between the day’s flights, it’s also a very serious safety consideration. (ANDY SCHNEIDER)

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Map art: RJThompsonART.com

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NORTHWEST OREGON better. Even Sand Lake is big at high tide. There is no way to motor out in the dark and set up a spread of decoys and expect to be successful if you’ve never hunted them before. But there is one way to predict the waterfowl on these massive sections of water: the tide. Every six hours the tide changes and the birds move with the tides. Ducks will come into freshly flooded grass to feed with every incoming tide through high tide, and head to sandy and muddy flats to rest on the last of an outgoing tide. But ducks will move with the tide no matter what time of day, so you could easily plan a midmorning or afternoon hunt around an incoming tide. In fact, when hunting a new area and arriving at low tide midmorning, you could scout promising areas, all in the light of day, and set up where ducks are promised flooded grass offering food. If you can afford a day of scouting, it can pay tenfold on your next hunt day. Plan on being on the water just before high tide and watch where and how the birds are flying. If they avoid a land mass or if they are passing especially low over another (good for pass-shooting), make a mark in your GPS. Watch where the birds are setting down. Sometimes birds will drop right to the edge of the flooded grass and swim in with the remaining tide; other times they will land on dry ground and walk to water’s edge. This can be good if you’re set up in the right place – or frustrating if the ducks are consistently landing out of range.

BEST BLIND = NO BLIND One thing that can spook even the unwariest of birds is setting up a giant blind bought from a store. It is tough to match the ever-changing color of natural grass – except with natural grass. Instead, simply sitting in tall grass, or behind some natural cover, is one of the best ways to blend in in the estuaries and bays. If a blind or boat is a must, utilize natural vegetation for your cover. Just make sure to harvest it from another location than where you will be hunting. 50 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Not having a set blind can also be a big benefit as winds often change around high tide. No matter the estuary, high tide always seems to bring a wind with it. If you are simply hiding in grass, you can easily move to put the wind at your back and have the birds land in front of you without much hassle.

WATCH THE TIDE! Not only does the tide have a huge effect on how you hunt, it also needs to be watched closely so you don’t get stranded from your boat or your route back to higher ground. A 5-foot exchange – the average – will turn a 1-footdeep mud puddle into a 6-foot-deep swimming hole in just a few hours. More than one duck hunter has lost his life attempting to get back to his boat during the wrong part of the tide. When the tide comes in, stranding you from your boat or higher ground, just wait

it out. The tide will recede and give you safe passage once again. Having a small chase boat or kayak to run down cripples or shuttle you back to safety is a good idea. Having a retriever is almost a must when hunting tidal waters since cripples or downed birds can move pretty fast with the tide, easily outrunning a waterfowler wading through hipdeep water. Also make sure your decoys have, at least, 10 feet of line to a 5-ounce lead. Large spreads are not as necessary – 24 high-quality, multi-species decoys will work just fine. If you find birds flaring at your decoy spread, check to see if there is grass catching on the decoy and cord. —ANDY SCHNEIDER Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going. Map art: RJThompsonART.com

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Northwest Sportsman 51

NORTHWEST OREGON

Tillamook Tidewater Tips FISH THE UPPER END AND LOWER RIVERS OF THE NORTH COAST BAY FOR FRESH FALL CHINOOK TILLAMOOK—Set your inner deer hunter aside this fall and hope for an Indian summer on Oregon’s North Coast. Dry leaves and twigs may make it difficult to move

52 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

quietly through the woods, but will only help the salmon fishing down in the bay. “The drier the fall season is, the better the tidewater fishing gets. So if the rains

hold off, break out your bobber rods,” says guide David Johnson (503-201-4292). While early-season fishing concentrates at The Jaws, North Jetty and the

Map art: RJThompsonART.com

N O R T H W E S T

With five salmon- and steelhead-choked rivers pouring into world famous Tillamook Bay, to a fisherman, being in Tillamook is like being a kid in a candy shop. All that is left for the fishermen to do is choose their favorite flavor, depending on the season, and taste the sweet rewards. During the summer, the near shore ocean fishing out of Tillamook Bay is world-renowned. Rockfish, Ling Cod, Sea Bass, Chinook and Coho are in great numbers within casting distance of the jetties at Tillamook Bay. For those that want to ride the swells, there are plenty of charter boats and well maintained boat launches available. As the days get shorter and the nights get colder, Tillamook’s most famous fish—Fall Chinook— begin returning to Tillamook Bay. With fish anywhere from 20 to 60 pounds flooding in and out with every tide, the chance at a true fish of a lifetime is possible every time you cast. Over the last few years the Wild Steelhead Broodstock Program has sent the numbers of winter steelhead through the roof. They can be pursued from the bank, but those who love to float the rivers have a golden opportunity. There are literally dozens of floatable stretches of river in the area that will take boaters through some of the most beautiful coastal canyons in North America. For more info visit gotillamook.com 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 53

O R E G O N

OREGON’S FISHING MECCA

NORTHWEST OREGON famed Ghost Hole, the action moves towards the head of the bay as we head into October. And that also brings another group of anglers into the game. “The lower Wilson and the lower Trask Rivers offer best access for boaters and bank anglers,” says Johnson. “Each river has miles of tidewater that give anglers plenty of opportunity to ambush one of these Tillamook fall Chinook.” While three other rivers enter the bay, concentrate on these two for consistent success. Tidewater on them can resemble a standard river with heavy current flowing towards the bay (on large tide exchanges) and in a couple hours, be flowing the exact opposite direction with equal force. Other days the water may not even have a noticeable current (on small tide exchanges). “These Tillamook fall Chinook have a tendency to mill around throughout all the

tidewater tributaries,” says Johnson. “As smolts they lived all over tidewater, washing in and out of different rivers and with the tides mixing the water together, it’s not uncommon to find Trask River fish in the Wilson river and vice versa.”

EGGING THEM ON Plugging, back-bouncing, bobber dogging and trolling spinners are equally effective, but bobber fishing is king of tidewater. And while eggs are one of the best baits to pursue fall Chinook, also bring some sand shrimp, sardine, herring and maybe some anchovies to add something “extra” to your eggs. Adding chunks of these other baits can really make a difference at times. “A chunk of sardine sometimes is the trick that’s needed to get these fish to bite,” hints Johnson. Another thing to bring: your tide book. That will tell you when to deploy your gear.

“Anglers don’t want to miss out on bobber fishing during high slack and low slack, followed by the outgoing tide,” says Johnson. He says a 1-ounce bobber will work best for tidewater fishing here. “You want the fish to be able to pull down the bobber nice and easy,” he says. “When you start getting a bite on a bobber, reel down, get all the slack out of the line, then set the hook!” Most Tillamook bobber fisherman prefer to anchor to the side of the hole they are fishing, then cast up current and let their eggs drift through the entire hole. But to cover a lot of water and find fish, try bobber dogging. Simply cast your bobber to the opposite side of the river while letting your boat drift with the current. Use your trolling motor to keep yourself even with your bobber. This is very similar to side-drifting, but with tidewater currents, usually done much slower.

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N O R T H W E S T

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Using superb quality, lean, ground Oregon beef, flavored with hand-blended fresh herbs, and her great grandfather’s, grandfather’s and great uncle’s recipe’s she has made a very special sausage line. Low in fat and sodium, with a minimum of preservatives, this is a sausage for the health conscious diets of today. Salmon is our specialty. Smoked salmon with the Debbie D label is spectacular in both flavor and texture. It is moist and delicious. Our salmon jerky is simply the best jerky product anywhere.

We vacuum package and smoke fish and game. We ship all over the US and just next door.

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Northwest Sportsman 55

O R E G O N

THE BEST SAUSAGE AND JERKY YOU EVER ATE!

NORTHWEST OREGON OTHER TECHNIQUES “Plugs catch fish in Tillamook,” says Johnson. “These Tillamook fall Chinook are just suckers for them. Both incoming and outgoing tides produce when anchoring with plugs. Just look for larger tidal exchanges for better fishing.” “If you’re looking for a place to anchor, or tie off to a piling, look for a place in the river that will funnel fish towards your plugs,” he suggests. “The water doesn’t necessarily have to be very deep – as long as you put your plugs in a fish’s travel lane, they will get bit.” A 24-inch dropper and a 5-foot leader works best when running K15 Kwikfish or M2 FlatFish. Pay attention to your plugs to make sure they are not digging into the bottom, or lengthen your dropper if needed. Back-bouncing eggs is an all-time favorite technique for many anglers and guides, one that is often overlooked in the softer flows of tidewater, but it still works

56 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

– sometimes very well! To compensate for the lack of heavy current, you simply need to prepare for it. Start by looking for an outgoing tide with a large exchange, then bump up your main line to (at least) 30-pound monofilament or 80-pound braid. You want a larger diameter line to catch the current and assist in moving your bait downriver. Use a Spin-N-Glo or Cheater for buoyancy and find some light cannonball leads, as light as ½ ounce. Trolling spinners is by far the most popular technique in upper Tillamook, but no need to leave this technique in the bay. Next time make a pass through the lower rivers. While you may be trolling in just 4 feet of water, fish will still bite a spinner. Many times fish will slide out of the way of a passing boat and become more aggressive.

ACCESS “Tillamook County rivers are

pretty limited for bank access for due to private property,” says Johnson, “so focus on the Hospital Hole on the Trask, handicap dock on the Tillamook River and the pull-offs along Fraser Road for the Tillamook River.” Having a boat really opens up opportunities for access on Tillamook’s rivers, but pay attention to the tides and plan your exit around low tides, since parts of tidewater are completely impassable at low tide. During peak season, Tidewater can become extremely crowded. Just give yourself extra time for motoring to your fishing location, since most of Tillamook’s tidewater has a 5 mph speed restriction. –ANDY SCHNEIDER

Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

Nail ’Em On Nehalem Bay CHINOOK, COHO PROSPECTS SHINE ON OVERLOOKED ESTUARY THAT IS ALSO GREAT FOR CRABBING.

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Map art: RJThompsonART.com

N O R T H W E S T

WHEELER, Ore.—Imagine a forgotten bay, loaded with crab, Chinook and coho, all less than a two-hour drive from Portland. Would you be interested? What if this overlooked bay promises a strong run of fall kings, a catch-andkeep native silver fishery, all away from the heavy angler pressure of Buoy 10 and Tillamook Bay. No need to scour Google Maps for some heretofore unknown estuary – we are talking about Nehalem Bay. Just when folks were starting to forget about it after Chinook closures and frustrating no-fishing zones, it bounces back and is looking like a premier destination this fall. “Nehalem is predicted to get 8,700 fall Chinook this year, right at the 20-year average,” says Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife North Coast district biologist Chris Knutsen. “Last year we saw an escapement of 7,665 on the Nehalem, not too bad either.” “Nehalem is a very healthy bay,” notes local fishing guide Russ Morrow (503-3109733). “The bay gets a very healthy run of coho and Chinook; it’s loaded with crab and lots of baitfish.” Morrow has been running trips on Nehalem Bay all through July and August and getting fish each trip, but he is really looking forward to September. “It’s really starting off strong this year; I’m seeing a lot of fish being caught all through the bay and into the river, though mid-September is always the best. The

weather starts to cool, the weeds thin out and fresh fish are moving in on every tide,” he says. SOCK ’EM IN THE JAW “The jaws is open this year because we have a lot more returning fish and it’s my favorite place to fish on the bay,” explains Morrow. “Look for the softer tides to fish the jaws – not only is it safer, but more fish will cross the bar when it’s not turned over by heavy tidal flows.” While he describes the area between

the jetty tips as the jaws, it’s really just a lower jaw bone of the south jetty, since the north jetty is totally sanded in and is an extreme hazard. Every year, anglers get too close, are caught in the shoaling and roll their boats as the breakers come across the shallow water. “While I’ll troll the south jetty all the way out to the ocean on an incoming tide, I stay clear of the breakers on the outgoing tide – it’s just plain scary if you get too close,” warns the guide. 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

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NORTHWEST OREGON Known more for Chinook, coho fishing has come on in recent years at Nehalem Bay as anglers like Jeff Anderson have been allowed to retain wild fish. (WRIGHT & McGILL/EAGLE CLAW PHOTO CONTEST)

He says to keep trolling here and not to hover in one spot, as is popular in Tillamook. “It’s a small area and the courteous thing to do is to keep moving; if you hold against the current you will create a traffic jam of sorts,” he says. Morrow also is known to practice a Columbia salmon technique. “There are a lot of no-wake zones to watch out for on the Nehalem, but making downhill trolls with the outgoing current can be very productive,” he hints. Popular places to troll downbay are in front of Wheeler, Brighton and The Jetty Marina. And if it’s spinners you’re trailing in your bid to nail ’em, then stay close to the Highway 101 boat ramp. From Lazarus Island to just above the 101 bridge is prime territory for spinner fishing. “While I’m usually a herring guy, spinner fishing can be very productive in the upper bay. If I have clients who want to hold their rods and know how to spinner fish, it’s tough to pass up,” says Morrow. RIGGING RIGHT If you have plugcut herring fishing dialed in at Tillamook Bay, Nehalem rigging isn’t much different. But 58 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

there are some subtle nuances that can make a difference. “I have found best success running a 12-inch dropper and a 6-foot leader,” advises Morrow. “Just like Tillamook, you have to deal with the weeds, so add beadchain protectors and clean your bait regularly. But whatever you do, you have to keep your bait on the bottom!” Morrow is usually running 16-ounce cannonball weights, even on softer tides at the jaws. He also switches up his hooks here. “When the ocean is nice, it’s not uncommon to sneak out past the jetties, so I play it safe and just run barbless hooks when fishing the jaws,” he says. Nehalem doesn’t have a “bubble fishery” like Tillamook and once you are past the jetty tips, you are in the Pacific and must follow current ocean regulations. Morrow also likes to add some flashers when the weeds allow. “I really like plain chrome, plaidpatterned flashers. A lot of times, I’ll run flashers on just my front rods and plain bait on the back rods.” NEHALEM PLAN ‘G’ Sometimes the weather, tides or the mighty Pacific don’t

cooperate with our days off and you find yourself faced with non-ideal fishing conditions. No need to turn back for the valley. “If we have a really upside down ocean, I’ll head to Garibaldi,” Morrow says. “I can make a total switch from Nehalem to Tillamook in less than a half hour, no need to go home.” He believes that it’s not worth fishing the jaws during rough ocean conditions. “Those fish just won’t cross the bar. A rough ocean creates a ‘sand curtain’ making it near impossible for a fish to navigate through, let alone your fish-finder to even find bottom. So I just turn it around and head to Tillamook,” he says. NEHALEM PLAN ‘C’ Who doesn’t love fresh Dungeness crab? September is one of the prime months to get to the Oregon Coast and partake in this tasty bounty! Even Morrow, a focused salmon guide, can’t pass up an opportunity to drop some pots. “We just got 25 keepers out of two pots today! And this is August – it’s only going to get better in September!” He has a few tips on placement. “Be careful where you drop your pots in

Nehalem,” Morrow says. “There is a lot of current on an outgoing tide and it will carry a light trap right out into the ocean. Crabbing is always better on an incoming tide anyway, so save your bait till low slack.” He has two “hot spots,” though they are anything but secret: “Right in front of

the jetty fishery and the state park area are the two most productive areas to crab in Nehalem.” Morrow also recommends looking for corners and coves out of the current to drop crab traps during big tides. Not only will they still be there when you return, but

crabs will move out of heavy current and can be easily lured in with fresh tuna or salmon carcasses. —ANDY SCHNEIDER Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

TRY TILLAMOOK IN SEPTEMBER tions. This can also be beneficial to a Tillamook Bay fisherman. With a calm Pacific, the Tillamook Bubble starts to load up with Chinook and coho as they stage waiting for fall rains to swell coastal rivers. This month also sees a lot of baitfish feeding near the surface on the tuna grounds, which can also benefit Tillamook anglers as lots of anchovies and needlefish flood in and out of the jaws. The sheer abundance of baitfish in the Tillamook Bubble puts the staged salmon in a feeding frenzy and they will attack anglers’ baits with reckless abandon. While fishing close to the ocean during the early season makes a lot of sense, Chinook still move into the bay with every tide

and will push right into tidewater. Though September may be just a bit early for bobber and eggs, it’s definitely not for trolling spinners in the upper bay. Look for late-month minus tides to be most productive, especially the outgoing tide and first hour of incoming. Then there’s the crabbing – it becomes nothing short of spectacular this month thanks to high salinity levels that leave the bay infested with brine spiders. While some may be still on the soft side after molting, there are usually plenty of Dungies for finding firm, full-meated crustaceans. Don’t let a big, chrome hawg haunt your dreams this year. Make a prehunt trip to Tillamook and treat your hunting camp to some red-meated Chinook! –AS

N O R T H W E S T

Tillamook Bay’s fall Chinook have haunted more than one hunter’s dreams at Deer Camp. But while Oct. 1 is the traditional kick off to the king season, there are plenty of opportunities to catch fish before. Yeah, it’s tough to leave the Columbia estuary for late-season coho and even harder to leave biting upriver brights just a few miles from home, but a drive to the bay can yield great results this month. This year’s forecast calls for 13,300 kings, about 1,400 more than were counted on the spawning grounds last year, according to ODFW biologist Chris Knutson. September is the favorite month for seasoned albacore anglers for many reasons, the main being decent ocean condi-

O R E G O N

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nwsportsmanmag.com or call 800-332-1736 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 59

NORTHWEST OREGON

Sand, Summer And Steelies

THE BIGGEST RUN AND THE EASIEST FISHERY FOR METALHEADS CAN BE FOUND ON THE SHORES OF THE LOWER COLUMBIA. PRESCOTT BEACH, Ore.—You are just dozing off into a daydream when you hear the little bell go off. Fish on! Grabbing the rod from the holder you tighten up the line and put the rod to the fish. Bursting from the water right in front of you a big, rosy-sided steelhead somersaults through the air, trying to throw the nasty Spin-N-Glo imbedded in its jaw. While fighting the fish you say the fisherman’s prayer, “Please don’t let him come off!” Eventually the prize is yours, and a chrome-bright summer steelhead comes

Rosburg Ilwaco

Brookfield

Skamokawa Cathlamet

Willow Grove

Astoria

Rainier

Jones Beach Dibblee Beach 30 Rainier Riverfront Park Prescott Beach Sand Island Marine Park Cannon Beach

Seaside

Kalama

Dike Road 0

Woodland

Walton Beach Willow Bar

scale in miles

Vancouver Lewis & Clark SRA Camas 503 84

Lower Columbia Tillamook River Steelhead

a C

Frenchman’s Bar Park

Portland Meldrum Bar

LEGEND

60 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

St. Helens Warren

Summer steelhead spots

Cle o

Mapped Area

Kalama Beach

Quincy

Nehalem

W Bat

Spr

Longview Kelso

Westport

Fre Cod

County Line Park

101

lumbia. This year’s projection is for over 390,000 adult fish and follows last year’s run of 410,000. These are some of the easiest of the many salmon and steelhead runs to catch, and the schools of eager-biting silvery fish make it even easier by running right along the shallow edges of the river. All you need is a poleholder, a rod and reel, a little bait, a tide book and a bell. Then, find yourself a beach and join the sun-worshippers. “Plunking,” as the sport is called, is very much an event

to the bank. Break out the T-shirts, barbecue grills and the coolers, May is finally here. It’s time to get the whole family out of the house and head to the banks of the river to suck up some sunshine, broil a few hot dogs, drink a soda or too and enjoy the fine weather. And don’t forget the fishing gear, because the metalheads of summer are here. As if the season wasn’t fun enough already, here comes another great run of steelhead making their way up the Co-

205

Bonneville

Troutdale Chinook Landing

Rooster Rock State Park Government Island SRA M. James Gleason Memorial Boat Launch

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NORTHWEST OREGON where people gather to picnic and socialize as much as to catch fish. And what a fish to catch! Summer steelhead are famous for their acrobatics, jumping high and making serious lineburning runs when hooked. Also, they are some of the best table fare the Columbia offers. Like the larger spring Chinook, these oil-rich fish will stay in the river for many months before spawning, so they come in fresh from packing on the fat of fertile ocean waters. THREE DIFFERENT STOCKS The Columbia’s summer steelhead run is actually comprised of three stocks. The first to arrive are the Skamanias, a hatchery run that is headed to the lower river tributaries such as the Cowlitz, Lewis and Willamette. They run about 7 to 10 pounds on average and show up early, peaking about the Fourth of July. The next segment is the “A” run, steelhead that average about 4 to 6 pounds and are headed to the Deschutes, mid- and upper Columbia and Snake tribs. They arrive in force about mid-July as the Skamania run peters out. Finally the big “B” run fish arrive in August, and they’ve got shoulders, running from 12 to 16 pounds. They are headed to Idaho rivers. In the lower river the bite is spotty in May, but gets solid in June. It stays good along the beaches through July, but in August the bite switches to the cold-water fisheries such as the mouth of the Cowlitz, and the fish start running deeper. We’ll talk about those in a coming issue. Summer steelhead may be one of the most overlooked fish that returns to the big river. The pressure for them is nothing like springer madness. While some spots get busy, there is plenty of room for more fishermen on the beaches. Just where should you go? Where can you catch fish? That’s easy. “Anyplace you can get access to the river,” says Cody Clark of Bob’s Sporting Goods (360-425-3870) in Longview. “If you can get to the bank you can catch fish.” Beaches, riprap banks, rocky shorelines and bluffs are all good because the fish are swimming right past your feet. 62 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

RIGGING RIGHT Cody’s shop is plunk central for the Lower Columbia, and novice fishermen can get the straight scoop on what to use if they stop there. “We sell tons of steelhead gear,” says Clark. “We can help you get what you need to get going.” Gearing up is easy, and inexpensive. Start with a medium-length rod (8½ feet is good) that can handle throwing up to 4 ounces of lead. You need a reel spooled with 20-pound or stronger mainline, and some 15-pound mono for leader. A 6- to 18-inch lead line with a 3- to 6-ounce pyramid or sand claw weight is attached to the line above a barrel swivel with a slider or a spreader bar. From the barrel swivel tie on an 18- to 36-inch leader with a No. 4 Spin-N-Glo and a 1/0 hook tipped with a cured prawn tail. The most popular color prawn is pink, although red and purple can have their days. Favorite Spin-N-Glo colors include watermelon, rainbow, rocket red and fire-tiger red. Some anglers fish with multiple baits, running two or three leaders off one rig. Additional lines are often fished with steelhead plugs, such as an X-5 FlatFish or a Brad’s Wiggler in fluorescent red. However, throwing a multiple-hook rig correctly can take some practice. These rigs are easier to cast if you use spreader bars instead of sliders. If the area you’re fishing is too snaggy and you keep losing your lead, you can try “Flintstone fishing,” as Clark calls it. Simply tape a rock to your line instead of lead, and just rip the line loose when you get snagged. PLUNKING TIPS The first mistake novice anglers make is to fish too deep. Steelhead follow the bank closely – very closely. In fact, when Clark fishes the riprap he often uses a 10foot rod and simply holds the rod out and drops his line straight down. This puts the bait in the depth he likes, about 6 feet. “The steelhead are usually running about 6 to 12 feet deep,” says Clark. “When fishing the beaches you need to cast a little further out to reach that depth. About 15 to 20 feet from the bank is about right.” Watch the other fishermen, note just

where they are fishing, and then fish that depth yourself. Always make sure you have gear and weight that matches what the others are using. One errant angler with too little lead can cause havoc with the fishermen below him when his line doesn’t stick to the bottom and drifts down, fouling everyone else. It’s very important to fish correctly when you are in such close quarters, or you won’t make many friends, and plunking is a social fishery. Once you get the bait where you want it, put the rod in the holder, and hook the bell on the rod. Now all you have to do is sit back, relax and wait for the bell to go off. Well, almost. It’s a good idea to check the bait at least once an hour and clear any debris off your line. In the meanwhile, read your tide book. The Columbia is tidally influenced all the way to Bonneville Dam, but the tides are bigger in the lower river and affect the currents more. “You need to get a tide book,” says Clark. The outgoing tide is best because it creates stronger currents that will work your baits better, and force the steelhead close to the bank. On the flood tides the fish often ride the currents upriver away from the shore. Clark reports the fishing is best from the slack tide an hour ahead of the ebb, through the hour of slack at the end of the ebb. “The steelhead bite well during those tide changes,” he adds. Unfortunately, tide charts for the Columbia are often not completely reliable because they can’t take into account changes in flows from hydro releases or rains. It’s good idea to arrive early in case the tide turns ahead of the chart. WASHINGTON BANK SPOTS Cathlamet: This small Washington town marks the point where the fishing starts to get good. There are riprap banks all along the Columbia and rocky bluffs that make good spots all the way to County Line Park. There are pull-outs and parking spots along Highway 4 that local anglers target, but, again, there are miles of riprap banks that never get fished.

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2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 63

NORTHWEST OREGON County Line Park: This family-friendly park on, yep, the line between Wahkiakum and Cowlitz Counties offers a great place to take the family and picnic while waiting for the bells to go off. The beach is easy for seniors and youngsters to get around on and the fishing can be excellent. Clark likes to fish here and reports that during the peak of the run – late June and July – the beach can get crowded. “Once the fish are in good, you need to get there early to get a spot,” he says. Lower Columbia tribs: A few miles above the park, steelheaders take quite a few fish near the mouths of Abernathy, Mill and Germany Creeks. These are also favored shad spots. Willow Grove: Just below Longview this beach offers fairly easy access off a paved road, and there is a long stretch to fish. There are restrooms nearby. Kalama beaches: Good places for beginners, since there is a lot of room to spread out. Lewis River mouth: Not a big area, but the point at the end of Dike Access Road on the north side of the Lewis River mouth has enough space for a few anglers to plunk. Washougal River: The mouth of this river is a good place to find steelhead, both those running up the smaller stream, and those following the Columbia. Oak Tree Hole: This well-known spot on the Washington side of Bonneville Dam below the boat launch is a perennial favorite

for plunkers. The shore is riprap, and there are bathrooms nearby. OREGON BEACHES Beaver State-side beaches can be the best bet early, but by July the best bite switches to the Washington side. Jones Beach: The first good beach on the Oregon side, this spacious stretch between Westport and Clatskanie offers plenty of room to fish, but no other amenities. Dibblee Beach: Another beach with room to roam, but no amenities, this beach just below the Lewis & Clark Bridge has good fishing, but the access road is rough, and a four-wheel drive is recommended. Prescott Beach: A $2 day fee gets you in to this park and beach. This is a good choice for families with restrooms, a play area for the kids, and restrooms. Willow Bar, Walton Beach: A $7 day fee gets you access to these good fishing beaches, but there are no amenities or restrooms. Sauvie Island beaches: The north beaches along Reeder Road provide some of the best action and are easy to get to, but there are other good beaches as well. Willamette River/Meldrum Bar: This is the most popular bank spot for summers on the Willamette, and for good reason. Right in the heart of Portland, the bar produces a lot of steelhead and through early June spring Chinook are often caught too. Expect some company here, but the locals are pretty tolerant of newcomers. Government Island: The state recreation area here is accessible only by boat, but the park offers restrooms, picnic areas and a dock. There are also good beaches on other parts of the island as well. Lewis and Clark State Recreation Area: There is good access here along the lower Sandy River. Hit these reaches early; by July the run is over in the lower Sandy. Rooster Rock State Park: This a great park for families with full amenities and plenty of shore access. Tanner Creek: The mouth of this creek is one of the best spots to catch summers on the Oregon side below the dam. Bonneville Dam: Bradford Island on the Oregon side below Bonneville is another good spot to plunk for steelhead and summer Chinook, and a few are taken from Robins Island. While steelhead run so shallow a boat is not needed, one can be helpful for getting to uncrowded areas. “A lot of fishermen use their boats to get to island beaches,” says Clark. “Those spots can be pretty good, and you can get off to yourself.” Some fishermen make a multi-day trip of it and spend a few days camped on the beach with family, enjoying the scenery and solitude while tangling with a few steelhead. There are dozens of good islands that rarely get fished. Sand Island near the town of St. Helens has some amenities, such as picnic areas and pit toilets. –TERRY OTTO Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

64 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

2013 Registration Stations 1a 1b

2a 2c 10b

2d 7b 4a 3

4 3a

9 8

2013 Pikeminnow Sport Reward Program ou can help save salmon and get paid to do it! The Pikeminnow Sport Reward Program, funded by the Bonneville Power Administration, pays anglers for pikeminnow they catch that are 9 inches or longer. Rewards range from $4 to $8 dollars per fish â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and specially tagged fish are worth $500! The program operates from May 1 to Sept. 30 this year in the lower Columbia River (mouth to Priest Rapids Dam) and the Snake River (mouth to Hells Canyon Dam). Northern pikeminnow eat millions of salmon and steelhead juveniles each year in the Columbia River Basin. The goal of the program is not to eliminate the pikeminnow, but rather to reduce the size and curtail the number of larger fish. Reducing the pikeminnow population in this way helps more juvenile salmon and steel-

66 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

head successfully migrate to the ocean. Since 1990, the program has reduced the pikeminnow predation on salmon by 40 percent. More than 1,000 anglers participated in the 2012 Pikeminnow Sport Reward Program, catching 157,205 pikeminnow and earning $1.12 million in rewards. To participate in the Pikeminnow Sport Reward Program, anglers must posses a valid fishing license from Washington or Oregon and must register each day before they go fishing at one of the official registration sites located at boat ramps along the Columbia River. Anglers must bring their daily catch back to a registration station, where their fish are measured and certified. Pikeminnow must be at least 9 inches or longer to be eligible for a reward. To avoid safety con-

cerns, fish checkers do not carry cash while working at registration stations that can be located at remote and sparsely populated areas. Instead, anglers are issued vouchers for the amount they have earned for their daily catch. By sending the voucher to the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Council, anglers will receive a check, usually within one to two weeks. You can catch northern pikeminnow almost anywhere on the Columbia River. The fishing areas include backwaters, sloughs and up tributaries 400 feet from the tributary mouths. These fish tend to congregate in rocky areas with fast current near dams, islands, stream mouths, points, eddies, piling rows and bars in the river. Most fish are caught in 7 to 25 feet of water. The best times to fish are during lowlight periods as these fish move into shal-

12b

1 12a 12 10

The Northern Pikeminnow Rewards given for 9 inches or larger 10b

Registration Stations:

low water, and the most popular methods for catching fish are plunking, backbouncing and drift fishing. Anglers use an assortment of artificial lures that include soft-plastic lure bodies such as grubs, tube jigs, or shad-type lures. Other anglers prefer bait. Some of the most popular options include chicken livers or fish innards. Pikeminnow seem to be triggered by color, so finding the right color and location of fish are the two keys to being successful. The Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission in partnership with the Oregon and Washington Departments of Fish and Wildlife administer the Pikeminnow Sports Reward Program with funding provided by the Bonneville Power Administration. For information on the Reward Voucher Program, call (800) 769-9362, or go to www.pikeminnow.org.

1a. 1b. 2a. 2c. 2d. 3. 3a. 4.

(Times as indicated)

Cathlamet Marina Willow Grove Boat Ramp Rainier Marina Kalama Marina Ridgefield M. James Gleason Boat Ramp Chinook Landing Washougal Boat Ramp/Port of Camas

4a. Marine Park (PORTCO) 5a. Beacon Rock 6b. Cascade Locks Boat Ramp 7b. Bingen Marina 8. The Dalles Boat Basin 8a. Maryhill 9. Giles French 10b. Umatilla Boat Ramp 10. Columbia Point Park 11. Vernita Bridge Rest Area 12a. Lyons Ferry 12b. Boyer Park 12. Greenbelt

10:00 am 2:00 pm 9:30 am 1:00 pm 3:30 pm 12:00 pm 9:00 am 9:30 am -

1:30 pm 5:00 pm 12:30 pm 3:00 pm 5:30 pm 5:30 pm 11:30 am 3:30 pm

4:00 pm - 6:00 pm 9:30 am - 12:30 pm 1:00 pm - 5:30 pm 9:00 am - 12:30 pm 9:00 am - 3:00 pm 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm 1:30 pm - 5:30 pm 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm 2:00 pm - 6:30 pm 10:00 am - 2:30 pm 10:30 am - 12:30 pm 10:30 am - 2:00 pm 3:30 pm - 6:30 pm

2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 67

NORTHWEST OREGON

The Laid-back Springer Fishery

t was all just good boating fun on a beautiful spring day, even if the fish weren’t biting. The weather was great, the sun was out, and my wife and I were enjoying time on the water with our neighbors, Walt and Karen Trandum. Then one of the rods slammed down and I interrupted the lively on-board chat with a bellow of “Fish on!” The rod was pumping hard as Walt struggled to free it from the holder. He proceeded to do battle with the spring Chinook, and after a while we got a look at the fish. “It’s a keeper! He’s clipped,” I shouted. “Get him in – we’re talking barbeque!” Everyone cheered when the net dipped up the chunky springer, and then it was time to celebrate. WHEN I TAKE FRIENDS SPRINGER FISHING, I often choose the Multnomah Channel over the Columbia River or the Willamette, especially if my crewmembers aren’t fishing diehards. It’s a softer, easier fishery that appeals to the less fanatic fishermen. Compared with the wind and chop often found on the Columbia, the waters of the channel are pretty tame. Also, further up the Willamette in Portland proper the crowds get thicker. So, I often find myself back on the channel, trolling the long flats and enjoying the countryside. The flats are long indeed, and that means trolling good stretches of productive water without having to turn and run back upstream every few minutes. Not having to run that drill of reeling in and stowing for the run all day long is another reason this is good water for when you take elderly or young family members with you. You just put the kicker in gear and settle in for a good, long, relaxing troll. The channel also gives up a lot of fish. A big portion of the Willamette-bound spring Chinook run take the “shortcut” of the channel, and this year’s run will be substantial, if not stellar. The official forecast for the basin is 59,800 adults, of which 47,300 should be fin-clipped and harvestable 68 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

hatchery fish. About 26,700 of those adults are expected to be the larger 5-year-olds too. Those big salmon tend to show early, and a big chunk of them will be caught in March. That’s why anglers should be trying to get on the water right now to get in on those springers in the 20- to 30-pound range. Also, the channel is an early hot spot, and by May the run will move into the upper

reaches of the Willamette and over the falls. However, for the next two months there will be springers in the channel. WHILE THE TOP OF THE CHANNEL near Fred’s Marina is a popular deep-water troll, with most fishermen searching for suspended salmon, it’s hard to beat the success that anglers find in the shallower water Map art: RJThompsonART.com

of lower sections. Here, there’s no guessing needed as to where the springers will be in the water column: they will be hugging the bottom. Your bait should be hugging the bottom too. Over the years I have shortened my lead lines to 12 inches or less when trolling the flats of the channel. Other than that, the same trolling rigs that work in the Willamette and Columbia will work in the channel. Most fishermen troll whole or plug-cut herring behind a flasher while others flat-line sardinewrapped plugs. Herring that is brined or dyed will usually draw more strikes, and

scents are a good addition too. The key depths are from 10 to 24 feet, and most of the good flats fall within that depth range. Even though the bottom is fairly even in most areas, you’ll catch more fish if you monitor the depth and adjust the line out to stay within that strike zone along the bottom. You will put your bait in front of more salmon if you troll downstream. The exception is when a strong flood tide pushes in, killing any outgoing current, and the kings spread out. Trolling upstream can be effective when that happens.

Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going. 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 69

O R E G O N

THIS YEAR’S RUN WILL SUPPORT A seven-day-a-week season, and a twohatchery-fish limit in the channel as well as the Willamette. Just remember that barbless hooks are now required on both. A parking pass is also required if you launch at Gilbert. The annual one costs $22. There are easy-to-access bathrooms on Coon Island from the docks off each side. The fish will bite in fine or foul weather, so it’s just a matter of what you are up for. Either way, the Multnomah Channel is an easy, pleasant bit of water to boat on, and the delectable springers are a terrific treat for the table after a day spent on Portland’s “easy” springer water. —TERRY OTTO

N O R T H W E S T

This typical Multnomah Channel spring Chinook interrupted a pleasant day of boating when it took the herring on Walt Trandum’s line. Actually, it was a welcome interruption for the Sandy resident, and the cap on a good day on the water for his and the author’s wives. (TERRY OTTO)

MOST OF THE ACTION CENTERS on Coon Island and the Gilbert River boat launch. A favorite troll is the wide flat above the island itself and the channel on the east side of it. From the island south to the launch is a long flat along the eastern shoreline out to the deeper channel that runs almost to the boat ramp. It is possible to drop your motor in well above the island and troll all the way to the boat ramp without ever leaving productive water. However, when you do hit a fish, run right back up and troll through that spot again. The salmon will be coming through in pulses and schools, and where there is one, there may be more. It’s a little easier on the smaller water of the channel to relocate the places where you got bit, even without high-dollar GPS and sonar so often employed on the bigger flats of the Columbia. However, a depth finder is necessary if you want to monitor the depth, and search for the schools. From the Gilbert ramp down for about one third of a mile is deep water better suited to sturgeon fishing. Just below that hole along the east bank there is another good flat that runs for over half a mile. This is hogline country when the tide runs out, and it can be tough to find room for trolling once the lines form.

NORTHWEST OREGON

The McSantiam Slide IF ONE OF THE WILLAMETTE’S TWO BIG STEELHEAD RIVERS ISN’T PRODUCING, SHUFFLE TO THE OTHER. WALTERVILLE, Ore.–“The summer steelhead run could be a very good one this year.” Those are the words of Erik Moberly, a state fish biologist, and they bode well for anglers in the central and southern Willamette Valley. They’ve got a very nice pair of streams to hit, the McKenzie and Santiam. If one’s not fishing, hit they other – they’re only 45 minutes or so apart. The former flows out of the Cascades east of Springfield along Highway 126 and is one of the most pristine and scenic rivers in Oregon. Leaburg Hatchery releases around 108,000 smolts into it annually, and typically around 3,000 adults return each season. Most range between 7 and 9 pounds, but occasionally, anglers see heavier ones. Just a ways north up I-5 is the South Santiam. Here you will find comparable scenic beauty and similarly good odds of putting a steelhead in your cooler. Running along Highway 20 east of Albany, this river provide large numbers of fish in concentrated locations. And this year could see them more concentrated than usual in both rivers. “The counts in mid-March at Willamette Falls were well ahead of last year, thanks to good ocean conditions,” says Moberly. Not since the big runs of the early 2000s had so many been in so early. ON THE McKENZIE, while steelhead can return to Leaburg as early as this month, the majority are still likely to be in the stretch between Cedar Flat and Deerhorn in May. I like to fish that water rather than fight the crowds further up. There are fewer people here, but still some very good opportunities to land nice fish from either 70 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Map art: RJThompsonART.com

back to the hatchery by month’s end, but the bulk of the fish didn’t return until June, which means there can be a lot of steelhead downstream this month. Though the South Santiam is known to have limited bank access, there are a few spots to try. Wiley Creek Park just east of Sweethome is a must. Most people fish from the south shore of the river near here. But the area becomes very crowded in late May. Most anglers spend quite a bit of time here and within a half mile of the dam where there are some good holes. THERE ARE ALSO some very good and less crowded places near Pleasant Valley Bridge west of Sweethome. The south side of the river has plenty of locations to wet your line. You might also hike downstream to find a spot for yourself. Stretches from McDowell Creek down to Waterloo have produced some of the highest catch ratios on this river in recent years.

Even farther downstream near Lebanon the River City Park provides some great bank access as well as a launch. While fishing some of the slower waters near here I have caught some very nice fish. Finally, there is also some decent bank access where Highway 226 crosses the river towards Crabtree. Most of this is on the downstream side. Just make sure to bring some hand pruners to make a trail, your chest waders and pay attention to the signs marking private lands. My favorite float on the river is from the Santiam Marine Park to Waterloo Park. This 3½-mile stretch is fairly slow and you can do some really great drift fishing here. I have caught the majority of my fish here. ODFW recycles fish as far down as Waterloo, so the fishing above here remains good well into summer. DRIFTING BAIT is a good way to entice

N O R T H W E S T O R E G O N

a boat or the shore. I have even seen people float tube or pontoon boat sections near Hendricks Bridge. Take Deerhorn Drive just west of the Hendricks Bridge boat launch and travel about ¼ mile to find some good bank access. There are some good pockets and pools. Where the water is a bit slower upstream from the launch is a good place to fly fish. Yet another nice section of water is near the Emmerich access point. I have caught a few nice fish here and there’s also some good trout fishing to pass the time. However, stretches of river here have quite a bit of private property on both sides, so take care not to trespass. For a nice float, start at the Taylor Landing access and boat launch about 3½ miles upstream from Hendricks Bridge. This drift provides some very good water and a section of river that is not connected to the mainstem McKenzie. One can find good places to park a boat, have lunch and fish some islands where there are some very good holes and creases that many fish like to rest. For a longer float, the Deerhorn launch is off of Holden Creek Lane. The 3 miles to the Eugene Water and Electric Board, or EWEB, Canal is an excellent stretch of river with few rapids. The river is quite wide here, but there are some really good pockets and holes on both sides. Setting anchor and spending some time here would likely be worthwhile. EWEB will also keep more water in the mainstem this year to aid steelhead and salmon migration. STEELHEAD WERE first introduced to the Santiam in the late 1960s from Washington state, and they’re now thriving throughout the watershed. The South Santiam Hatchery annually rears and releases about 145,000 of them, which are released into the southern branch of this river. These fish range in size from 6 to 9 pounds with a few reported between 10 and 14. The run is very strong and lasts from May until September when fish are no longer recycled downstream. Last May saw a total of just over 550

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Northwest Sportsman 71

NORTHWEST OREGON steelhead to strike in many sections of these rivers. Roe and fresh sand shrimp work well. Use a slinky with .250gauge shot and two to five shots depending on the swiftness of the current. Rig it with an 18-inch leader and No. 2 hook with egg loop and puffer. Little Cleo spoons in blue and silver or green and silver combos also work. On cloudy days fluorescent orange color has proven to be quite effective. Make sure to let your lure drift naturally through the holes. Cast upstream and let the spoon bounce near the bottom while keeping good tension on the line. Hot Shots in blue/green or silver contrast and fluorescent colors also work well

72 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

in some of the slower waters near the deeper bank edges. One of the most productive flies is the Moal Leech in a purple/pink or purple/black. Also try Green Butt Silver Hiltons in slower water. Finally, the eggsucking leech can be used with both floating or sinking line. “This is a favorite that can be fished very deep dead drift style for fish holding near the bottoms,” says Chris Daughters at the Caddis Fly Shop (541 342 7005) in Eugene. —TROY RODAKOWSKI

The author with a Santiam system steelhead. (TROY RODAKOWSKI)

Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

N O R T H W E S T

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SEATTLE Aurora Lawnmower 7323 Aurora Ave N (206) 783-0200 www.aurora-lawnmower.com

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O R E G O N

WASHINGTON:

ESTACADA Dickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Logging Supply 751 NW Industrial Way (503) 630-6868

2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 73

SOUTHWEST OREGON

FISHERMANâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S GROTTO

74 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

ut there's more to explore here, Chinook waters such as the Coos Bay system and the lower Rogue, bottomfish off the South Coast, resurgent brown trout angling in the South Cascades and kidfriendly dock fisheries for snappy salmon.

S O U T H W E S T

Check us out online

nwsportsmanmag.com www.facebook.com/NorthwestSportsmanMagazine twitter.com/@NWSportsman

O R E G O N

2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 75

SOUTHWEST OREGON

C&C Fish Factory COOS BAY AND THE COQUILLE RIVER BOTH SHOULD SEE VERY GOOD RETURNS OF CHINOOK, COHO.

Glasgow

Coos Bay LEGEND

Best coho fishing September 15-18 September 18-24 Sept. 18-Nov. 30 Great bank fishing Boat launch

101

Airport

Ca pe Ar ag oH igh w

h rt No

C FI CI PA

Barview South Jetty

Boardwalk

ou lev ard

Coos Bay

Oc ea

North Bend

Isthmus Slough

Marshfield Channel Catching Slough

Mapped Area 0

1/ 2

scale in miles

Bunker Hill 101

Charleston

COOS BAY—On the first day of class, my college statistics teacher told me this: “There are lies, there are damn lies and then there are statistics … in that order.” We can make numbers speak to whatever agenda we are trying to push. We have all seen and experienced this firsthand, especially in politics. As fisherman, we have become critics of every number presented to us regarding salmon returns. However, the run predictions for Oregon’s Coquille and Coos River systems have been accurate the past few years and are pegged 76 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

to be one of the strongest in decades. Here is how they each shake down, and how to fish each system. COOS BAY With an expected return of nearly 25,000 Chinook and a native coho retention quota of 1,200 fish this season, Coos Bay on upstream will be an incredible fishery in October. The influx began a few weeks ago, but the key for this month is to focus on rainfall in the drainage. As each weather system moves through, the salmon will move fur-

ther upriver while fish fresh from the ocean will also continue to enter the bay. From the bank, focus on three locations: 1) The jetties at the mouth of Coos Bay are where you should focus your attention for Chinook and especially coho at the beginning of this month. In 2009, a 1,000 native coho fishery was allowed and it lasted a mere 18 days because of the incredible catch rate at this location! All kinds of casting spinners in sizes 5, 6 and 7 work well as does herring under a slip bobber.

S O U T H W E S T

This choke point concentrates fish and allows you to get your presentation in front of more fish, increasing the odds of a hook-up. Tide changes at high and low slack are the best times here. 2) The mouth of Daniels Creek will be one of the most popular and productive spots throughout October. Spinners are used, but bait seems to be king in this area. Most anglers will be using eggs but don’t be afraid to mix it up with sand shrimp. Try using a smaller sized bait when fishing pressure is high. If your presentation is different from the same baits these fish are seeing every cast, the probability of you hooking up will increase dramatically. 3) The most convenient spot to target these fall fish is right in downtown Coos Bay, fishing from the boardwalk. A culvert from Blossom Gulch runs under the city for about a half mile and enters the bay under the boardwalk. At the mouth of this culvert is where kids from the local schools feed and acclimate salmon smolts before they are released into the ocean. When these fish return to the bay, they slow down and hold along the boardwalk, making for a great fishery. This is a perfect place to bring the family to fish and enjoy the day at the coast. The boardwalk is also a wonderful spot for those who are physically less capable of fishing many other areas. Casting spinners and bait are key here. A slip bobber with eggs and/or sand shrimp is not only the simplest technique, but often the most consistent. But don’t feel obligated to always have your bait near bottom. These fish will suspend at high slack tide. From a boat, the two primary launches to access the river fishery are the Myrtle Tree County Park and Doris Place ramps near the confluence of the South Fork Coos and Millicoma Rivers. Both offer fantastic fishing opportunities, and since this is a fairly small system, many anglers are able to use smaller, 12- to 18-foot-long boats with ease. Trolling whole or cut-plug herring works very well in these areas, but don’t be afraid to use Cascade spinners in sizes 6 and 7. Painted blades always seem to produce better this time of year, so focus upon your rainbow and “dot” color patterns in the usual fishy col-

O R E G O N

Angler Gary Vanderohe shows off a Chinook caught at the SOMAR Hole, near the Southern Oregon Marine factory at the confluence of Catching Slough and the Coos River. (GARY VANDEROHE)

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SOUTHWEST OREGON

An angler fights a salmon off the Coos Bay boardwalk. (LARRY ELLIS)

ors. When trolling, look for depth breaks and ledges along the shore that the fish will follow as they move their way upriver. The majority of boat anglers will either be tied up or anchored and fishing bobber and bait around these two ramps. This is most productive an hour on either side of tide changes. Utilize your depth finder to uncover holes and slots where the fish will hold and focus your attention on these locations. The Coos system is open now through Dec. 31 for Chinook, and for native coho now through Nov. 30 or until the 1,200fish quota is met. You may keep one native coho per day and a maximum of five per year. The upstream limits for targeting these fish are at the confluence of the East and West Millicoma as well as at Dellwood on the South Coos at the gated private Weyerhauser property line. COQUILLE RIVER A much smaller and narrower system 30 minutes to the south of Coos Bay is the Coquille River. This often overlooked fall fishery demands attention this year. With an expected return of 32,000 wild Chinook and an untold number of hatchery fish, 78 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

this is the strongest return since the 1950s and about four times higher than normal years. The Coquille will also be open to retention of 825 native coho. Here is how to get in on the action: The Coquille has 40 miles of fishable tidewater so the options are limitless. However, earlier in the month, these fish will congregate from Bullards Beach State Park to Rocky Point 5 miles upstream from the Highway 101 bridge. As the rains begin, the fish will move upstream between the city of Coquille and Myrtle Point. Bank access is best at the parks and boat ramps with some excellent fishing to be had. Bank anglers, like those on the Coos, typically use bait under a bobber and cast spinners. This is a low-flow river, which makes these two presentations deadly. Bring several different flavors of eggs. These fall fish can become finicky and their tastes can alter with each change in the tide. Boat anglers will have access to much more of the Coquille, but there really is no specific area where the majority of fish are caught. Ramps include Bullards Beach, Rocky Point and the Coquille city boat

ramp among others. The fish slow down around Rocky Point, but rainfall can easily spread the salmon out. If the water is high, fish high in the system. If we have a substantial amount of rainfall, you will find bright fish all the way upstream in the city of Coquille and Myrtle Point. Herring is the primary bait trolled around Rocky Point on downstream with spinners being a close second. As you move upriver, trolling or casting spinners in the same colors as used on the Coos will become more effective. For the most part, the locals will be anchored or tied up along the banks casting bobber and bait. Again, focus on ledges and depth breaks to find concentrated fish whether you are trolling or casting hardware and bait. The upstream limit for targeting salmon on the Coquille is at the Highway 42 bridge. For up-to-date information and fishing reports on both systems, contact the ODFW office in Charleston at (541) 8885515. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;CODY HERMAN Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s note: This article ran in a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

Kids, Get Ready to Rock The Dock!

THREE PORTS’ CHINOOK, COHO FISHERIES POWERED BY STUDENT SMOLT RELEASES FEATURE KID-FRIENDLY ACCESS AND HOT FALL BITES. WINCHESTER BAY—Remember what it was like when you were 8 years old, left by yourself to fish your favorite body of water without the constraints of adults always

telling you what to do? October is a month when this scenario plays out in several Northwest bays. If you’re a parent, you won’t have to wonder where

your children are when you drop them off at one of these estuary fisheries, tailor-made for Oregon and Washington youths who want nothing more than to be themselves

S O U T H W E S T O R E G O N

Map art: RJThompsonART.com

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SOUTHWEST OREGON around their peers – and stand a pretty good chance at catching a whopping Chinook or coho salmon to boot. Just get Junior down to the docks before fall’s rains come. WINCHESTER CHINOOK Ever see a kid dock-hop in a boat basin? You will when a youth latches into one of the Chinook returning to the east boat basin in Salmon Harbor, near the mouth of Oregon’s Umpqua River. October is a key month to hook into one of these feisty Chinook before the fall rains signal them to head upriver. This in-basin fishery is promoted by the Gardner-Reedsport Winchester Bay Salmon-Trout Enhancement Program. In the east boat basin near Winchester Creek Bridge, there is a sign where the STEP group proudly posts its accomplishments. Because 2009 was a great release year for smolts and presmolts, the basin should be looking at a significant return of 3-year-old Chinook, with a few jacks and 4-year-olds mixed in. GRWB’s goal is to raise 100,000 presmolts in net pens near dock 4, where the old Pizza Rays used to be. The STEP group met that goal, and then some in 2009, releasing 104,000. “And then we released 78,000 smolts in 2009 for GRWB to raise in the same location,” says Laura Jackson, the area’s fishery biologist. I’ve seen many kids grinning from ear to ear while wielding chunky Chinook caught in the east boat basin. Anglers can fish from the docks, the surrounding beaches or underneath the bridge where Winchester Creek flows into the basin. Kastmasters, Krocodiles and Little Cleos are popular spoons, with Rooster Tails, Blue Fox and Mepps being the top three spinners. In addition, bobbers and eggs or bobbers and sand shrimp are popular bait-fishing techniques. WESTPORT COHO Only an hour west of Olympia, the bestkept secret on the Washington coast with world-class coho fishing occurs at Westport’s docks this month. Other boat basins could take a lesson from this fishery, where 200,000 coho fingerlings are raised to the smolt stage in net 80 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Anglers fish from Westport’s docks for coho last season. (MIKE COVERDALE)

pens inside the Westport Boat Basin. This fish-rearing project has been going on since 1975 and is a fishery where kids also play a role in raising the salmon. Students of Ocosta High School feed the coho smolts under the supervision of teacher Bruce Jones. The silvers are kept in the net pens between two and three months before release, imprinting the salmon with extremely strong homing instincts and prompting their return back to the boat basin.

“This is a real kids fishery,” says organizer Mike Coverdale of Windermere Realty, a key promoter for the fishery. “There are not a lot of places in the state of Washington where an 8-year-old has such an easy opportunity to cast to salmon. These fish are only a hundred yards from the restaurant, donut shop and the marina front. Most don’t realize that you can actually stand on the dock down here and cast to a school of salmon.” Map art: RJThompsonART.com

Coos Bay (originally known as Marshfield), the main roads were constructed so that they covered Blossom Gulch, a creek that goes right through Blossom Gulch Elementary School (a half mile inland), and exits into Coos Bay. Culverts were constructed to allow the creek to flow into the bay, with a tide gate opening and closing where the creek enters the bay. Two hundred thousand fall Chinook fingerling are raised at Bandon Hatchery at 75 fish to the pound. They’re brought on campus at the school in early May and are reared and acclimated at the school. During feeding and acclimation they develop strong homing instincts to Blossom Gulch and after acclimation at the end of May, they are released there. Coos Bay provides a nutrient-rich environment and the young fish are larger than average-sized smolts by the time they enter the ocean. When the fish return as adults in October, it creates an exciting downtown

fishery in Coos Bay proper, where kids primarily cast bobbers and sand shrimp cocktails near the entrance to the tide gate. You will also see people casting spoons and spinners. The best fishing occurs as the tide changes from high to low. At that point the tide gate opens, giving Blossom Gulch Chinook a whiff of home. This is when the kings congregate in the highest numbers around the waters surrounding the tide gate. It’s absolutely critical to have a tide chart while fishing this area. It takes the tide about two hours to catch up to this area, so be sure to add two hours to the chart times given for Charleston Harbor in order to key in on optimum fishing time for this little gem. Don’t be surprised to see a kid pedaling a bicycle, balancing a Chinook in one hand with his rod in the other. —LARRY ELLIS Editor’s note: This article ran in a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

S O U T H W E S T O R E G O N

Although some Chinook will also be available, most of the returning salmon will be a mixture of coho adults and jacks. The limit is six salmon of which three may be adults, but the jacks are the most aggressive biters. “The coho jacks are typically 1 to 2 pounds, and you can keep six a day,” says Coverdale. “The jacks are especially aggressive and eat like piranhas. If you miss setting the hook the first time, they will turn around and attack it again.” Most are caught on roe underneath a bobber. The grown coho aren’t especially fond of roe, but can be finessed into biting by throwing bright pink or orange spinners and spoons. Only barbless hooks may be used and no treble hooks are permitted. There is expected to be a huge return this year. Coverdale runs two derbies here. The regular derby runs from the middle of September through the end of October, and there’s a generational derby during the first weekend of October, focused on the family ties of grandparents, parents and their children. “Last year was the first year we tried the generational derby and it was put together in fairly short notice, but the number of kids on the docks just skyrocketed,” notes Coverdale. You can catch coho off any of the docks in the boat basin, but I’d put my money on the area around Float 4. “This is a really kid-friendly fishery,” emphasizes Leslie Eichner, executive director of the Westport-Grayland Chamber of Commerce (360-268-9422), another big promoter for this fishery. Derby contestants can weigh in their fish at Seafood Connection near Float 8. There is no charge for admission. For more, call Coverdale at (360) 5813399. COOS KINGS It’s not too late to fish the popular Blossom Gulch fishery in Coos Bay, located near the south end of the Coos Bay Boardwalk. There is a small platform here that constitutes a mini pier, with a long jetty straddling the south end of the boardwalk. In the process of building the city of

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Northwest Sportsman 81

SOUTHWEST OREGON

Umpqua River Steelhead ELKTON, Ore.–The Umpqua is legendary for trophy steelhead. It would be impossible to count how many in the mid-20-pound range have been caught on the Western Oregon river – and that goes for hatchery and wild fish. But it only took the release of one strapping specimen pushing the 29-pound mark in 2005 to spark the question, “What if?” As in, What if these super salmonids disappeared from the river forever? Three local area guides were determined the fate would never befall the Umpqua. Robert Montgomery, Casey Malepsy and James Dunlevy got together and decided a proactive stance was LEGEND the best precaution. The numbers BEST DRIFT TIMING of wild fish was never in question. Thanksgiving – December 15 The main concern was intense December 15 – January 10 fishing pressure and advanced steelheading techniques. January 10 – February Armed with pens and petitions, February – March the trio got enough signatures to Map information courtesy Mapped convince the Fish and Wildlife National Geographic Maps Area Commission to require releasing all wild steelhead in the mainstem 0 2 4 8 and the North Umpqua in 2008. It didn’t take much arm-twisting to scale in miles re-up the rule the next year, and the benefits are being seen. “Higher on the main Umpqua, when we would take the hooks out of (steelhead’s) mouths, they would already have four or five hook marks where people had released them,” notes Montgomery. “Those fish wouldn’t have been there if cable take-out; 541-584-2832) drift is you would have killed them.” most popular. Winter-runs trickle into the Umpqua There is also great bank fishing at the around Thanksgiving, and as fall deepens, Sheep Shed and Beckley holes. the fish push further and further up. Further up, the ramp at Kellogg Bridge, Martin Thurber (541-741-7927) says also known as Lefflers, is a must-takeideal river height for the early-season out situation. float from Scott Creek to Scottsburg Park The final float, from the town of is just under 6½ feet. Umpqua down to James Wood, fishes The Slide Hole down to Elkton RV ($5 best when the river is 4.2 feet.

Umpqua River

82 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Pull Mud Bugs and sand shrimp or Hot Shots, or side-drift Puff Balls and roe. For more info, as well as shuttles, check in with Arlene’s (541-584-2555) and Sawyer’s Rapids RV (888-478-4426; sawyersrapidsrv.com). –LARRY ELLIS Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going. Map art: RJThompsonART.com

Beautiful

Umpqua River Settin

(541) 584-2832 Reservations accepted

elktonrvpark.com

S O U T H W E S T

Full Hook-up Sites River Sites Pull-Thrus Available Groups Welcome Pavilion â&#x20AC;˘ Fire Ring Drift Boat Slide Fish year-round Walk to: Restaurants, Wineries & Gardens

O R E G O N

SOUTHWEST OREGON

There’s Chinook At Them Thar Gold Beach JUST OVER 90,000 FALL KINGS ARE EXPECTED BACK TO THE SOUTHERN OREGON BAY THIS SEASON. 0 101

1/ 2

1/ 4 scale in miles

Mapped Area

545

Wedderburn

595

Indian Creek

Rogue Bay Chinook LEGEND

Gold Beach GOLD BEACH—Just minutes into his firstever salmon trip on the famed Rogue Bay, Joe Kephardt knew the long drive from his Eastern Oregon home was going to be worth it. Joe had just put his rod in its holder when the tip dipped down, fluttered, and then buried over as a chrome-bright king bolted across the bay. By the end of the day, Joe had two nice kings to bring back to Hermiston, while the other customer on my boat also caught a limit. The day got off to a fast start, had a brief lull, and then concluded with two more back-to-back fish. 84 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

101

The often explosive action on the lower Rogue has earned the bay a reputation of being one of the Pacific Northwest’s most productive salmon fisheries. Even during years of average or even below-normal returns, the Rogue often outshines other coastal fisheries. The salmon are big and bright, and fish populations are healthy. The Rogue is not only one of the best fisheries for catching multiple Chinook, it also yields some of the biggest outside of Alaska, with 50-pluspounders landed every year, and a river record topping 70 pounds. This year, Rogue anglers have even

Better high tide fishing Better low tide fishing Boat launch more reason to be excited. The run forecast is well above average, making it perhaps the best bet on the entire Oregon Coast this summer and fall. “The forecast for the Rogue for fall Chinook is 91,000,” says Todd Confer, the district fisheries biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in Gold Beach. “The 21-year average is 67,000. We are looking at a forecast that is about 24,000 above average.” Even on an average year, salmon fishing on the Rogue Bay is often as good as it gets. “On a typical year, if we have 50,000 fish coming into the Rogue, we are looking Map art: RJThompsonART.com

at 4,000, or 5,000 or even 6,000 fish being caught,” says Confer.

An angler fights and lands a Rogue Bay Chinook. (ANDY MARTIN)

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O R E G O N

GEARING UP The Rogue Bay is a troll fishery. It’s too shallow to mooch, and doesn’t have the holes for bobber fishing like North Coast systems. The vast majority of boaters troll what is known as a Rogue Bait Rig, a spinner blade fished above an anchovy. A few anglers troll plug-cut herring, but the spinnerbait rigs really shine here. For decades, guides trolled plain anchovies. In the early 1990s, the secret of the most successful local guides was discovered – Rogue salmon can’t seem to resist a green or metallic blade fished above an anchovy. The guides who developed the rig also learned threading a loop through the anchovy’s mouth and out the vent and then adding a treble hook led to a lot more hook-ups, and helped create a super-tight drill-bit spin that Rogue salmon like. When rigging a Rogue Bait Rig, use a round-bend treble with a straight point, such as a size 2 Eagle Claw L934. Customtied Rogue Bait Rigs are available at the Rogue Outdoor Store (541-247-7142), where a large selection of blades can also be found. Greens and chartreuses work well on cloudy days, while copper is a favorite in the fog and silver is preferred on sunny days. The last few years a dark green blade on the front and back has been popular, especially with the G Spot hole to in-

S O U T H W E S T

BIG FISH, AND LOTS OF THEM Aside from big numbers of big fish, the Rogue is known for its lengthy fall salmon fishery. It is actually a summer and fall season, with action typically beginning in late June or early July, picking up in August, peaking in September, and continuing through October. It may be the longest bay season on the entire West Coast. Almost every July, a few big fish, sometimes topping 50 pounds, are caught in the bay. August produces some of the hottest action, with some days yielding more than 100 fish to the flotilla of sleds, cartoppers and drift boats with motors trolling the bay. Over 200 fish a day being caught in late summer is not unheard of; in 2009, the best year recently, 2,859 were landed in August, 2,521 in September. By September, the average size of fish also increases, as more 4-, 5- and even 6-year-old fish bound for the lower portion of the Rogue or the Illinois River show up. Big fish continue to move into the bay in October, along with a large batch of 15- to 20-pound cookie cutters. The Rogue produced the world-record fly-caught king, a 71-pounder, caught in 2002. The same year, a 68-pounder was

caught in the bay. Most average around 20 pounds, but countless 30- and 40-pounders are caught each season, often daily. On their ocean journey, most of these fish head south, feasting on anchovies and herring off the extreme Southern Oregon and Northern California coasts. Their southerly migration is thought to be a factor in why the fishery has been so strong in recent years, while the northern-migrating fish from the Tillamook, Nestucca and Nehalem systems have experienced somewhat slower fishing. The majority are wild. They spawn in the tributaries near Grants Pass, including the Applegate River, and in the mainstem itself. Those fish often enter the bay in July and August, and stack up, waiting for the days to get a little shorter before heading upstream. New fish continue to arrive throughout the season, with many of the September and October fish spawning in the lower portion of the river. The fishery gets a late-season boost in early fall when its only hatchery Chinook arrive. The Indian Creek Hatchery is located on a small creek that flows into tidewater just above Highway 101, and before rains allow them to complete their spawning run they stage in the bay. Coho also show up in big numbers in September and October.

SOUTHWEST OREGON

Tony Hobbs and Paul LeFebvre hold three Rogue Bay kings caught last fall trolling anchovies with spinner blades. (ANDY MARTIN)

crease vibration. Gold Hildebrandt Colorado blades also are popular. Most guides troll with a wire spreader, using a 5- to 6-foot leader and a 15- to 18inch dropper. A bead chain swivel placed halfway down the leader will help eliminate the twists caused by the tightly spinning bait. Plug-cut herring will work on the Rogue Bay, but a word of advice for visiting anglers: Use an anchovy with a Rogue Bait Rig. For some reason, they will outfish anything else here. Under most conditions, 2 to 3 ounces of weight works well. Sometimes 4 ounces are needed. During a swift outflow near the sand spit, even heavier weights are used. The bay is shallow, with many of the fish caught in 4 to 6 feet of water. Unlike some bays, Rogue anglers will troll both directions – upstream and downstream. 86 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

An 8½- or 9-foot rod rated for 12-to-25pound-test works well. The longer 10- and 10½-footers can be troublesome when it gets crowded. Wright & McGill’s new Alaskan Medium Drifter, a 9-footer rated for 12-to-25-pound test with a moderatefast action is a good choice. It allows a salmon to bite down on a bait for a few seconds before the rod loads up and hooks it. TROLLING PATTERNS Before fishing the Rogue for the first time, watch where the guides are fishing. Look at the directions they troll. Many will troll upriver on the south side and go back down on the north side. Typically, the fishing is best high in the bay at high tide, and low in the bay at low tide. Directly above the Highway 101 bridge, the river shallows to just a few feet in some

places, before dropping off by the power lines and up along the mouth of Indian Creek and the defunct Riverview Restaurant. The deepest water begins on the north side, below Lex’s Landing, and then toward the south bank and the old restaurant. Below the bridge, the deeper areas are in front of Jot’s, then across to the mouth of the boat basin, and then again to the north side near the sand spit. Don’t troll from the Coast Guard station to Jot’s on the north side – it’s too shallow. Same thing from the boat basin to the bridge on the south side. It shallows up quickly. The Rogue usually has a good bite near the sand spit an hour before low tide to the first few hours of the incoming tide. It can get crowded, but fish are usually caught near the spit and along the jetty near the boat basin entrance. The fish will move upstream, above the bridge as the tide rises, and then retreat back to the lower bay when it turns again. When trolling the Rogue Bay you want your bait near the bottom, but not on it. About a foot to 15 inches above the bottom is best. Your weight should tap bottom fairly frequently, but not continually drag. Because the bay is shallow, most anglers will troll fast enough to keep the weights just off the bottom. WATER FORECAST Last year, despite a big return, the bay itself was hit and miss, although September was consistently good. High flows prevented fish from stacking up in the bay. Instead, they shot upriver quickly. Guides instead focused on the area between Lobster Creek and Agness, either pulling plugs from their sleds and drift boats, or side-drifting roe for the kings. Confer, the biologist, thinks the bay could be hot again this fall. Water flows will be high early in the season, but Southern Oregon doesn’t have anywhere near the snowpack it did in 2011. Once river temperatures warm in August, look for kings to stack up in the bay, fueling the much-anticipated Rogue Bay fishery. —ANDY MARTIN Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

Rogue Springer Tips LOWER RIVER SPRING CHINOOK FISHERY NOT JUST ABOUT BEING AT THE HOT SLOT – YOUR BAIT, TIMING AND WATER-READING SKILLS ARE MORE IMPORTANT. are usually the prime bait to have, even as far up as Quosatana Creek, 14 miles above the mouth. So why anchovies and not herring or sardines? I’ve been here 31 years and practically everyone has caught the majority of their springers on anchovies. It’s not that you can’t catch a Chinook with other kinds of baitfish. Rogue anglers have caught springers on sardines and herring as well. I just think that in the

Lobster Creek

ocean, these particular salmon may migrate to water that holds more anchovies than other baitfish. Another thing I know is that the guides who have more anchovies in their storage lockers do a lot better than people who don’t. Let’s just say, it is what it is and leave it at that. Any way you slice it, picking good bait and keeping it cold is critical to success.

Lobster Creek Rd.

Quosatana CG

Miller Ranch Rd.

Orchard Bar 540

Ice box

545

John’s Hole

595

Huntley Park

Canfield Riffle

Lower Rogue River

Elephant Rock

Wedderburn

LEGEND

Gold Beach Map art: RJThompsonART.com

tana Quosa Creek

101

Claybanks Cannery Coyote Riffle Bar

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O R E G O N

Mapped Area

S O U T H W E S T

GOLD BEACH, Ore.—The map below showcases the best spots on the Rogue River, but to be successful here with spring Chinook also involves care and selection of your bait, knowing when to fish and how to read the water – deal-breakers on a finesse fishery like this. These salmon are fresh from the ocean, so they still have an instinct to eat. That’s why spinnerbait rigs are so popular in this fishery, and that’s why anchovies

SOUTHWEST OREGON KEEP IT C-C-C-COLD The biggest mistake people make is not keeping their anchovies cold enough. As I’ve often said, salmon are guided by scent till their last dying breath, so they smell in parts per billion whereas other fish might only smell in parts per million, or even less. So I suggest that you carry two ice chests on board for your anchovies. In one, carry several packages of anchovies and cover them up with a liberal amount of ice, then sprinkle salt on top of the ice. That will keep your bait frozen solid, and if you don’t use this bait up, the packages are safe to put back into the freezer so you can use them another day. In the other ice chest I suggest putting your ice in first, sprinkle some salt on the ice, and then put only one package of anchovies in a separate container on top of the ice. This will allow your ’chovies to thaw to the consistency of a Popsicle which will make it easier to put a fresh one on your rig. Don’t leave your anchovies in the open air longer than it takes for them to become semi-thawed. A warm anchovy is breeding ground for bacteria and salmon can smell it. You don’t want to offend them before they even get a chance to see your bait. Another thing you want to do when thawing your anchovies is to cut open the package to release the vacuum before it thaws. I’ve watched Bob Wilkes from Umpqua Bait (541-271-4511) and his wife Linda flash-freezing their sardines, herring and anchovies. They first kill the bait rapidly by putting a batch into a bucket of water. Then they throw a switch and run electrical current through them, which kills them instantly. This way the bait doesn’t lose any of their scales. They then flash-freeze their bait in the open before vacuum-packaging them up. If you don’t cut a hole in the bait package first, blood will be sucked out of the bait as the bait thaws. All those bait trays you see with blood seeping out of the anchovies? Those packages were prematurely thawed – do not buy them. So picking a package of bait with no blood showing anywhere is essential. When you pick your bait, also look to 88 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

make sure their scales are intact, the packages haven’t lost their vacuum and there are no freezer burns on the bait. WATER TEMPS In the ocean, a salmon is happiest when the water is 52 degrees. That’s when they eat the hardiest. If the river water is 52 degrees, your bait is begging to get bit.

they become even more aggressive. But at 49 they start to act like the animals that they are. At 50 to 52, if you’re not getting bit, other factors may be playing into the equation. CROSSING THE BAR AND THE TIDE While springer fishing with guide John Anderson in 2010 (541-425-1515), we noticed

Guide Andy Martin enjoys a day off aboard Paul LeFebvre’s boat on the lower Rogue. (LARRY ELLIS)

Water temperature that is 46 degrees garners very few bites; more often the bait gets bumped once or twice before the salmon move on. It’s almost not worth going fishing, except in hopes the afternoon sun might warm the water just another degree. When the temperature rises to 47 degrees, you can look forward to getting some take-downs. It’s almost as if an eating switch was thrown. Strikes at 47 degrees may be less aggressive, so always make sure that your rods are stationary in their holders. If your rod gets bumped, wait for it to get bumped again. Often these salmon eat the ’chovy on the second bump, and it may take a lot longer for the rod tip to slam the water. When the water reaches 48 degrees,

that springers as well as winter steelhead preferred to cross a calm bar after high slack. I’ve fished with Paul LeFebvre on numerous occasions and we were constantly looking in our tide books. If high slack was at 9 a.m., we’d either get bit or prepare to get bit between 9 and 10. That is not to say that fish don’t cross the bar at other times – they do! But the predominant bite always seemed to come as high tide approached, especially in areas from Elephant Rock on down where the Rogue is more tidally influenced. Sometimes Paul would leapfrog the fish if we got bit or saw other people catch springers and head upriver to anchor up at Kimball, Huntley or Quosatana. These fish are bookin’ like cars on the Autobahn and it doesn’t take them long to get from one

place to another. If the bar was rough and nasty, with waves breaking across it, our catch ratio went down. True, we still caught fish during rough bar events, just not as many as we’d hook on a calm bar.

SPINNER BLADES IMPORTANT Normally you will be running Rogue Bait Rigs or hand-tied spinnerbait outfits that have quick-change plastic clevises so you can easily switch your spinner blades. Usually No. 4 G-spot or Cascade blades work OK, but some of my faves are gold or copper Hildebrandt blades in sizes 3, 3.5 and 4. The tried-and-true colors on the Rogue are green-on-green and the Oregon Duck. ROD RULES, HOOKS, LEADERS The biggest mistake anglers make is jumping the gun and taking their rod out of the holder on the first nibble. Make sure that your rod tip is meeting the water with line coming off your reel before taking it out of its holder. Also keep your hooks needle sharp. You may only get one chance – make sure to make it counts. Five-foot leaders made of 30-pound monofilament are usually the norm. Two feet down the leader tie on a bead chain. Keep your anchovies spinning rapidly and tightly – just like a drill bit. Indeed, the upcoming season on the Rogue is looking very promising for drilling a springer. –LARRY ELLIS Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

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PLAN AHEAD These places might change as the tide floods and ebbs, so keep in mind what the water might look like when these conditions change and plan to anchor up in spots where you think a springer might be travelling an hour or more down the road. Get your tidebook out the night before you plan to fish so you will know when to expect various tides to occur. Prescouting an area is very important because you will want to make sure that you get to your spot early enough in order to insure that you’ll have a place to fish at all. In addition, prescouting can help you determine where current seams might be at various parts of the tide. You could be fishing in hawg water one minute, frog

water the next.

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KNOW YOUR TRAVEL LANES Springer fishing on the lower Rogue is considered a slot fishery. If you’re not in the path of that incoming missile, there’s not going to be any fireworks. You have to be in their travel lane and know how to read these lanes, or you’re not fishing – you’re just putting your line in the water. You really need a sled to effectively fish this system, preferably something with a top on it. When Anderson takes people fishing, as many other Rogue guides do, he fixes them breakfast and a top comes in mighty handy for that. Plus, sometimes it’s a long time between bites – hours or, yes, even days. So this fishery is not for people wanting to play the numbers game. In addition, a top on a boat combined with a heater makes for a luxurious experience. Most of the time these fish are going to be hugging the shoreline in water 4 to 6 feet deep. Since Chinook like things presented to them between 1.6 and 2.2 miles an hour, look for water on your depthfinder that is flowing at this speed as well. Make sure that you adjust your anchor rope to have enough scope so your

baits will be fishing in the water where you marked your ideal speed. The more people you have onboard, the more water depths you will be able to fish. With three people on board, your inside rod will be fishing 3.5 to 4 feet of water, your center rod might be covering the 5-foot depth and your outside rod has the 6-foot mark covered. Look for points that lead to an inside bend in the aforementioned water speeds and depths. These are places where the current gradually slows and deposits gravel. Springers love this kind of water. Throw in a current seam and you’ve found yourself a slot.

SOUTHWEST OREGON

A Lead(fish) Cinch WINTER DAYS BETWEEN STORMS ALONG OREGON’S SOUTH COAST OFFER GOOD BOTTOMFISHING AND CRABBING.

BROOKINGS, Ore.–February is usually peak season for steelhead anglers, but under the right conditions it is also prime time to make a crab/rockfish/lingcod combo trip. There are always a handful of days when the big pond lays down like a sheet of liquid mercury and if you don’t take advantage of those glassy-flat days, you’re definitely missing out on some of the best fishing and crabbing of the year, especially this year with crabbing in one of its peak cycles. “When it’s real stormy those fish aren’t usually feeding real heavy so in those windows of opportunity in between the storms those fish are definitely on the bite,” says veteran local guide Andy Martin from Wild Rivers Fishing (206-3888988; wildriversfishing.com). While most Oregon river bars remain too dangerous to cross until late spring, the Port of Brookings Harbor becomes a mecca for winter bottomfishing and crabbing aficionados. “The Port of Brookings is known as the safest bar on the Oregon coast,” notes Martin. “In February there are a lot of places you can’t even reach because of rough bars and stormy weather, but there is a lot of protected water close to Brookings.” These sheltered areas, like Chetco Cove, attract hundreds of anglers from the Rogue and Willamette valleys as well as plenty of anglers from south of the border. In California, which is only 5 minutes from Brookings, fishing for lingcod and the “RCG complex” (rockfish, cabezon and greenling) doesn’t open until May 15, so the closure draws a lot of folks into Oregon.

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Map art: RJThompsonART.com

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SOUTHWEST OREGON Capt. Andy Martin holds a 6-pound black rockfish that hit a leadfish. (LARRY ELLIS)

COMBO STYLE This is the year you are going to want to run combo trips, like Martin does. He will drop off a load of crab pots then take his clients out for a little shallow-water rockfishing. On the way back they will haul up the Dungeness. So the first order of business is to drop your crab pots. In Oregon a crabber is limited to three crab pots, but you should have little problem filling your 12-crab limit of male Dungeness crab, many of which will measure 7 inches. On a recent trip with Marc Hazel and two other fishermen aboard Hazel’s boat Sea Level, we had no problem limiting out on 48 large Dungies. The crabbing was so good that we were throwing back legal crab left and right. Yes, you read that correctly – throwing back legal crab left and right. It’s the best crabbing I’ve witnessed in the 30 years I’ve lived in Brookings. You’ll want to lay your crab pots out first thing in the morning and let them soak while you bottomfish. The best crab bait, hands down, is tuna carcasses, but this far from albacore season, rummage through the cans at the port’s cleaning station where you will often run across freshly cleaned rockfish carcasses for hanging bait. Otherwise, 92 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

chicken thighs will do the trick. On your way back from slaying the fatted ling, pull your pots and be prepared to strike gold. The general rule of thumb is to set your pots closer to shore when the sea is flat and there is little or no swell expected. Crab always come in closer to shore when seas are calm. Otherwise look for sandy areas between 45 and 90 feet, stagger your pots and let the crab tell you where the best depth is. LEADFISH CINCH The countless miles of interconnecting reefs, pinnacles and kelp beds that extend from Camel Rock up to

Mack Arch spells F-I-S-H H-A-B-I-T-A-T, and for a rockfish and lingcod enthusiast that means bottomfishing Disneyland. When rockfish and lingcod are on the bite, they will strike at practically anything – shrimp flies, party balloons (yes, those 2inch-long multicolored blow-up toys) twintail plastics, grubs, Zoom flukes and hard plugs like Yo-zuris, Rapalas and Rebels. You can catch rockfish three at a time if you so desire, but what’s the fun in that? The most exciting method for catching big rockfish as well as large cabezon and lingcod is to single fish ’em using a leadfish. A leadfish is a generic name for an oblong piece of metal that’s usually made of lead or contains some lead. They range between 3 and 6 ounces. Use the heavier leadfish in deeper water and in areas where the current is strong or where the drift is a little on the fast side. Leadfish can be painted or have virtually no paint on them. A painted leadfish is not necessary to catch rockfish and lings. The fluttering motion of the lure as it descends is picked up by the fish’s sensitive lateral line and triggers a reaction strike. The main advantage of using an unpainted leadfish is price – they’re inexpensive. And since you can buy more unpainted leadfish for less, if you lose one or two, it’s not a big deal. Some of the other painted varieties can easily cost upward of $10 apiece. Examples of some great manufactured and painted leadfish are the Crippled Herring, and those made by P-Line, Shimano and Pucci. GETTING YOUR LEAD OUT Single-fishing

Doug Morris and Mark Hazel hold up four limits of Dungeness taken aboard Hazel’s vessel Sea Level on a recent trip the author was invited on. (LARRY ELLIS)

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S O U T H W E S T

Sporting Goods & Hardware 541-548-4422 — 5t & EVERGREEN IN REDMOND OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK — PLENTY OF PARKING!

O R E G O N

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SOUTHWEST OREGON a leadfish is an art that can be learned quickly. They are best used on a conventional reel such as a Bantam 50 or Calcutta. The trick is, you are purposefully waiting for a bite while the lure is sinking, so a ling or rockfish perceives the lure as a dying bait. The technique is to let the lure settle all the way to the bottom, immediately taking the reel out of free spool and lifting the lure off the bottom about 2 feet. You want the lure to fall on a slightly slack line – not so slack that there is an obvious bow, but not tight enough where the line is taut either. There should be about an inch of slack in the line as your rod follows the leadfish down to the bottom. You always risk losing one of these lures because the largest fish are always going to be very close to the bottom. Learn to be a line feeler by holding the line coming off your reel between the fingertips of your thumb and index finger. The bite will either feel like a BB being dropped on your fingertips or sometimes you won’t feel the bite at all. If you feel that “tap-tap” on your fingertips, reel down to take the slack out, and cross the fish’s eyes. That’s what Hazel did when he hammered the 10-pound vermillion rockfish in the photo above, one of the biggest verms I’ve ever seen. A lot of anglers will use a leadfish on the end of their line in combination with a shrimp fly or a grub about 20 inches above it on a dropper loop. That way they get a chance at both a lingcod and a rockfish, or both. One trick I like to do is to put the leadfish in between the jaws of a vice and give it a whack with a hammer, putting a slight bow in the lure. Sometimes this helps give the lure a real whacky action as it is fluttering down. Leadfish work best between 45 and 90 feet. For shallow water, use plastics or frozen anchovies. Twin-tail plastics or even big singletails will often evoke strikes from both lings and rockfish. They work well in either 94 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

deep or shallow water. To use these lures you will want to carry an assortment of jig heads ranging from 2 to 8 ounces. Use the lightest jig head you can in order to maintain contact with the bottom. You can use these lures either on the sink, like a leadfish, or fish them reeling in very slowly. Good color tails are white, root beer, purple sparkle, or if you’re strictly targeting vermilion rockfish, an orange Kalin Mogambo.

and have the hook come out of the top of the mouth,” adds Martin. “I don’t want to close the mouth because it will suffocate. A lot of times that stinger hook will hook him on the side of the face, on top of its head or inside its mouth.” About half of the time, however, a ling will grab the sea trout solely with its teeth (called being a hitchhiker). Its inwardly curved teeth make it difficult or impossible to let go of the sea trout Whenever I get bit on a greenling I always reel the fish up agonizingly slow. In doing so, and maintaining constant tension on your rod, the ling will think it is following the fish up to the surface. Whatever you do, when you get a hitchhiker up to the surface, do not give it any slack or it will surely spit out the sea trout. If this scenario occurs, though, the battle is far from over. Immediately and I mean instantly drop the fish slowly back toward the bottom. About 75 percent of the time the ling will grab the fish again and it’s game on! Vermilion rockfish and lingcod can also be caught off When you net or gaff a hitchthe South Coast. (LARRY ELLIS) hiker, it’s going to be hot, so bonk it quickly. BAITING UP For targeting large rockfish as well as lings, a lot of anglers like using a WEATHER EYE Martin advises keeping an mooching rig with a big herring. You would eye out for the south wind. use between a 2- and 3-ounce banana “If the wind starts kicking out of the sinker and a 4-foot mooching leader and south, it’s a good idea to start heading either drift or reel your bait in slowly close back in,” he says. “When the wind comes to the bottom. up from the south, the fishing is usually But the all-time best lingcod bait, not good anyway because you have a without a doubt is a fresh kelp greenling, faster drift because the spots I fish are proalso known as a sea trout. tected from winds coming from any other “When I fish for rockfish and lingcod direction than from the south.” during the wintertime, I’m going to first Martin also likes to stay fairly close to head toward the kelp beds and basically home for a few reasons. use a surfperch rig with a couple of snelled “Once we cross the bar and are in the hooks and small pieces of shrimp,” tips ocean it is usually less than 10 minutes beMartin. “We’re going to catch some greenfore we drop our lines,” he notes. He usually ling and then use those greenling for live heads uphill toward Chetco Cove to catch bait for lingcod.” his sea trout before taking anglers further Martin rigs up a heavy bullet-shaped jig offshore to nail the lings. –LARRY ELLIS head ranging from 3 to 6 ounces and crimps on piece of wire trailing a stinger hook. Editor’s note: This article is from a previous “I hook either a rockfish or a greenling issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to through the inside of the upper mouth check current regulations before going.

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SOUTHWEST OREGON

Brown Town Again TUI CHUB ERADICATION, ELBOW GREASE BRINGING BACK FAMED TROUT FISHERY AT OREGON’S LEMOLO LAKE. CHEMULT, Ore.—Ever since it was created in 1954, Lemolo Lake has been a brown bagger’s paradise of renown. Back in days of yore, fat 12- to 14-inch German browns commonly filled many fisherNF

men’s stringers. But in 2008 it became apparent that the trout population at the lake high in the North Umpqua was rapidly dwindling. Even the most experienced anglers started

noticing that scratching one brown during the magic hour that occurs near sunrise and sunset was an exercise in futility. The decay of this once-magnificent fishery started with the lake’s sudden in-

North Umpqua Arm Mapped Area Lemolo Lake Resort RV park, store, cabins, restaurant, boat rentals

Bunker Hill CG No rth Um pu a

1/8

1/4

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scale in miles

Poole Creek CG

Inlet CG

East Lemolo CG

Lake Creek Arm Lem

Lemolo Lake

olo

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400

from Diamond Lake

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Fish deep for big browns Rainbows, kokes Rainbows, browns, kokes Fly fish for browns, rainbows Bounce lures off bottom for big browns Brown trout Pitch and retrieve Viscious Voodoos Coves with submerged structure – hot spot when shaded Great spot for pitching and retrieving Slow troll flies and Bingo Bugs or rip-troll for browns Boat launch Camping

Map art: RJThompsonART.com

the bank in 20 minutes and then calling their friends and family to come over and join them. There’s even one guy who’s camping out who has been catching 50 fish in two hours from his float tube – and they’re all browns!” The burnout marks are still on my driveway. As I was walked into the resort, a girl and her family were sauntering by with a huge stringer full of browns and rainbows. Some of the metal clips had two fish on them. I took five fish off their stringer and put them on my fish stick for a quick Kodak moment. Then I asked Lamb when the best time would be to hit the lake in the morning. What I heard next knocked me clear to Christmas. “Larry, the magic hour for browns at Lemolo’s been changed,” he said. “You don’t even have to get up early. The magic hour is any time you feel like fishing.” For a brief moment, I thought Scott was surely in danger of overplaying his hand, because as all serious brown-bag-

gers know, the best time to fish is during the first and last hour of legal light. But I became a believer the next morning when I hopped in a boat with Scott’s son Quinton at the crack of 9 and began plucking brownies out of the water as fast as we could cast. At the end of the day’s session, we had caught conservatively over 60 ranging between 11 to 15 inches. I likened the experience to catching rainbows next to a hatchery truck, only these were browns and they were all wild. The ones I kept were the best-tasting trout I had ever eaten. During our expedition there were always signs of even larger browns lurking nearby. As I looked toward one side of the bank, a salmon-sized brownie porpoised out of the water – easily 10 pounds or greater. Two fellows in another boat were also wielding stringers full of browns, and later at the resort they talked about the big breeders they had released. At the resort I also got a chance to speak to two gents who had fished Lemolo for over three

S O U T H W E S T O R E G O N

undation of non-native tui chub back in 2006. A lake’s overall health depends on zooplankton, a microorganism that gorges on blue-green algae. Both tui chub and fingerling trout thrive on zooplankton, but since tuis are prolific breeders, they can deplete an entire reservoir of zooplankton in less than five years. In a famous journal article written by Paul Kucera, it was determined that one female tui chub could contain anywhere from 6,100 to 68,933 eggs. The older a tui is, the more eggs it produces, so a lake’s water quality as well as the life of its trout population can be rapidly choked out in only a few short years. Over the years it became more obvious to scientists that once the chub are introduced in any salmonid-containing waterbody, a trout fishery is doomed for eternity, or until rotenoning. However, there now appears to be an alternative to chemically treating a lake, and an Oregon resort owner has proven it. In 2008 Scott Lamb told me that he was bound and determined to save Lemolo using nets and a harmless substance called elbow grease. “We’ve pulled a hundred ton of tui chub out of Lemolo in the last three years,” said Lamb, owner of Lemolo Lake Resort (541-643-0750). “And we’re getting ready to start our fourth year in 2011.” THE BROWNS ARE BACK! Last year Lamb started seeing fewer chub in his nets and more browns (the latter released unharmed) and began to develop a more positive outlook for the outcome of the fishery. Then, in late spring, all hell broke loose. I received a phone call from a very exuberant resort owner who was so excited he could hardly speak. “You’ve got to get out here,” exclaimed Lamb. “The fishing here has just gone kooky. I’ve got people who have fished here for 30 years with smiles on their faces pulling me over to the side and asking me, ‘What in the heck is going on with your fishery?’” When I asked him what the veterans meant, he told me: “Folks that have fished this lake for over 30 years have never seen the fishing this good – ever! People are limiting out on

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SOUTHWEST OREGON decades. They told me the fishing was even better than they could ever remember. WHAT TO USE Folks around the lake were catching browns on Rooster Tails, Vibrax spinners, Tasmanian Devils and a lure that Lamb makes himself called a Viscious Voodoo. I caught all my browns on the Voodoo. When you’re fishing jigs such as those and Kastmasters, the first thing to remember is that these fish are going to pick up your jig on the fall, so make sure that you’re feeling for a strike as the lure is sinking toward the bottom. The other thing is to twitch your lure on the retrieve. What I do is make my cast and then let my line go completely slack. If a brown hasn’t picked up your lure on the sink, then follow these hints: Use your rod to put all of the action on your jig. As soon as your jig hits the bottom, reel up your slack and point your rod tip toward the water, almost laying the tip on the surface. While lifting your jig, make six quick twitches in an upward manner at the rate of about five or six twitches a second. Your twitches should be short enough to allow you to make about 12 of these movements in about two seconds. On each twitch of the jig, allow a tiny bit of slack to occur before making your next twitch. These twitch/fall mini-movements happen so fast they are barely perceptible. After your cadence of 12 twitches, your rod tip should be approximately 2 to 3 feet above the water. You probably won’t catch any browns on the upswing, but these mini-twitches will catch the eye of a brown from 10 feet away in gin-clear water and it absolutely drives them berserk. The next step is to let your jig fall back to the bottom on a slightly loose line. This is when the wound-up brownies dart out from behind cover to nail your jig. While letting your jig fall, sometimes make one or two quick twitches spaced about one second from each other. Keep repeating this procedure until you either hook up with a fish or retrieve your lure back to the boat. My line preference is 6-pound-test Ande clear mono because I firmly believe it is the clearest line known to man besides 98 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

(LARRY ELLIS)

fluorocarbon and works the best in ginclear environments. For a change of pace, Quinton decided to throw some Tasmanian Devils. It didn’t even matter what color he used; the browns bit them all. Just remember to give it those magic twitches. RAINBOWS Since Lemolo has been rescued from the tuis, rainbow trout action has also picked up.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife stocks two varieties of rainbows here: the regular Rock Creek strain and another strain called a Fishwich, which is a predacious ’bow put in the lake to eat tuis. The rainbows overwinter quite well and that means that by the time you catch them, their meat will have firmed up since the holdovers are eating what trout should eat in the wild and they should taste excellent in the frying pan. Some of these

fish may be between 2 and 4 pounds. Anglers often line the banks in front of the resort tossing out chartreuse-colored PowerBait on a sliding sinker rig, but these fish will also readily smack a Rooster Tail. The browns respond to the flutter-down effect of a spinner as well.

S O U T H W E S T

SUMMER, FALL FISHING I was there in midspring, and judging by the number of fish I and other anglers caught before and afterwards, summer and fall seasons should also produce some lightsout fishing for ’bows and brownies. All of the arms and the main body of the lake will produce in summer. Both browns and rainbows will respond to trolling methods as well as casting and pitching lures. Fly-lining a nightcrawler without any weight is also a good method that works for both species. Trolling black ants and Woolly Buggers with a 2-pound-test mainline with a small split shot 24 inches ahead of it is a killer way of getting the bigger Fishwich ’bows to bite. Long-line your flies at least 150 feet behind the boat. Trolling Rooster Tails and Panther Martins work well, but long line them because the water, again, is gin-clear. This is a great lake to fish with two rods if you’ve got a two-rod endorsement. But trust me on this one, you’ll probably have one rod too many. With the fast action I encountered, one rod was more than sufficient. However, it never hurts to have another outfit rigged and ready to go in case you break off or feel like throwing these fish a changeup. In July and August troll in both the Umpqua and Lake Creek Arms. If no fish are biting at all during the middle of the day, wait for the original magic hour that occurs at first legal light to begin trolling and/or casting spinners, jigs and spoons. If the wind has kicked up a little, shut off your motor and let the wind drift you up or down the arms. Never pass up trolling or wind-drifting in the deep channels as they transition into shallow water. This is how I caught all of my browns, by letting the wind push the boat up the North Umpqua Arm. In these cases I was making very long casts and using the above jigging technique. But when your boat is being pushed by the wind, allow your lure to sink a little longer. This same technique works well in fall as well, but during this time, especially October, you’ll find more rainbows from the beginnings of the arms to their middle parts. For big browns rip-troll Yo-Zuri Crystal Minnows 200 feet behind the boat, or target them in fall, especially October. Mature browns will migrate up the arms to spawn in the North Umpqua and Lake Creek. Trolling toward the inlets can be very rewarding, but watch for stumps in the north arm. If you’ve never caught a Teutonic trout, you’ll never find a better time than the present to initiate yourself into the brown-baggers’ society. With Lamb’s continued trap-netting keeping the tuis in check, the browns are back at the top of the food chain. Look for Lemolo to be the preeminent brown trout fishery of the Northwest for years to come. –LARRY ELLIS

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GREATER PUGET SOUND

ooking out the windows of our third-floor offices here in Seattle, the waters of Puget Sound are a dark blue today, but over the coming months they’ll turn pink as the odd-year flood of those humped salmon return to the basin's rivers — some 6 million pinks are forecast in 2013, many of which will hit Tacoma’s Brown Point and invade the Snoqualmie River. And there’s another salmon species to keep your eyes on. Baker Lake has been providing light’s out sockeye fishing in recent years, and another season is highly likely on the reservoir below the North Cascades volcano.

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Map art: RJThompsonART.com

GREATER PUGET SOUND

Baker Rumbling Back To Life

LESSONS FOR LIMITING IF ENOUGH SOCKEYE RETURN TO THE NORTH CASCADES LAKE TO HOLD A FISHERY.

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CONCRETE, Wash.—Read through the fishing rules and you’ll come across this line for Baker Lake: “SOCKEYE To be determined pending inseason update.” Despite the regs’ ambiguousness, it’s “pretty likely” there will be a season, only the second ever on the pretty lake in Washington’s North Cascades. Several thousand were caught last summer by anglers using gear and tactics similar to those used on the state’s other two somesummers sock hops, Lakes Washington and Wenatchee, and it may go annual. “We’ve had a lot more smolts going out and that really helps the odds right there – having the juveniles in the first place,” says Brett Barkdull, the district fisheries biologist for the state Department of Fish & Wildlife. That’s a function of all the salmon enhancement work that Puget Sound Energy has done on the Skagit River tributary as part of their relicensing agreement to operate Baker and Shannon Dams. In the 1990s, the hydropower utility built a spawning beach on Baker Lake and improved it recently. Two years ago it dunked a floating fry-collection system into the lake at the dam and immediately set a new record for downstream migration (343,000, the bulk of this year’s returning adults), a mark that was overtopped last year by 150 percent. And a new fish trap on the Baker River and hatchery facility on the lake came online last summer. The hatchery and gravel beach could produce as many as 11 million fry a year,

Horseshoe Cove

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Baker Lake LEGEND Best sockeye fishing

Upper Baker Dam

400 percent above the previous capacity, PSE says. And while this year’s probable fishery is based off a forecasted return of 23,954 sockeye, the utility boldly predicts that – with another collector placed on the reservoir below Baker in 2013 – runs of “50,000 to 75,000 are not unrealistic to expect in coming years.” If there’s a caveat anywhere, it’s that managers are not quite sure how many

Boat launch Hike-in campground fish the lake can produce and how many are needed back to ensure escapement goals are met. In the meanwhile, Barkdull places the odds of a run of 5,000 or fewer back this year at 15 percent, a return of 5,000 to 10,000 at 30 percent and a repeat of last year at 40 percent. “If they return to the lake at the survival rates we’ve seen over the past 20 years, we could have anywhere between Map art: RJThompsonART.com

GREATER PUGET SOUND Most Baker Lake sockeye will run 4 to 6 pounds, but the biggest on guide Ryan Bennet’s boat last year went 10. (REAL DEAL GUIDE SERVICE)

from roughly 5,500 to 95,000,” he laughs. “Now, I doubt both those numbers – they’re both unlikely. Anywhere in the 10,000 to 30,000 range is more likely.” Nearly four-fifths will return as twosalts while one-fifth will be threes, with the remainders one-salts, fours, fives and sixes, he says. If the run is as good as 2010, Barkdull says he’ll try and get a three-fish limit for anglers. LAST SEASON on the 3,100-acre impoundment below iconic Mt. Baker and Mt. Shuksan, there was an extreme catch inequality: You were either among the few haves or the many have-nots. Call it socke-alism, but we aim to redistribute the wealth here. “It’s a technique fishery. If you get it figured out, they bite pretty good. You gotta have the right presentation and the right speed and the right depth,” says Barkdull, who admits to being “just barely 104 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

in the haves.” One private boat in particular seemed to have it dialed in perfectly. “They were a machine out there,” he says. Afterwards, he chatted up one of the crew and was told that not only did the bite change by the day, but by the hour. “They had varying things down, and would change during the day to find out what the fish were willing to take. They’d start out with one set of gear, and then by 8 or 9, switch,” he says. The array of tackle choices will be familiar to anyone who has fished the Seattle and Chelan County sockeye lakes, but for the record, it includes one or a pair of bare red, blue or black 2/0 to 4/0 octopus hooks, smaller FlatFish and small hoochies. “I used little bitty pink mini squids that I trimmed down even further,” Barkdull says. He ran them behind a size 0 dodger, and adds that just like with those other

fisheries, leader length is key. That’s a point echoed by Kevin John of Holiday Market (360-757-4361) in Burlington, whose limits on 12 of 13 trips put him among the have-mores. “We’re using 30- to 40-pound fluorocarbon 8 to 18 inches back,” he says. Some anglers were using much, much lighter leader, but the thicker stuff not only is much tougher for, say, the edge of a metallic dodger to saw through if a sockeye rolls up in the line, but imparts more action to the lure. John used ought or 00 “big ring” dodgers from Gold Star. He says the larger O ring allowed the dodger to turn at slower speeds. RYAN BENNETT was also amongst the have-mores, perhaps because of how he focused on boat speed, bait size and how water flowing through the upper lake affected his setup. “I was throwing the wind socks out to keep my speed down,” says the owner of Reel Deal Guide Service (360-840-1155). “There’s the current in the lake. I think that threw people – dodgers spinning instead of turning.” Fishing exclusively with downriggers, he targeted water as little as 11 feet down early in the morning to as deep as 67 feet. He used an 8-inch Sling Blade from Shasta Tackle, but pulled a Gary Miralles, modifying the dodger. “I peeled the stickers off and fished it in all chrome,” he says. Bennett tried all the usual baits, but the ol’ red-hook trick that sockeye anglers learned from a commercial fisherman working the San Juans decades ago – and helped along to widespread fame by our Dave Workman, then on the desk of Washington Fishing & Hunting News – didn’t work as well. “I caught them on all the standards, but the fish came on larger presentations,” Bennett tips. So, what, a U20 FlatFish? “A little bit, a little bit, but not a whole lot.” Bennett is loath to give all his tricks away, but says he stuffed pink Silver Horde Gold Star Mini Sardine FG 193s with dough bait.

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&ŝŶĚ ŽƵƚ ǁŚǇ ƚŚĞ WŽƌƚ ŽĨ &ŝŶĚ ŽƵƚ ǁŚǇ ƚŚĞ WŽƌƚ ŽĨ ǀĞƌĞƩ͛Ɛ ďŽĂƚ ůĂƵŶĐŚ Ž ǀĞƌĞƩ ͛Ɛ ďŽĂƚ ůĂƵŶĐŚ ŝƐ ƚŚĞ ďƵƐŝĞƐƚ ĂŶĚ ŵŽƐƚ ƉŽƉƵůĂƌ ƉƵďůŝĐ ůĂƵŶĐŚ ŝƐ ƚŚĞ ďƵƐŝĞƐƚ ĂŶĚ ŵŽƐƚ ƉŽƉƵůĂƌ ƉƵďůŝĐ ůĂƵŶĐŚ ƚ ƉŽƉƵůĂƌ ƉƵďůŝĐ ůĂƵŶĐŚ ŝŶ ƚŚĞ ƐƚĂƚĞ ŽĨ tĂƐŚŝŶŐƚŽŶ͊ ŝŶ ƚŚĞ Ɛ ƚĂƚĞ ŽĨ tĂƐŚŝŶŐŐƚŽŶ͊ ͻ ŽŶǀĞŶŝĞŶƚͲĞĂƐǇ ĂĐĐĞƐƐ ƚŽ ŽƉĞŶ ǁĂƚĞƌ ͻ ŽŶǀĞŶŝĞŶƚͲĞĂƐǇ ĂĐĐĐĞƐƐ ƚŽ ŽƉĞŶ ǁĂƚĞƌ ͻ ϭϯͲůĂŶĞƐ с EŽ ůŽŶŐ ǁĂŝƚƐ ƚŽ ůĂƵŶĐŚ ͻ ϭϯͲůĂŶĞƐ с EŽ ůŽŶŐ ǁĂŝƚƐ ƚŽ ůĂƵŶĐŚ ͻ ^ĂĨĞ ƐĞĐƵƌĞ ƉĂƌŬŝŶŐ ĨŽƌ ƚƌĂŝůĞƌ ĂŶĚ ǀĞŚŝĐůĞƐ ͻ ^ĂĨĞ ƐĞĐƵƌĞ ƉĂƌŬŝŶŐŐ ĨŽƌ ƚƌĂŝůĞƌ ĂŶĚ ǀĞŚŝĐůĞƐ ͻ KŶͲƐŝƚĞ ƐŚŽƌƚ ƚĞƌŵ ƚƌĂŝůĞƌ ƐƚŽƌĂŐĞ ĂǀĂŝůĂďůĞ ͻ KŶͲƐŝƚĞ ƐŚŽƌƚ ƚĞƌŵ ƚƌ ƚ ĂŝůĞƌ ƐƚŽƌĂŐĞ ĂǀĂŝůĂďůĞ DĂƌŝŶĂ Kĸ DĂƌŝŶĂ KĸĐĞ͗ ϰϮϱ͘Ϯϱϵ͘ϲϬϬϭ ĸĐĞ͗ ϰϮϱ͘Ϯϱϵ͘ϲϬϬϭ >ĞĂƌŶ ŵŽƌ Ğ Ăƚ ǁ ǁǁǁ͘ƉŽƌƚŽĨĞǀĞƌĞƩ͘ĐŽŵ >ĞĂƌŶ ŵŽƌĞ Ăƚ ǁǁǁ͘ƉŽƌƚŽĨĞǀĞƌĞƩ͘ĐŽŵ

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Northwest Sportsman 105

GREATER PUGET SOUND “I was just literally rolling up PowerBait into a ball, just like trout fishing, and shoving it in the squid,” he says. John used bait at times as well, a sand shrimp or cocktail shrimp on a doublebare-hook setup. As with other sockeye anglers, he too stresses the slow approach, from .7 to 1.2 mph speed over ground. “An electric motor is almost a must,” John says. By the end of the season he says he was adding a Mack’s Lures Smile Blade, which turns at very slow speeds, in front of his hooks. That said, sockeye are flukey fish. Kicking up his speed a half a knot one day, Barkdull suddenly found himself in fresh socks. “We sat there and limited in front of 80 other boats not catching anything. Just that little change, four in a half an hour,” he says. John adds that you can go with or without scent, but if you do use it, try shrimp or krill.

IF 2011 FOLLOWS 2010, the best spot will be about halfway down the shank of Baker Lake’s dogleg right. “About 99 percent of the fish were in front of Noisy Creek,” says John. That could be a function of depth, water temps, where the fish were staging for the final leg of their spawning run or just where somebody saw or heard someone else catch a fish and pretty soon the whole fleet converged on the upper end of the lake. He started closer to shore and gradually moved out, following the fish, even dropping his gear as far down as 110 feet to nab one. But Noisy’s not the only spot. “I spent a few evenings on the water, and you could catch fish in other places,” hints Bennett. Though the lake is 9 miles long, its boat ramps are well spaced, with two near the dam, two at midlake and one near its upper end. The best launch with the most parking – PSE’s Kulshan – is the furthest

away from the hot spot. “It’s a 6- or 7-mile run, but it’s nothing in the morning,” says Barkdull. John says it’s best to make your initial run in daylight as there are islands and snags “in areas you typically wouldn’t expect them – like right in the middle of the lake.” The closest ramp to the action, Shannon Campground, only has a handful of parking spots, and – unlike last year – only those spending the night there will be able to use it. “We’re limiting it to those folks who are camping there, figuring they’re fishing anyway,” says Jon Vanderheyden, the U.S. Forest Service’s district ranger. The fishery’s popularity last year caught him by surprise, and he’s now scrambling to satisfy families out for a quiet campout in the mountains and the large numbers of anglers who want to get on the water for the first-light bite. “We had folks running around at 5:30 in the morning looking for parking spots. There were definitely some ticked-off campers,” he says. Vanderheyden says that workers have paved and striped additional parking at the Panorama Point Campground and are hoping to do similar at Horseshoe Cove. “Once one fills up, you’re going to have to go to another launch,” he says. There will likely be increased Forest Service patrols and ticketing for parking in bad spots. One other thing of note is that while USFS will not issue any new commercial guiding permits for Baker, five guides who were granted one-year permits last summer will be allowed to use theirs until they expire. “It’s going to take a little while for all of us to work the bugs out. It’s good to see a fishery, but we’ve got to respect the users and the resource,” Vanderheyden says. With the sockeye runs that PSE and Barkdull expect in the future, angler cooperation will go a long way to keeping things running smoothly for all parties. — ANDY WALGAMOTT Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

106 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

GREATER PUGET SOUND

Get Humpy Happy

Monroe 2

Snohomish River 522

Crescent Lake Rd.

HUGE PINK SALMON RETURNS TO NORTH SOUND RIVERS AND A NEW FISHERY MAKE FOR GREAT LATE-SUMMER ACTION.

108 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

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SNOHOMISH, Wash.—North Puget Sound anglers are turning pink with excitement as the river fishing season for the odd-year salmon promises to be huge. Not only are 2.75 million humpies expected back to a trio of watersheds north of Seattle, but a brand-new fishery opens this month east of the city. “We haven’t fished Snoqualmie pink salmon for quite a while,” says Steve Thiesfeld, Puget Sound recreational fisheries manager. “Regional staff felt they were not healthy enough for a fishery. This year, they did.” The Snoqualmie, which together with the Skykomish forms the Snohomish, will be open for most of its length below the famed falls under selective gear rules, meaning only barbless hooks allowed and no bait or scent, which shouldn’t matter as pinks are suckers for jigs and small bladed spoons. “The mouth of the Tolt will be good, but the lower in the system the better as the pinks tend to spawn lower,” says Todd Daniels of Tall Tails Guide Service (206-437-8766). The fishery will primarily be by boat – there are ramps at Crescent Lake Road (High Bridge), Duvall, Carnation, Neal Road and Fall City – but there is bank access at those ramps as well as McCormick Park in Duvall, Carnation Farms Road bridge, McDonald Park in Carnation, Neal Road and in Fall City. That said, the main pink action will be on other river systems. “The Snohomish and Skagit are both ground

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Hot spots Bank access Boat launch Map art: RJThompsonART.com

GREATER PUGET SOUND Thin-bladed spoons aren’t just for drift fishing – Jake Nelson ran a Dick Nite under a float, a technique he learned in Northwest Sportsman for 2009’s run – and caught this humpy just above Sultan. (TERRY WIEST)

zero for the pink salmon run of 2011,” says Bonner Daniels, no relation, of Fish-On! Guide Service (206-437-8766). “The lower Snohomish and Skagit will start getting squirts of fish in late July. Once September comes around fish will be from tidewater to the highest points of both systems.” Their proximity to population centers and the size of the run – 1.3 million to the Snohomish, 800,000 to the Skagit – will make for crowded but fun fisheries. “Don’t freak out when you’re not alone on these rivers,” says Bonner. “Just be respectful of one another and when push comes to shove, simply be genuine and ask if they mind if you slip in and fish beside them. I would be very surprised if you ever receive a no for this blast of a ‘catchery.’” MY FIRST EXPERIENCE pink fishing was on the Skagit near Mt. Vernon. Boat or bank, there’s plenty of room and the fish are in great shape this low in the system. At its August opener, the river was flowing high and bait was key, and as water levels come down, sand shrimp for plunking with Spin-N-Glos will still work, but Kevin John at Holiday Market (360-757-4361) in 110 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Burlington says the Skagit has always done well with thin blade-type spoons. “Of course there’s the Dick Nite, but also try a FST or a Wicked Willy. And if you can’t find something with pink, try green,” he tips. Schools of humpies were in from early August, and they’ll continue pushing into the river this month too. “There’s plenty of bank access,” says John, “but I’d try Gardner Road, both up and down from the parking lot, the Burlington soccer fields, the train trestle or Youngs Bar in Mt. Vernon. There’s miles more of the Skagit to hit above “Woolley” too. “Some of the best fishing can be by simply driving along South Skagit Highway and pulling off the side of the road,” John says. “Come late August, early September, that whole section of river will be loaded with pinks.” ONE RIVER THAT’S synonymous with pinks is the Stillaguamish. As Daryl Kron at Hook, Line & Sinker (360-651-7304) in Smokey Point puts it, “Nothing much has changed over the years: Come Sept. 1 the pinks will be here, and lots of them.”

If you don’t know the river, concentrate at Haller Park in Arlington or Blue Stilly Park just above I-5 (take 27th Ave. NE off Highway 530). However, below the interstate, the river’s south channel – also known as Cook or Koch Slough – will be dewatered and closed to fishing. “They’ve put in a diversion dam and the river will be closed from just below I-5, where the dam is, down about 3 miles just below the ‘forks’” west of Silvana, Kron says. That’s a lot of prime pink habitat that unfortunately will be off limits as the Corps of Engineers repairs an instream fish weir and coffer dam. As the Stilly is also selective gear only, Kron recommends what everyone else does: Dick Nites, Wicked Willies and twitchin’ jigs. “When the pinks are in, they come out of the woodworks to the Stilly. We’re prepared and have ordered extra pink stuff this year,” he adds. THE SKYKOMISH RIVER from the Lewis Street ramp in Monroe down to where it joins the Snoqualmie is great pink water, and until the Duwamish/Green caught on fire a few years ago, was my main pink fishing destination. A fair ways above the salt, fish flesh quality isn’t always the best, but I generally catch and release anyway once pinks leave tidewater. If you want a big pink with a big ol’ hump, the Sky probably offers the best opportunity – back to back state records in 2001, the latter of which stood until fall 2007. They’re generally very aggressive and relatively easy to catch. “Try the Skykomish pretty much anywhere below Sultan,” Bonner Daniels says. “Also try areas such as the Cracker Bar, Lewis Street and just off Tualco Loop Road – there is a WDFW parking lot and it’s a good area to bank fish from.” The Snohomish will be full of pinks from the Highway 522 bridge down through Bob Heirman Wildlife Park, Short School Road, the town of Snohomish, Rotary Park, I-5 bridges and Langus Riverfront Park. I LIKE TO USE very light gear for pinks – after all, unless you catch that record 14pounder, most fish are only going to be 3

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Northwest Sportsman 111

GREATER PUGET SOUND to 5 pounds once they hit the rivers. My new “pink” rod is an 8-foot Fetha Styx FSFW-802s rated 4 to 8 pounds with a moderate action. I like a spinning setup since most my lures are also going to be very light and it tends to be easier to cast them with a spinning reel. A 1500 series loaded with 10-pound line is plenty. From bank or boat, the No. 1 humpy lure of all time is the Dick Nite spoon and I like a size 1 in a 50/50 pattern. It may be the one exception to the rule that you use pink for pinks, but the half- bronze, half silver spoon is an absolute killer. If the fish are really being finicky I’ll drop down to a “wee” size. Other patterns are frog and, again, anything pink – pink-and-white, pink-and-pink, pinkand-copper, pink tipped, pink, pink, pink! I like to drift fish the spoons with a dropper. You can use a setup like you would to fish a Corky for steelhead, but because of how light the spoon is, most fish will be flossed or lined – not a good thing. So I’ll tie a three-way swivel and then use about a 12-inch dropper with a 3-

to 4-foot leader. Any longer of a leader and there’s a tendency to floss a few fish. From a boat there’s nothing wrong with throwing the same setup and having it hang in a hole behind you. Just use enough weight so it sits on bottom and the spoon will flutter with the current. Good time to take a break but usually not too long. If the fish are around, they hit it! Another technique from the boat is a wobbler-type spoon with a dropper, or if you’re a bait fisherman, tie on a Spin-NGlo or Smile blade with a sand shrimp tail or piece of prawn. Again, if the fish are in, it won’t take long before they attack it. Saving the best for last, my new favorite technique for pinks is twitchin’ jigs. Holy moly has this been deadly. Tie on a – yep – pink ¼- to 3⁄8-ounce marabou jig directly to the mainline. Cast out, let it drop to the bottom then start “twitching” as you reel in slowly. About one crank per twitch should do it. You don’t want to “yank” on the rod too much – a snagging motion – but rather

use the wrist more to visualize the jig only moving up the water column about a foot. Most fish are going to hit it on the drop, and by hit it, I mean annihilate it! Pink jigs with longer tails are the trick. If you can’t find the right jig, use a pink worm or a curly tail on a jig head (just as effective but I like the satisfaction of tying my own jigs). Showing the popularity of pink fishing, Hawken Industries recently introduced the Humpy Death Pack, which includes two skirted jigs, two SMJ 10 bead jigs and a Fire Fly in cerise marabou, all in 1⁄4 ounce. I’m also anticipating a weighted Jr. Ace Hi Fly from Silver Horde which promises to be deadly effective twitchin’. If you plan on keeping any pinks from the rivers (or anywhere, really), you must bleed the fish immediately, then clean it within a few minutes and put it on ice. Your dinner guests will thank you. —TERRY WIEST Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

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AMONG THE BEST PLACES TO INTERCEPT PUYALLUP RIVER-BOUND HUMPIES IS THIS POINT – BUT MUCH MORE OF THE TACOMA SALT WILL ALSO BE FISHY.

South Puget Sound

Des Moines

LEGEND

Mapped Area

Troll for pinks

5. Les Davis Fishing Pier 6. Pt. Defiance Boat House (dock fishing) 7. Pt. Evans (beach fishing) 8. Narrows Park (beach fishing) *Marine Area 13 (release unclipped coho)

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509

Dash Pt. State Park

Browns Point

Ruston

S O U N D

P U G E T

G R E A T E R

1. Redondo Fishing Pier 2. Dash Point State Park Fishing Pier 3. Browns Pt. Park (shore fishing) 4. Thea’s Park & Waterway (dock and bulkhead fishing)

Commencement Bay 509

Narrows Bridge

4 Tacoma

0 1/ 2 1

scale in miles

FEDERAL WAY, Wash.—Cars parked alongside streets, pedestrians walking down the road fishing rods in hand and headed towards a point jutting into Puget Sound where they will pitch lures as far as they can. And why? Well, why wouldn’t they when another huge run is forecast back to the Puyallup River! The jutting point is labeled on maps as Browns . With its old lighthouse, it sticks out on the east side of the sound towards Map art: RJThompsonART.com

Vashon Island and is a landmark of sorts separating the Central Sound from the South Sound. It’s here that some 900,000 pink salmon will pass starting this month. The fish have already begun their journey down the Strait of Juan de Fuca. They’re part of a school of some 6 million expected back to Puget Sound rivers this year. As they exit the strait, some will head north to Canadian rivers such as the Fraser, and some

will go straight into the Skagit. The bulk will turn south. Over 1.3 million will part as they pass Everett and head up the Snohomish system while another 2.2 million will mill around Elliott Bay before going up the Green. The rest are headed for Browns Point, Tacoma and the Puyallup. FROM THE BANK, there are numerous public beaches, parks, points and piers along the east side of Puget Sound to in2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 113

GREATER PUGET SOUND tercept these fish. If you’re in Seattle, try Carkeek Park, Golden Gardens, Lincoln Park and the Elliott Bay Fishing Pier at Terminal 86. Further south is the Des Moines Marina and Redondo Piers, then Dash Point Park Pier and, in Tacoma itself, the Les Davis Fishing Pier. In fact, most points on Puget Sound become very popular during pink years. Some piers also have handicap access; for more, go to wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/piers/. One thing that the public piers and Browns Point have in common is a lack of good parking, so it’s wise to get there early. Other things to consider are the tides. For Browns, the fishing is best from an hour after low tide until an hour before high tide. It seems the schools of pinks will mill around the point, first starting on the north side, going back and forth along a large cove and up the beach. Then, as they round the point itself they cruise by very close, making this prime real estate, but also short lived as a great spot. Then the fish

114 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

continue around the point and then again, mill around on the southern bay. You will know a bite is on as you look down the line of bank-bound anglers and see someone fighting a fish. Then a few people closer and another person’s got one on. Then you see the fish, which tend to swim right along the surface, and you cast like mad, hoping to cast over the top of the school and reel your lure through the pod, enticing a bite. If you cast short, into the school, or worse yet, in front of the fish, you will scare them off, and possibly turn the school around. It’s like this for a few hours, fish going back and forth in front of you, and then it’s all over, just like that. As the tide rises the fish use the slack pond to head straight for the mouth of the Puyallup and get up the river as far as they can while the going is easy. Parking is very tough at Browns Point Park, as all of the parking stalls belong to a homeowner’s association, even though the park is for public use. The boat launch there is also private – only for those in the Browns Point Improvement Club. There is some limited parking at the dead end of Tulalip Street; otherwise you are parking on narrow public residential streets. Please remember not to block driveways and be polite to those who live in the area – after all, how would you like a few dozen to a hundred or more cars parking in your neighborhood every day for a month?

The park itself offers 1,500 feet of waterfront, and also public restrooms and a picnic area along with the historic lighthouse offering tours on weekends. OTHER BANK SPOTS IN THE VICINITY include Thea’s Park, a small park with, again, very limited parking at the mouth of Thea Foss Waterway right in downtown Tacoma. Take Pacific Ave. north through downtown and just as you leave the buildings behind you come to S. 4th St. Take a right on the railroad overpass and at the bottom of the ramp is a small driveway on your left, which is the park. There is a large bulkhead to fish from as well as a small gravel beach perfect for launching a cartopper or kayak. Here, high tide is prime time, as these fish come into the waterway and mill around, thinking it’s the Puyallup. You can spot the schools as they surface. From here it’s not far to Les Davis Pier. Continue north on Schuster Parkway (Pacific turns into Schuster after S. 4th, the turn to Thea’s Park). Go past the large grain elevators and continue on to Ruston Way, where you will find the pier. There are also gravel beaches, bulkheads and grassy areas to fish from at high tide. This is a great place for a picnic as well with tables along the way and ample parking. If you keep heading north on the parkway you will go through the Ruston tunnel. At the top of the hill take a right on

cret” resident coho spot, and in odd years we do well for pinks here too. You’re back in Marine Area 11, so the coho don’t have to be clipped. In August expect them to run the same size as the pinks, about 2 to 4 pounds.

Pink salmon anglers work Browns Point by bank and boat. (JASON BROOKS) 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 115

S O U N D

Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

P U G E T

FOR BOAT ANGLERS, all of the above areas are great. A common way to fish for the pinks along Browns Point is to shut off the motor and pitch the same offerings as the bankies as you drift along. For the Narrows area, I start trolling in 65 feet of water in a zigzag pattern going with the tide on the incoming, going as shallow as 30 feet with my gear down about 25 feet. I do this until I get to the Narrows Bridges, pull up my gear and head back to Evans Point and do it again. You might get bit by a heavier salmon here too – it’s a staging area for Chambers Creek kings. My oldest son and I got a 21-pounder one day fishing right at low tide on our “pink” gear – an 11-inch Hot Spot flasher and a small squid 25 feet down from the boat on our downrigger. Other areas to try include the Pt. Defiance, Owens Beach and Slag Pile merry-goround troll fisheries. Also motor along the Ruston Way Waterfront, south of the Slag Pile as pinks tend to mill around the shoreline here. As you continue trolling along you will pass the Les Davis Pier, where some shore-bound anglers will be pitching lures, and continue on. As you near the grain elevators at the end of Dock Street you are

nearing the mouth of Thea Foss Waterway and Thea’s Park. If the fish move out from Thea’s Park you can chase them all the way to the mouth of Puyallup. Make a large hook turn heading back north, now on the other side of Commencement Bay and keep going to Browns Point. For those just north of Tacoma, launch at Redondo and head south. Troll along the shoreline heading towards Dash Point. You can keep going and fish the large bay just north of Browns Point, which is all private beaches, so you will get a chance at the fish before the shore-bound anglers at Browns Point. Keep in mind that this large point sticking out into Puget Sound is like a speed bump for the fish. They tend to turn around just before the point and go back north in the large bay area. I recommend you do the same and troll back and forth in here for the pinks. Whether you have sandals and shorts and are stuck on the shoreline or can get out in a cartopper or kayak – heck, even a yacht – there is a place for you to fish in the South Sound for our odd-year pinks. There is room to roam, and enough places to fish to keep you busy all month long. Here’s your chance to get out and enjoy this unique urban fishery. —JASON BROOKS

G R E A T E R

Pearl Street towards Pt. Defiance. At the entrance to the park take a right down to the boat launch where you will come to the Pt. Defiance Boat House. There are public fishing docks at the boat house, along with a small store that will have what you need for fishing, as well as snacks and refreshments. There is a public restroom and the docks are wheelchair accessible. Another location to target pinks is across the Narrows Bridge at a small county park aptly named Narrows Park. At just 35 acres with a small parking lot just south of the Narrows Bridges you will find a small piece of solitude and a great place to take the family for a beach-walking adventure. Pinks will hang out along the west shore, which at high tide has a lot of kelp beds just out from casting distance. Keep in mind, however, that you are in Marine Area 13 and any unclipped coho salmon you catch must be released. (This is a great place to target resident coho and sea-run cutthroats with flies and spoons.) Pinks may be here because they took Colvos Passage on Vashon Island’s west side south and got pushed past the Puyallup by strong incoming tides through the Narrows, or may be part of the small run back to the Nisqually River and a couple other South Sound streams. While exploring the beach near the Narrows Bridges, keep walking north to the farthest point. An old navigation marker juts out, revealing Evans Point. This is my “se-

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WASHINGTON CASCADES I

f there’s a big game hunting heartland to Washington, it would be the eastern slopes of its Cascade Mountains. Two of the state’s three most important deer and elk herds reside in the wildernesses, deep valleys and basalt breaks that stretch down the jagged spine of the Evergreen State from the Canadian border to the Columbia. It’s a region that’s also rife with ruffed and dusky grouse, and black bear hunting opportunities.

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Good Prospects For Cascades Bulls, Bucks W A S H I N G T O N

WASHINGTON BIOLOGISTS EXPECT ‘PRETTY GOOD’ TO ‘FAIR’ MULEY, BLACKTAIL AND ELK HUNTING.

YAKIMA—From the Canadian border to the Columbia, fall hunting prospects for Cascades big game hunters are looking up – and not just because the bucks and bulls are high in the mountains. Deer prospects are best at the northern end of the range and in the foothills outside Centralia while elk season could be good on the east side of the crest in Southcentral Washington. We’ll start there first. ROAD CLOSURES WILL FRUSTRATE some hunters hoping to bag a Yakima herd elk this fall, but overall prospects are looking good for spike bull and permit cow tag holders. Flooding earlier this year severely damaged a number of roads in the Manastash, Little Naches and Taneum Game Manage-

ment Units between I-90 and Highway 410 and repairs are, at best, a year away. On the one hand, that means sportsmen who plan on trailering into their traditional elk camps or hunt certain ridges and valleys will want to check ahead with the Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest (fs.fed.us/r6/oka) to make sure their travel routes are doable. On the other hand, large areas such as the western side of Peoh Point above Cle Elum off Forest Road 3350 will be defacto elk refuges during the Oct. 29-Nov. 6 season, and that could be a good thing. “Anybody who’s ever studied elk has found that they avoid roads. Roads washed out and nobody driving on them means it’s more likely elk will still be there and folks may find some good hunting,”

says Jeff Bernatowicz, the state big game biologist for Yakima and Kittitas Counties. The caveat is that the Forest Service has outlawed all access on some closed roads due to fire danger and rescue concerns. A hunter himself, Bernie is pretty high on this fall’s possibilities. “Overall, this should be a good season – lots of permits, lots of spikes,” he says. That abundance is based on two factors: high numbers of calves counted during the winter herd composition survey and a very poor 2010 harvest. The biologist is still mystified about the latter. “Modern firearm success rates were way down, including permits. They just didn’t harvest much of anything. The elk were there. They showed up on the winter 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 119

C A S C A D E S

Last year’s low harvest of Yakima herd spikes will translate to more branch-antlered bulls available this season for permit holders like Ty Hunter (right), seen here hauling his 2009 bull out of a snowy clearcut, while good calf numbers this past winter should mean more spikes for general season hunters. (BUZZ RAMSEY)

WASHINGTON CASCADES range – and the numbers were way up. ‘What the heck?’ I said, ‘this can’t be right.’ We did our survey and there were all the elk on the winter ground. “Most of our animals migrate to high wilderness areas and then with heavy

120 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

snow migrate down. Last year was no different than 2009, and in 2009 they slayed them. Last year they didn’t, and I don’t know why. There was only one day difference in opening and closing dates and the weather was the same,” he says.

Hunters killed 440 cows and 694 bulls, marks that were, respectively, just 40 percent of the 10-year average and 70 percent of the 2009 season, according to data from Bernatowicz. Last winter calf numbers were 37:100 cows, up five from 2009, with a total of 600 more calves (2,500 vs. 1,900) than the previous year’s count. “There should be a couple hundred extra spikes,” he says. “The one thing you don’t know, though, is what happened to the calves going into spring with winter dragging on.” While the extended cool weather might have shortstopped mule deer in the northern Cascades from reaching their summer grounds – more below – in June, the Yakima elk herd was still relatively low but headed into the heights by mid-August. Still, there was 4 feet of snow in places between White and Chinook Passes in midsummer and bushes were just leafing out. That said, the animals will most likely stick to their redoubts on Divide Ridge south of Rimrock Reservoir, the basins of the William O. Douglas and Norse Peak Wildernesses hard up against the Cascade Crest, and the upper Little Naches basin. Which is not to say that elk don’t also graze lower, more easterly areas, but as always, success rates for rifle hunters will hinge on late October-early November snows moving the herd towards Oak Creek Wildlife Area and other feeding stations. As for the Colockum herd on that high ridge between Ellensburg and Wenatchee, 2009’s change to allow only the take of true spikes – which forces hunters to let bulls with a spike on one side and a forked antler on the other walk – really affected the kill last year. “We actually saw one of our lowest harvests and best spike bull recruitments ever – they just didn’t get shot,” Bernatowicz says. It’s no secret where about half this herd hangs out – at least once hunters begin scouting for them. “Those elk really don’t go anywhere – they’re all around the Arthur Coffin Game Reserve,” he says, referring to the 3,000-acre no-hunting zone on top of Colockum Pass. Of note, the first wolf pack in the CenMap art: RJThompsonART.com

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WASHINGTON CASCADES tral Cascades was discovered 20 miles west-northwest from here. Following up on hunter reports from last fall, biologists captured and collared a lactating female near Liberty in June. WHILE ELK PROSPECTS on the eastern slopes of the South Cascades are good, mule deer hunting will in all likelihood again be poor during the Eastside’s Oct. 1523 season. Hair-loss and some other factor (see Big Pic, August 2010 issue) have conspired to depress herd levels since the mid-2000s. The Little Naches GMU reliably yielded 60 to 100 bucks for riflemen up to 2007, but over the last three seasons has slumped to 30 and even 22 a year. Only 4 percent of the unit’s hunters tagged out last fall, needing 109.2 days per kill. It’s maddening, but all Bernie can hope is that some day whatever it is just ends and the animals bounce back. “This isn’t just us anymore – it has now spread throughout the rest of the West. It’s in Oregon, it’s in Idaho, it’s in Wyoming, it’s in the Dakotas. There’s no way the lice spread that far – they were already there – but in the last five years it’s become a problem. There’s something in the environment triggering it,” he says. Dave Volsen, Bernatowicz’s counterpart up Highway 97 in Chelan County, is beginning to see more of his muleys affected by hair loss too. “Fawn survival seems off, but I haven’t seen any drastic declines. We’re keeping an eye on it,” he says. Overall, he expects a season similar to 2010 which yielded 526 bucks for riflemen between Lake Chelan and, basically, the Kittitas County line. Much of that country is exceedingly rumpled, providing plenty of escape cover as well as a range of different hunting opportunities. And while sportsmen look to the open, cloud-scraped meadows for the biggest bucks, one man who spends a fair amount of time in Chelan County’s attic says that not all the big boys are up that high. “I’ve noticed with trail cameras that some bucks never even move up to the austere, rugged ridges and open slopes and peaks of the wilderness areas I backpack into and hunt. They stay in the tim122 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

ber at 3,800- to 5,000-foot elevations,” says Mike Quinn, whose images sometimes appear in this magazine (search nwalpineguide on Flickr). There’s a chance that winter’s snowpack and slow runoff may have kept more bucks in that middle ground, and, if so, that might be a good thing for sportsmen without the lung capacity of a Sherpa. While Volsen doesn’t think conditions really held up their migration this year, the wildlife biologist he replaced, Beau Patterson, says he’s heard of it happening. “In years when forage doesn’t ‘cure out’ at midelevations, you can see better hunter success,” says Patterson, now a biologist with Douglas County PUD. Quinn also thinks bucks move down from those classic mule deer basins come September as a survival strategy. “They don’t necessarily move into different drainage basins – sometimes they simply move downward in altitude from the exposed alpine slopes to the timberline and below,” he says. As successful hunters over the last decade will attest, the animals also gravitate to burned areas. A lot of central Chelan County lit up back in the 1990s, but that ground is growing back in and the bonanza of browse is fading. If there’s one area that, err, bucks the trend, it’s the Manson GMU, on Lake Chelan’s north shore. It saw fires from Stehekin to almost the town of Chelan the past decade. “There’s a rebound occurring,” says Volsen. “It used to be very popular, but declined in the 2000s after the fires. There are now some indications it’s coming back.” Vehicular access begins with the Grade Creek and Cooper Mountain Roads out of the town of Manson, which form a loop that Northwest Sportsman contributor and Chelan-bred muley hunter Jason Brooks has driven a time or two. “The really big ‘void’ area from roads is Antilon Lake to South Navarre to Blacks Canyon to Cooper Mountain down Joe Creek back to Antilon – about 80 miles around the loop,” he says. That more or less circles the borders of a 2002 forest fire. If you’re up for a rugged day, you might try a two-rig approach to hunt it.

“Park one at the bottom of a drainage on Grade Creek Road, head up to South Navarre and the upper road (make sure to mark it with a GPS and you have the right drainage) and then hike down to the parked rig. It’s a midday hunt,” Brooks tips. Otherwise, boat in to the several USFS docks along the fjord or hike the Summit Trail from South Navarre Campground. Entiat and Swakane, both above the Columbia River between Chelan and Wenatchee, are the county’s annual buck leaders, but hunters do intercept fair numbers in the Chiwawa GMU between Glacier Peak Wilderness and those winter-range units. THIS PAST SUMMER, as I worked on our Big Game “mapazine,” I was, ahem, a bit surprised to see how poorly my vaunted Okanogan County hunting grounds produced last season relative to other parts of the state. The harvest was a fraction of some of the deer units in Southeast, South-central and Northeast Washington, and the days needed per kill was ridiculously high. The only thing that made any sense was the success percentage, which matched how poorly our camp did in 2010. I made a mental note: “Self: This fall, do not write word one about that stinkin’ overrated, buckless, wolf-gnawed-on country.” And now? Well, I guess I just like company at deer camp or something – the Okanogan may get some this month, thanks to several factors. As Patterson, the former state bio, points out, the driver for muley hunters in three-point-or-betterville is high fawn survival a year ago. The county’s spring 2010 fawn:doe ratio was 40:100, the best mark over the past six years and second best of the past 10. “This year should be pretty fair with more 21⁄2-year-olds on the landscape, and our check station data shows that most of the three-points are 21⁄2 years old,” says wildlife biologist Jeff Heinlen in Tonasket. That coupled with the fact that yours truly and a mess more Methow and Okanogan Valley hunters supped on tag tacos instead of venison vittles last winter – December’s post-hunt count found 24 bucks

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C A S C A D E S

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WASHINGTON CASCADES for every 100 does, the highest ratio since 2002 and fourth most since well before the dawn of regionwide antler restrictions – “suggest an increase in available legal bucks and more older age class animals for this season,” says district biologist Scott Fitkin. That’s the good news. The bad is, the Okanogan is still the largest county in the state, is only slightly less hilly than Chelan and the migratory part of the herd typically doesn’t begin its fall movement until at or right after the end of the rifle hunt. The wild card will be this year’s weather conditions – what we’ve seen and what’s to come. As Fitkin explained to Leroy Ledeboer last issue, spring and summer rains and moderate temps provided good forage down low and in the midelevations, which potentially could keep more bucks in more hunteraccessible areas such as the Chewuch Valley, upper Methow and Twisp Rivers. There, you’ll find mixed road restrictions, from open Forest Service logging roads such as FR 37 and 39 which will take you into the regenerating Tripod Fire zone and over into the Conconully area to the FR 51-52 loop between Mazama and the Chewuch. Closer to Winthrop and Twisp are large areas of winter range which close Oct. 1 to vehicular access but remain quite open for walk-, bicycle or horseback-in hunters. Get a serious early snowfall – hey, I’m an eternal optimist despite years of disappointment – and the bucks might be in range by the second weekend. One area to definitely consider hunting in or alongside is the aforementioned Tripod fire, the 175,000-acre blaze that went from Tripod Peak to Loup Loup Pass north to within a half mile of Canada in 2006. The burn “revamped” summer range there from closed-canopy conifers to new forbes and shrubs, Heinlen says. “At our check station last year, we saw some very nice bucks with good antler development, and they came from the Tripod area,” he says. “The caveat is, it’s not just the burn: We had a wet summer that kept the forage succulent.” This year, of course, had a wet, cool start, but July and August saw little moisture and late summer turned hot. While that leads 124 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Heinlen to suggest hunters head higher into Okanogan’s mountains, the Tripod should definitely still be on your radar. “I expect to see some solid bucks come out of that fire,” he says. While the county is home to the state’s first confirmed breeding pack of wolves in 70 years, with the Lookout Pack now down to two males, “It’s like we’re not in the wolf business this year,” notes Heinlen. Indeed,

The massive Tripod burn in Okanogan County is beginning to produce some pretty big racks, like the one tiger musky angler Mark Wells pulled out of the area a few seasons ago. (RUGER PHOTO CONTEST)

about the only Canis lupus news this summer was the surfacing of a pair of sworn affidavits from two men who said they saw three wolves apparently illicitly released at a boat launch in southern Okanogan County in late March 2005. One of the men, Billy Anderson of Brewster, a one-time Canadian hunting guide, is adamant that he observed two adult wolves and another “about half” their size, but wolf biologists say that a pup would have been the same size as adults at that time of year. Annually, the best deer units are Chewuch, Pearrygin and Sinlahekin, all well endowed with public land, but Alta, on the flip side of Sawtooth Ridge from the Manson GMU, has strong years as well. ON THE RAINIER SIDE of the Cascades, one unit always rises to the top for bucks: Skookumchuck. Why? Pretty simple, actually. “Vail has a lot of deer,” says state wildlife biologist Michelle Tirhi, referring to Weyerhaueser’s tree farm between Yelm, Centralia and Morton. She says composition counts there and the Hancock Tree Farm look “very good.”

“People say, ‘There aren’t any,’ but they’re not looking hard enough,” Tirhi says. “Hunt the forested areas – 5- to 10-year-old stands. The edges are often the best bets.” That’s where animals flush out of when she does her helicopter surveys. To count the same number of deer in other units can take her twice the time and then some, she says. Weyerhaueser swings its gates off Vail Loop and North Fork Newaukum Roads open during the early and late rifle hunt weekends and otherwise allows walk-in access. A meat hunt, riflemen kill the bulk of the deer, taking mostly spikes and forked horns, which comprised 76 percent of last year’s modern firearm harvest. “There’s been a lot of fawn production, so we should have a pretty good season, if the weather cooperates,” Tirhi says. Take note, Jeff Renner, Steve Pool and Rebecca Stevenson, cooperation means cool, cloudy skies and vigorous windstorms that knock leaves off trees, not an Indian Summer Oct. 15-31 and Nov. 17-20. Parts of Tirhi’s Thurston and Pierce Counties district can also be good for elk, and trends are positive with a slight increase and population objectives met or exceeded in all subunits of the North Rainier herd. She says that’s partly a result of GMU 653, White River, going to a permit-only season (“It should be very good for branchantlered bulls”) in 2006, and the fact that the herd which hangs out around the Centralia coal mine, now some 300 animals strong, benefits from access restrictions. For general-tag hunters out during the Nov. 5-15 season, there are two options for the latter elk, Tirhi says. Target the area from the Skookumchuck Wildlife Area south to the northeast side of the mine, or knock on farmers’ doors in the greater Yelm area. Both spots are seeing increased damage complaints, she says. Otherwise, head for the eastern side of the Black Hills and either hunt Capitol State Forest lands or seek permission to hunt from those with pastures. FURTHER DOWN I-5, you’ll want to watch

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Northwest Sportsman 125

C A S C A D E S

WOLF PERFORMANCE AMMUNITION 2013

WASHINGTON CASCADES for exits to Highways 506 and 504. The former will lead you west through Vader into the eastern Willapa Hills. “There’s a pretty good deer population in the Ryderwood Unit, from the town of Ryderwood north,” says biologist Pat Miller. That’s largely a function of the logging going on on Weyerhaueser and other timberlands along the South Fork Chehalis. “When we have clearcuts, we get an increase in the amount of forage for deer and elk. Contrast that with the national forest which haven’t had a timber sale in 10 years. As a result, harvest is decreasing,” Miller says. Indeed, Weyco’s St. Helens Tree Farm east of the interstate is one of the more productive areas to hunt for elk. And with high herd numbers and an average winter, there should be plenty of bulls available next month. Access will be made easier through a program which opens up some 200,000 acres – “80 to 90 percent of the tree farm,” says Miller – to motorized travel during the week.

WDFW is looking for volunteers to man gates; call (360) 696-6211 for more. “What we’ve seen in the past is archery hunters will help in modern firearm season and vice versa,” he says. Timber companies own large swaths of land elsewhere in Miller’s region, and he notes it’s very important to stop and read signs posted at entry points to those properties. “If the signs say it’s closed to any entry, it’s closed to any entry. People are getting into lots of problems for going on closed lands,” he says. Restrictions have to do with fire danger, ongoing logging operations and other safety issues. AND FINALLY, at the south end of Washington’s Cascades, biologist Eric Holman expects an average year for deer due to a relatively high harvest last year and the longer winter this year. “When it rains and rains and rains and green-up doesn’t come till late, it’s hard on

those younger bucks,” says the biologist who helps cover Clark, Skamania and Klickitat Counties, a swath that shades from blacktails to intergrade bucks to muleys. The basic rules here are, if the GMU touches the Columbia, it’s generally good, and the best harvests are on the left and right wings of Holman’s beat. That said, East Klickitat is also almost entirely private, but Grayback, West Klickitat and Washougal offer good opportunities. East Klick and Grayback also feature the longest rifle hunts for muleys in the state, stretching Oct. 15-28. As for elk, look to the sides of the Lewis River GMU, either its western front and its industrial timberlands or the eastern edge and the meadows around Mt. Adams and the burned area of 2008’s Cold Springs Fire, Holman suggests. —ANDY WALGAMOTT Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

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Leavenworth Bruins W A S H I N G T O N

ADVICE FOR TAGGING YOUR BLACK BEAR – IN WASHINGTON’S PRIME BEAR COUNTRY.

CHELAN—In the summer of 1995 I took a job with the U.S. Forest Service assigned to the Chelan Ranger District’s “Initial Attack” fire crew. Unfortunately – or fortunately as the case may be – the summer before the Tyee Fire burned up most of the district, so there were not too many fires the year I was on the crew. Most days I found myself brushing roads and clearing trails. On one hot July afternoon we were clearing brush from a road overlooking a deep ravine that had a small creek running through it. Another crewmember stopped grabbing the limbs I was cutting away with the chainsaw, causing me to look up and see what the delay was. He pointed to the bottom of the ravine at a huge black bear. I thought it was strange that the bear was out and about in the middle of the

heat and figured he must have been down there cooling off and the chainsaw buzzing woke him up. Then the next day, around the same time the same bear wandered around the cool bottoms again. A few weeks later I volunteered to clear a trail out of the Agnes Creek area near Stehekin. As I sat on a log a few miles up from the trailhead in the cool shade a small chocolate-colored bear ambled up the trail behind, coming within feet. I just sat there looking at the young bear, which was doing the same thing I was, staying cool in the low-lying creek drainage. Those were just two of the nine bears that I saw this summer and all of them had the same thing in common: They were in areas that were cool and relatively wet. Since that summer I always seem to

stumble upon bears throughout the hot summer months when most of my friends who just want to see a bear or two go all year without seeing any. Not because I am some sort of “bear whisperer,” but because I tend to look for them in areas that most people just blow by or overlook. Since a lot of bear hunters are really deer hunters who either hunt bears just to hunt something before the short deer season arrives, or shoot bears during the deer season as they happen upon them, they don’t really “hunt” bears. Mostly they look at open slopes or bedding areas offering cover and escape routes and basically hunt a prey animal such as a deer as this is what the hunter is used to. Bears aren’t prey animals and really only need to worry about other bears and 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

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C A S C A D E S

The author and friend Chad Hurst pose with a Washington Cascades bear. (JASON BROOKS)

WASHINGTON CASCADES

man, so they don’t sit perched on overlooks spying down and using thermal drafts to scent what’s coming uphill. Instead, they stay where they are comfortable and can eat. In the heat of summer this means cool, wet places. WASHINGTON’S CASCADE CREST is bear heaven. With snow fields that don’t recede until late summer, expansive avalanche chutes that offer grasses and masses of berries, and plentiful water, it’s no wonder Washington has the highest bear population in the Lower 48 states. The Cascade Crest also has a very expansive trail system and numerous logging roads in the valleys below. Bruins are divided into nine “bear management units” by the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife. The four that make up the Cascades are BMU 3, North Cascades; BMU 4, South Cascades; BMU 128 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

5, Okanogan; and BMU 6, East Cascades. The North Cascades zone had the most bears killed in 2011 – 211 in the six GMUs that make up the unit. Nooksack and Stillaguamish each produced 59 and Sauk had 52 bears taken out of it. Thirty-four bears were tagged in the Snoqualmie unit which has extensive access and a large tree farm that promotes harvest of the tree-killing bears. The two most remote units had the fewest bears taken, with the Cascade GMU only offering up six and the Diablo giving up just a single bear. East of the North Cascades is the Okanogan BMU, and despite its size and habitat, it surprisingly produced the lowest bear harvest of the four bear management units along the Cascades: only 92 bears were tagged in 2011. This is due to several factors, one of which is that all of its subunits are a long way from the metropolis of Puget Sound, with only the

North Cascades Highway as a direct travel route. Keep in mind that last fall the Okanogan woods were void of the crowds of deer hunters that usually flock to the region. It’s really a guess what caused many of the hunters to stay away what with deer numbers up but gasoline at an all-time high and the economy still in the dumps. Bottom line, this region’s harvest might be understated for reasons other than game. If you decide to head to the Okanogan this season, you won’t be surprised to know that Manson and Alta had the most bears killed with 14 each. Both offer extensive drainages and creeks that flow from a ridge that separates the Lake Chelan and Methow Valleys. With this year’s heavy and late snowpack these two units again will produce bears staying cool in the creek bottoms and along the ridgeline which will have green grass Map art: RJThompsonART.com

well into July. There are also several Forest Service roads that lead to the 6,000foot ridgeline that separates these two units. Gold Creek and Black Canyon lead up out of the Methow Valley into the upper reaches of Alta. Foggy Dew Campground is a good place for a base camp. In the Manson, the alpine fields near the headwaters of Grade Creek can see bears staying cool and feeding on the grasses. South Navarre Campground is another great place to pitch a tent and do day hikes to several basins as well as out along the Summer Blossom Trail.

Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

2011 STATEWIDE FALL BEAR HARVEST Bears 324 277 211 205 182 137 92 68 7

Unit Northeast* Coastal North Cascades East Cascades South Cascades Puget Sound Okanogan Blue Mountains Columbia Basin

Success Rate 7.9 7.5 10.3 4.7 4.4 6.5 6.6 5.6 8.3

Days per kill 80.1 119.7 70.6 142.5 168.4 118.1 88.7 119.2 71.9

* While WDFW splits the Northeastern BMU into A and B subunits, these figures are for both.

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C A S C A D E S

THE SOUTHWEST CASCADES is where Chris Meyer of Titan Outdoors video productions can be found chasing bears. This area on the wetter sider of the hump west of Yakima County produces a fair amount of bears, thanks to plentiful timberlands and private companies trying to get rid of the sap-sucking bruins. The Mashel unit put out 33 bears (includes the spring special permits on the Hancock Forest) followed closely by the Lewis River Unit with 26 and Washougal with 24. Coweeman and Packwood, known elk producers, put out 14 and 11 bears, respectively. Meyer is a firm believer in summer scouting before the season opens. “Most areas around here are good. There are bears all over, all you have to do is put in the time to find them. We look for bear damage, torn-up stumps in old clearcuts, huckleberries, and blackberry patches along with sign such as scat,” he says. In his first video, Addicted 1 you can see him take a nice bear across a drainage as it feeds up a clearcut. “We scouted an area really well and

were seeing fresh bear damage everyday in a couple different cuts so we bounced back and forth between the two cuts until a bear showed up,” he says. Meyer has used calls for bears with some success, especially in the early season. “I have called in a few bears – one I killed, another time I had two bears come running in like coyotes at the same time. That was awesome but I missed!” His point is, if you want to hunt bears next month, get out and scout now. He stresses that you need to put time in to find a bear, but once you learn to look for them and indications of where they are, you will find bruins. For more heart-pounding action check out Addicted 2 where they take a bear in a close encounter while blacktail deer hunting. In Addicted 3 Meyer and a friend locate an abandoned apple orchard in an old homestead in Western Washington. The action is unbelievable, and shows that bear hunting is more than just a tag in your pocket while out hunting elk and deer. Lace up the boots, put on some sunscreen and grab the spotting scope. August is prime time to locate that bear you have always wanted. Season opens Aug. 1 in the North Cascades and East Cascades units, Aug. 15 in the Okanogan and South Cascades. — JASON BROOKS

W A S H I N G T O N

THE EAST CASCADES UNIT STARTS on the south side of the Entiat River’s headwaters and goes all the way south to the Columbia River, a very big, very diverse chunk of real estate. The north end compromises units such as Mission, Swakane, Chiwawa and other very popular deer units. The southern part includes popular elk units like Bumping, Little Naches and Teanaway. Yet their harvest stats vary from 27 in the Mission to two in the Bumping. WDFW biologist Jeff Bernatowicz says it comes down to food. Most of the units in Yakima County are pretty arid, even up high, due to Mt. Rainier’s rain shadow. “We just don’t have the berry crop like other units do,” he says, noting that Teanaway, which put out 24 bears, is closer to the Wenatchee area units and has a higher berry crop. Hardwoods such as oak just don’t produce many acorns for the lower elevations,

another favorite food source. Bernatowicz did offer some advice for bear hunters, though, and that was to look for areas of berry patches. The bear hunters he has talked to in the region often find a good berry patch and just sit and watch it. Given the fact that the bears have a limited food supply it’s only a matter of time before one finds the ripe fruit and the patient hunter fills their tag.

WASHINGTON CASCADES

Tire-torture Spikes

GIVE YOUR TRUCK A LITTLE TLC BEFORE HEADING OUT FOR YAKIMA, KITTITAS COUNTY BULL ELK. ELLENSBURG,

Wash.—

Preparing for hunting season involves more than just hiking around, sighting in your rifle, getting your camping gear together and putting an edge on your knife. I’ve always taken very good care of my truck, and nowadays, driving a 2009 Toyota Tacoma 4X4 with about 44,000 miles (purchased new the last day of July 2008), almost religiously the oil gets changed every 2,500 miles and the Ujoints get a shot of grease every 4,500 miles. Recently, this rig got a brand new set of all-weather mud-and-snow tires, it got a wax job not long ago and will get another on a nice weekend afternoon prior to the general buck opener. I may also replace the shock absorbers. All of this maintenance is in anticipation of another rugged fall on the beat-up roads inside the L.T. Murray Wildlife Area for deer and spike elk. That may find me back up on the L.T. Murray, west of Ellensburg at the east end of Taneum Ridge and south to the Manastash country, where the roads are bad when dry, and murder on a vehicle’s suspension in mud and snow.

THE UPPER L.T. MURRAY,

which butts up against the Okanogan-Wenatchee Na130 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

scale in miles

Map art: RJThompsonART.com

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2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

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132 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

WEATHER CAN BE a godsend or a buga-

Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

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nwsportsmanmag.com or call 800-332-1736 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Northwest Sportsman 133

C A S C A D E S

boo. In fall 2009, on the second and final weekend of the season, my brother and I hunted first up on the national forest in a couple of feet of snow, but headed down onto the L.T. Murray and found a campsite southeast of Tamarack Springs. The next morning, some kid spooked a band of elk right through our camp. There was no spike in the bunch, but a monster 5-point came crashing out of the timber behind several cows and a calf. (Damn those spike-only regulations!) Canyons big and small are where you will find elk holed up, so be willing to get in there after them. This takes a pair of strong legs and lungs, and if you get one down, it will take help getting it out. It is likely that I’ll be scouting this area out the second weekend of the mule deer season, and moving in somewhere on Friday morning, the day before the traditional last-Saturday-in-October opener. Anybody planning to be my neighbor up there better get his rig tuned up and make sure your tires are up to the challenge. Look for tire sales, check the plugs, battery and fuel filter. If you don’t get new tires, check the air pressure on your current set and make sure it is up to snuff. –DAVE WORKMAN

W A S H I N G T O N

tional Forest, seems to hold a fair number of elk. The Murray is a big place, covering more than 54,000 acres. From the west end, take the USFS Road 3330 off the Taneum Creek road and follow the signs that take one to Tamarack Springs. Head east from there down into the L.T. Murray, go slow and hang on, because that road is awful! Many people also head up the Watt Canyon road from the gate just off of Thorp Cemetery Road. Watt Canyon is rugged terrain, but that’s why elk seem to like it – people don’t! Get up on top, where the terrain “kind of” improves (the roads don’t) and stay on the Green Dot system. Find a good campsite and start hiking. One may hunt a bit farther east and south on the Manastash side. The country is a bit more open here, the roads just as rough. It may be imperative to have a map of this area even if it is just the national forest map, because none of the roads are identified by name, though you can follow Green Dot posts. You will occasionally pass a range/township marker, and that’s where the map comes in handy, because you can then pinpoint your exact location. A good GPS unit will help out as well. One might also take a good look at the Robinson Canyon stretch, as there is both water and cover down through here, yet places where a hunter can sit down with a good pair of binoculars and glass the terrain. Let someone else move those elk around while you stay put.

INLAND NORTHWEST T

he western side of Washington and Oregon may boast of millions upon millions of salmon and steelhead, hordes of bucks and bulls, but ask any Northwest sportsman where they’d prefer to chase their quarry and chances are they’ll say in the drier, emptier Inland Northwest. It’s a land of wide vistas, big racks, nearly limitless huntable public and private lands and T-shirt fishing.

Lyons Ferry Marina

134 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

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2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

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INLAND NORTHWEST

Chewelah Grouse

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136 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

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Mapped Area

Cottonw ood Cre

Chewelah Grouse LEGEND Good grouse hunting Public land

picking up pea gravel, they will be feeding up and they will be available. –DAVE WORKMAN

Either work those old abandoned logging skid roads or get away completely from anything remotely resembling a road and hammer through the cover. If it’s dry, give it up for a few days and then on the day after a good rain, pound this country because birds will be out

CHEWELAH, Wash.–Mid-November a couple years ago, I was hunting the late whitetail season with Northwest Sportsman’s Brian Lull southeast of Chewelah, Wash., and one afternoon Lull wanted to see some of this country. As we drove along Grouse Creek Road (there’s a reason they call it that!) and then Horseshoe Lake Road, you can bet I had a 20-gauge double-barrel shotgun at hand and a couple of shells in my pocket. I know this is grouse country, but unfortunately, we came along at the wrong time, so we didn’t spy any fool hens. My suggestion is to get hold of a Colville National Forest map; the forest’s headquarters’ (509-684-7000) is along Highway 395/Main Street in Colville. You’ll find good gravel roads in the region. Indeed, of all the national forest roads I travel – and that’s a lot of unpaved roads! – the ones I’ve found here are very well maintained. This is grouse country, with varying terrain and woods that run from thick to thin. There are berry patches, good water and more. It’s all timber country, with fir, hemlock and pine, various hardwoods and lots of cover – just the kind of place where one can expect blue grouse and some ruffed grouse to be waiting for you. There are times when you will have to work hard to find birds. As one might guess, there are also times when it seems you’ve discovered the thunder chicken honey hole. You must hit this area during the right time of the day, and be willing to get out there and beat the brush.

Grouse Creek Rd.

Bulld

og C

reek

use Gro

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scale in miles

Map art: RJThompsonART.com

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INLAND NORTHWEST

Potholes Reservoir Walleye MOSES LAKE, Wash.–If you enjoy solitude, have warm thermals and can handle a rod and reel with neoprene gloves, consider a winter outing to the Columbia Basin for walleye. Well, maybe a late-winter outing, when the days will be slightly longer, the temperatures slightly warmer, the ice melted off the reservoirs, and marbleyes becoming more active. Where should you go? At the Potholes Reservoir, assuming the ice is gone, look for hungry walleye anywhere from around those trout netpens by Mar Don Resort (509-346-2651) at the west end of the dam, to all the midlake humps and island breaks in this reservoir. “Actually, just about anywhere you find 22- to 25-foot water breaking off to

Potholes Reservoir Walleye

35- to 45-foot water, you’re going to find walleyes,” says guide Levi Meseberg at the resort. “The real trick is to find active fish, those that are ready to feed. I’ve always done best this time of year with either jigs or blades, but I know guys who do really well dragging spinner-baited rigs.” In late winter with cold water, he advises trolling super-slow with Smile Blades. “A good rule of thumb is to confine your trolling to the bigger flats – the humps that have some real breadth. If you get walleyes up on top of those, spinnerrigs will work real well. But on the smaller humps, I’d stick to the blade baits or jigs.” When we’ve had warm winters followed by warm springs, I’ve had good March days fishing east of the bridge that crosses Lind Coulee, but Meseberg assures

e re

nn el

scale in miles

262

138 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

5 S.E.

6 S.E.

Lind Coulee East Bridge Lind Coulee West Bridge

Goose Island

Potholes State Park 1

K S.E.

1/2

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L S.E.

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Sand Dunes

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Mapped Area

C Medicare Beach

Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

Sand Dunes

LEGEND Troll, jig humps, dropoffs to deeper water March prespawn staging areas Boat launch

st Wa

me this only happened when water temperatures have been 10 degrees or more above normal. On cold years, that bite hasn’t happened until “well into April.” The narrow coulee channel is definitely trolling water, with super-light bottom walkers, or maybe some straight bait fishing. Head up past the chalk cliffs or beyond, anywhere you still can navigate the water, and you might find walleyes, if not in late March, definitely sometime in April. At times you’ll catch them along the edges of 4-foot channels, and often they’re in no more than 6 feet of water. – LEROY LEDEBOER

Blythe

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Glen Williams

Lind Coulee Island Good in spring above bridge

Mar Don Resort

Map art: RJThompsonART.com

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INLAND NORTHWEST A muley grazes behind a Hunting Only By Written Permission sign in the northwestern Columbia Basin. (ERIC BRAATEN)

Get On The Stick To Get Behind The Gate For Eastside Deer, Upland Bird Hunting Access ST. JOHN, Wash.—A few years back a buddy and I learned a quick lesson about Washington’s private lands access opportunities. It was around midseason, we were hunting pheasants southeast of the little town of St. John, had picked up a couple along a railroad right-of-way, then, hoping to get into better habitat in those rolling farmlands, we did a bit of scouting. We’d just located an excellent looking draw between two wheat stubble fields with a Department of Fish and Wildife “Hunting Only By Written Permission” sign clearly posted when a half dozen pheasants flew over the road and disappeared into the ravine’s heavy brush, a perfect set-up for our flushing dogs. The farmhouse was only a quarter mile away, so asking face-to-face seemed a better approach than phoning. 140 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

“I’m sorry, but I’ve already promised another party they could hunt that this afternoon,” the woman who answered the door said pleasantly, “but thank you for asking.” I could only smile, thank her in turn, and try to quit slavering over a missed opportunity. Those other hunters had done it right, maybe with some preseason scouting, jotting down phone numbers, then calling ahead. Indeed, private lands opportunities exist here in Eastern Washington, but preplanning is essential. “A deer hunter who’s out scouting the week before the season and spots a trophy buck behind one of our signs is most likely going to be disappointed when he makes his phone call,” says Curt Merg who oversees Region 1’s hunter access programs. “It’s already too late, particularly for opening weekend. By then that

landowner has already given out as many permission slips as he’s going to.” Merg’s territory ranges all the way from the whitetail deer-rich Northeast to the varied dryland habitat of Lincoln County, on down to that viable upland bird habitat in the Southeast, particularly Asotin, Whitman and Garfield Counties. “And hunters should think about the landowner’s work schedules,” Merg adds. “These guys have a couple pulses of intense activity, seeding time in spring, the harvest in late summer, when they definitely don’t want to be bothered. Get them when they’re not real pushed and they’re generally friendly. Flag one off his combine and you’re going to get a very cold reception.” THERE ARE THREE access options in the program.

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“Some landowners agree to let us post ‘Feel Free to Hunt’ signs, partly at least because they don’t want to be hassled with phone calls or drop-ins,” says Merg. “A second option, ‘Register to Hunt,’ is similar but more limited and at this point involves a lot fewer properties, some along the Snake River breaks, a few down in those Blue Mountain bird counties. You don’t need written permission, but there are designated parking areas with limited spots and a box with perforated cards to fill out. You park there, place half the card in the box, keep the other half on you, then go off and hunt. However, if a parking area is full, you can’t join in. And don’t drive a quarter mile down the road, pull off and think you can hunt just because you have that card in your pocket. “Overall, though, our Written Permission option is the most popular with landowners, primarily because it gives them more control. They like to know who’s on their land and to be able to limit the numbers. “And, remember, all of our signs only allow for foot traffic. Our enforcement guys will ticket you if they catch you driving across any private ground, but the worst part is that it costs us acreages. When landowners pull out of our program, it’s often because they can’t stand hunters driving through their fields. “Remember, all private land access is built on a foundation of goodwill, and landowner-hunter bonds are the most critical ingredient. If hunters don’t do their part, there’s nothing state or federal officials can do to save it.” According to Dave Ware, WDFW Game Division manager, enrolled acreages this season are pretty similar to last year – 500,000 Feel Free acres, 600,000 Written Permission acres and 16,000 Register acres. If you’re planning a Northeast corner deer hunt, these access programs might not be critical. Stevens, Pend Orielle and Ferry Counties all contain vast stretches of public land and big commercial timber operations that allow quite a bit of hunter access. “That’s true, but we are getting a few more Northeast ranchers into our posted signs programs now,” Merg adds, “though it’s not as significant as it is in our upland bird counties.

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Grant County, Wash., Fairgrounds And Fair

he Grant County Fairgrounds has been a big part of the culture in Grant County for 10 decades. Started in 1911, it has been a favorite place for many different groups to gather in celebration and competition. Today, the Fairgrounds continue that strong tradition, whether that be by hosting a horse show, cattle show, classes for agricultural development, other local livestock event or general rentals. The facilities are improving and the number of events is growing, with many returning events, including this year, the WAHSET State Finals will be here

at the fairgrounds. There are many large buildings on site for rental by the public. The Commercial, 4H & HuckFuller Buildings are booked almost every weekend for wedding receptions and quinceaneras, but they may still have room for your special event. Please call the Fairgrounds office. The premier event at the Fairgrounds is the Grant County Fair held in conjunction with the Moses Lake Rodeo in mid-August. The Grant County Fair is one of the larger agricultural fairs in Central Washington with an attendance of over 70,000. Many county residents, as well as

people from surrounding counties, enter their vegetables, ﬂowers, handicrafts, baking, livestock and artwork to the Fair for judging and the coveted “Blue Ribbon” prize. All entries are on display for the entire week. At the Fair, you’ll also ﬁnd a great carnival, a varied array of tasty food vendors, and great entertainment throughout the week on the two stages and at various locations around the grounds, including Joe Nichols, headlining on Friday, Aug. 16. This year you may be the next blue ribbon brownie baker or Lego model builder. Come out and see what all the fun’s about!

The Fairgrounds are located at 3953 Airway Dr., Moses Lake, WA For more information, visit www.gcfairgrounds or call (509) 765-3581. 144 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

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This screen grab off WDFW’s Go Hunt page shows the rough locations of Feel Free To Hunt (green circles), Hunting Only By Written Permission (orange triangles) and Register to Hunt (red stars) properties in this part of Eastern Washington, where almost all of the enrolled private lands are located. The site allows you to zoom within 4 miles or so of each ranch or farm before the beacons disappear and a road trip is required. (WDFW)

“Of course CRP grounds have been a major factor in all this, and now we’re just kicking off a new program with Voluntary Public Access grant funds. CRP is a conservation program, which doesn’t purchase public access. VPA accomplishes this by offering landowners a modest incentive on top of their CPR funding. It will only have a modest enrollment this season but should be up and running in 2012.” WHILE DEER PROSPECTS look good this season, not only in the Northeast but throughout most of Eastern Washington, pheasants, even in their traditional strongholds, are more questionable. “Unfortunately we don’t have the manpower for extensive brood counts,” Merg admits, “and when young-of-the-year ringnecks make up 85 percent of the harvest, nesting and brood survival is critical, so we don’t have very good data at this point. “If a hunter can get out before the season and do some scouting, here’s a rule of thumb that I always use: If you’re seeing a number of vehicle-killed chicks along a 146 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

road, well, of course that’s sad for those chicks but vehicles are only going to get a small percentage, so it’s a pretty good indication that the hatch and brood seasons went OK and bird numbers should be decent in that area.” Over in Region 2, the northwestern corner of Eastern Washington, the private lands access programs also play a vital role, primarily in those vast drylands, where mule deer hunters are now the major benefactors. “We do get a few partridge and pheasant hunters who are willing to hunt our dryland CRP plots, particularly in Douglas County, but also in Adams and northern Grant,” says John Cotton, who runs this program out of WDFW’s Ephrata office. “But that demands lots of hunter stamina and usually a big running pointer or two. And goose hunters who are willing to scout do OK in the wheat stubble fields. It’s the deer hunters, though, who make up at least 90 percent of our participants.” Here too it’s CRP lands that gave access programs their initial thrust and con-

tinue to provide the most opportunities. “At one point landowners could get more CRP enrollment points by making habitat improvements, so we helped them install guzzlers and make other changes,” Cotton says. “In exchange, they’d sign up for either the Written Permission or Feel Free To Hunt option. “In the last few years we’ve lost some participants when their CRP contracts expired, others because of hunter lease offers, but every year we get a few new ones enrolled. And most of those in the program seem to like it. They like the fact that we put up and maintain the signs, and that our enforcement guys pay closer attention to their property when they’re enrolled. “And now we have a new CRP restoration program in Douglas County, where only native grasses and forbes are being planted. It’s designed to benefit our endangered sharptail and sage grouse populations, but of course it will help all wildlife – partridge, pheasants, deer. We’re doing the planning and consulting, landowners the seeding. So far 15,000 acres have been seeded and 65,000 are planned, all public access grounds.” Now that some hunts have already kicked off and others are only days away, it might be too late to get in on the best grounds in any of these programs, at least initially. Yes, starting to plan way ahead for 2012 is one option, but even for this season all is not necessarily lost. Anyone who’s knocked on lots of doors, even on lands where those state signs don’t exist, knows that getting out there in midto late season will increase his chances. At least 80 percent of deer hunters either succeed or just give up after opening weekend, so even that second weekend hunt might provide opportunities. With their much longer seasons, bird hunters can afford to play even more of a waiting game. Many landowners who are inundated with early requests see almost no hunter traffic by mid-November, so they’re much more amenable to a reasonable request. —LEROY LEDEBOER Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

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The waters of the John Day Arm are swarming with nice steelhead while the hills behind Jon Haase offer upland birds such as quail and chukar for those who use oregonhuntingmap.com to figure out public land boundaries. (ANDY SCHNEIDER)

RUFUS, Ore.â&#x20AC;&#x201D;The John Day empties into the Columbia just a couple miles above the dam, but the last 9 miles of the tributary are flooded and resemble more of a lake than a river. This gives some great access to willow and scrub draws, sage hills and rimrock that hold quail, chukar and Huns. There is a 500-foot safety zone from the waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge uphill, but above the zone, plenty of upland bird opportunities await. When picking a draw to hunt, make sure you find one that has good beaching access for your boat. There is a lot of shallow water with a soft muddy bottom close to shore along the John Day, so be careful 148 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

when attempting to land. Lock all your fishing tackle away and hunt areas where you can keep an eye on your boat. When scouting a draw or rimrock to hunt, look for good access up and good access down. Preferably find a pair of draws within walking distance of each other with some good rimrock in between, hopefully giving you a good opportunity at finding some upland birds. Working with a buddy and dog helps when walking uphill in an attempt to flush birds. Position one person on each side of the draw, with the dog working back and forth between you. This will insure you flush any birds hiding in the scrub.

SUMMER-RUN STEELHEAD are known for taking their time getting to their spawning grounds, often wandering miles up one tributary before turning around and heading up another, often times hundreds of miles away from their destination. The John Day Arm is one of those places that the fish pull into on their journey, more than likely to the Clearwater River in Idaho. Steelhead are in the lower John Day from late October well into January. The most common method to catch them here is to troll standard sized Wiggle Warts 100 feet behind the boat. Target anywhere from the mouth of the river to Philippi Park a couple of miles upriver from

INLAND NORTHWEST

the boat launch. Flame orange and fire tiger are two of the most common color of plugs anglers use to catch these steelhead, but when fishing more than two rods it sometimes pays to try different colors of plugs. Above the park, drifting a bobber and shrimp is a preferred technique and works best sometimes in the afternoon after the wind picks up creating a little bit of current. Cast your bobber and shrimp behind the boat and simply let the wind and slight current “troll” your bait. Position your shrimp just slightly off the bottom and keep it moving. If there is no wind or current, use your trolling motor to keep has produced a 20-page upland everything moving. Coon ODFW bird and waterfowl hunting guide to shrimp, sand shrimp or the Columbia Basin. It’s available at prawn tails all work. dfw.state.or.us/RR/index.asp. –ANDY SCHNEIDER Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going. 150 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Map art: RJThompsonART.com

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Confluency A LESSON IN HOW TO CATCH SUMMER STEELHEAD WHERE THE SNAKE AND CLEARWATER RIVERS MEET. LEWISTON—When the early steelhead retention season on Idaho’s Clearwater opens Aug. 1, scores of trollers and bobber fishermen will gather in the lower 11⁄2 miles of river to catch and bonk early-arriving A-runs and visiting stocks. The lower Clearwater’s perfect 54-degree water – influenced by temperature flow adjustments from Dworshak Dam – draws thousands of steelhead bound for the Salmon, Imnaha and Grande Ronde. These fish hold in the lower river in great numbers until the flow adjustments stop and until water temperatures in the Snake drop. What this channelized, rip-rap-levied fishery in downtown Lewiston lacks in aesthetic appeal, it makes up for in fat chromers that bite eagerly in the supercooled water, especially at night. For obsessive steelhead anglers watching fish counts, the best reason to visit the LC Valley in summer is measured in steelhead over Lower Granite Dam. Joe DuPont, Clearwater Region fisheries manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, says, “Once you see several hundred fish a day coming over Lower Granite, the fishing can be really good. If you see 1,000 or more, the fishing is likely to be excellent.” Lewiston and Clarkston, Wash., offer other advantages as summertime destinations, including great weather, cheap lodging, easy camping, local tackle shops with know how, a unique Taco Time with beer and wine and belt-driven fans, and a strange regional culinary fascination with “bite-sized” steak. 152 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

Nice early fish taken on a lighted plug, one of eight Erika Holmes caught in a 2009 dusk-to-mid-day steelhead marathon. (JEFF HOLMES)

LEWISTON FISH MARKET: U-CATCH During the heat of the LC Valley summer, the lower Clearwater is packed with 22- to 28-inch one-salt steelhead and a handful of slightly larger two-salt fish. While not the later arriving “B-run” steelhead for which the Clearwater is famous, earlyseason fish are numerous, fight hard and taste great. They are perhaps the finest, freshest steelhead that anglers are able to keep in the Snake River system. For example, even as massive waves of fresh steelhead flood into the lower Snake after Washington’s Sept. 1 opener, the vast majority of anglers leave the river sunburned and fishless due to high water temps and typically hot, sunny weather during the peak of the migration. But in the lower Clearwater, beginning

for catch-and-release in July and for retention in August, anglers and fish enjoy water temperatures in summer that the Snake doesn’t achieve until late October. “They average two to three hours a fish when it’s good … 10 to 12 when it’s slow,” said DuPont. “If the (spring) salmon season is any indication, and it often is, we should enjoy good to excellent steelheading this year.” The preseason forecast calls for 390,000 to pass upstream of Bonneville Dam in 2011 and DuPont estimates at least 50,000 fish will return to the Clearwater. He says 75 percent will be greater than 28 inches, and will arrive in mid-September or later. DuPont emphasizes the early presence of small Clearwater fish and stocks from other rivers: “When fish bound for

INLAND NORTHWEST river systems in Hells Canyon arrive at the confluence during the summer, they have a choice. Do they swim into the 70degree water of the Snake, or do they detour into cold flows of the Clearwater?” ‘TEMPERATURE FLOW AUGMENTATION’ The presence of so many steelhead from other rivers results from flow adjustments to mitigate impacts of the lower four Snake River dams and the 140 miles of reservoir between Lewiston and Lake Wallula, one of four more reservoirs on the Columbia through which Inland fish must pass in their epic migration to the ocean. To aid juvenile escapement and improve flows and cool temperatures for returning adults, 47-degree water is released from the depths of Dworshak Reservoir throughout the heat of the summer. Forty miles downstream, the Clearwater’s 54-degree water at Lewiston cools the Snake dramatically. Temperatures 30 miles down the reservoir from Lewiston

Steelhead caught at night on a Brad’s Lighted Plug. (HELLS CANYON SPORTFISHING)

at Lower Granite Dam average 65 degrees during flow adjustments, as opposed to 72 degrees and stagnant. The Army Corps of Engineers ultimately controls flows from Dworshak. However, Russ Kiefer, IDFG staff biologist who specializes in mainstem fish migra-

tion, explains that the Corps relies heavily on the opinions of two committees of which he is a part, both comprised of state, federal, and tribal scientists. Kiefer stresses that flow augmentation is not just for juvenile fish. “When water temperatures get too

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INLAND NORTHWEST high in Snake and Columbia River reservoirs, returning fish will just stop migrating by seeking colder tributaries … some fish never leave these tribs, some continue their migration, and some don’t survive the stresses.” Given 50 percent snowpack remaining in the Clearwater River Basin as of early July, Kiefer remarked that everything is late this year and that flow augmentation probably won’t need to start until sometime in August. BACKING UP THE LOWER CLEARWATER? One of the Valley’s best anglers and guides, Jason Schultz of Hells Canyon Sportfishing (208-305-4549), says river current orients lower Clearwater fish to the bottom, making them easier to target and catch via back-trolling plugs and sidedrifting, one reason he likes to fish in the reliable current upstream of the Memorial Bridge at the pulp mill, a catchand-release fishery.

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“When flows slow and the river goes slack, the fish suspend and become a little more difficult to locate, and more tend to move upstream of the (Highway 12 Memorial Bridge) and into the catch-and-release section,” said Schultz. When asked about the Corps’ plan to further raise the reservoir level behind Lower Granite Dam for barge traffic in Lewiston, Kiefer said he was not sure what would happen or how it would affect summer flows or the lower Clearwater fishery. Raising the reservoir level again would be another attempt to combat massive siltation resulting from the damming of the lower Snake River and the subsequent need to dredge the Port of Lewiston. Dredging for barge travel is a contentious political issue in the LC Valley and beyond. Defenders of the practice cite the need for Lewiston to remain a viable inland seaport to support industry in the region. Proponents of removing the lower four Snake River dams argue barges are envi-

ronmentally and economically impractical, proposing transportation alternatives and citing scientific support for removal. Existing barges are nonetheless scraping their hulls at the port, and local businesses still depend on barge travel at this point. Whatever happens, Kiefer thinks reservoir levels will be kept as low as possible to increase temperature flow augmentation. “If we have more water in the reservoir, it will be more difficult to cool it, just like cooling a bathtub.” With the Obama Administration’s Salmon Recovery Plan about to be ruled on and predictions Judge James Redden will declare it illegal, it’s unclear how the lower Clearwater fishery and the region might be affected, but night fishing will reign supreme regardless. LIGHTS IN THE DARKNESS Bob Beatty of Camp, Cabin and Home (208-750-1075), a full-service fishing shop in North Lewiston, utilizes the summer fishery on the lower river often, customiz-

I N L A N D As a professional outfitter and guide business, Hells Canyon Sport Fishing has been guiding fishermen in Idaho, Washington and Oregon for the last 20 years. Based out of Lewiston, Idaho, the home waters for this top-rated guide service are the Snake, Clearwater and Columbia Rivers. Steelhead, Salmon and Sturgeon are the main target species, along with Walleye, Smallmouth Bass and Rainbow Trout. The Hells Canyon Guide team consists of 5 professional anglers who have dedicated their lives to the art of guiding fishermen. Jason Schultz, Jim McCarthy, Doug Richert, Ryan Rosenbaum and James Hollingshead are the talented guides who have worked so hard to earn a reputation as being some of the most reputable, hardworking guides in the Northwest. These Hells Canyon Guides hit the Spring Chinook runs from April – June on the Snake and Clearwater Rivers, as well as targeting Sturgeon and Smallmouth Bass in the later spring through summer months on the Snake River in Hells Canyon. Come August, this Hells Canyon crew will load up their boats to head downstream to the mouth of the Columbia River to intercept the fall run of Chinook and Silver Salmon. This famous fishery known as “BUOY 10” will keep these Hells Canyon Guides busy catching chrome bright Salmon until early September. By mid-September, the awesome return of A-Run Steelhead are in full force on the Snake River in Hells Canyon. Mid October is the B-Run Steelhead opener on the Clearwater River and these Hells Canyon Guides have 6 months of Steelhead guiding ahead of them. March and April are good months for Spring Walleye on the Columbia River, as well as drift boat fishing on the Grand Ronde River for Spring Steelhead. For these Hells Canyon Guides there could be no better office than being out on the river doing what they love the most... FISHING! It’s no surprise that this Hells Canyon crew believes in providing a trip that earns a clientele of over 75% repeat customers. “It’s not hard to do,” says the Hells Canyon team. Just be honest; try harder than the next guy and Fish Till It Hurts! It’s what we do. www.hellscanyonsportfishing.com / 208-791-0344 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

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Clearwater River ass 12

LEWISTON

Boat ramp Bank access August fishing Bobber fishing from bank or boat Trolling with plugs Anchor fishing around pilings August retention fishery boundaries September fishing in Washington Good in coolwater tongue

ing his boat with blacklights and other useful gadgetry to aid in pulling plugs with downriggers and multiple rods in the dark on a river with lots of boat traffic, including barges and idiots. “The blacklights let us see what we’re doing without losing our night vision by shining headlamps in each other’s eyes,” said Beatty. “We can usually see well enough even for knot tying, but I like those new LED finger lamps when we need extra light; we sell them at the shop … I also recommend putting a glow tip on rods to see which one is getting hit.” Beatty is right. Headlamps are not ideal and can annoy and temporarily blind companions when not properly adjusted. They can work, too, used sparingly or fitted with a red or green lens. Illuminating rod tips also helps monitor the action of the plug in the dark. “Along with being able to see to fish, it’s critical to stay legal with your boat lights and especially to be seen by other

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boats,” said Beatty. “A blacklight system helps my boat to be seen. Wearing white T-shirts also helps. Getting on the water before it’s too dark to orient yourself to your surroundings is a good idea too.” Barges, bridges, fishing boats of all sizes, and riprap present potential points of collision, and some boats foolishly fish without any light. Beatty’s safety advice is the responsible step-one before worrying about fishing. Once one can see and be seen, the next step is locating fish and deploying baits. Most anglers troll or back-troll lighted plugs or fish lighted bobbers, while some plunk or side-drift, depending on current. Lighted plugs, whether at night or during low-light conditions, are highly effective. Today’s most popular baits are the Brad’s Lighted Wigglers in 3⁄8 and ¾ ounce, which come in a variety of finishes with either red or chartreuse strobes. For Schultz, Beatty, and the author, the 3⁄8ounce size is the go-to plug.

The 013 Lighted Kwikfish will draw lots of strikes too, including from fall salmon, which must be released, but 21- to 24-inch steelhead, especially hens, have small mouths and will often miss larger profile baits. The same goes for another lighted plug, the Laser Lure. The ¾-ounce Brad’s Magnum Wiggler body is only slightly less desirable in profile than the 3⁄8 ounce and achieves a trolled diving depth of 24 feet. Beatty fishes a downrigger and must constantly watch the bottom. Still, he likes easily being able to target fish throughout the water column with his lighted or black plugs a few feet above and 30 feet behind his downrigger ball, which he keeps 2 or 3 feet from the bottom unless the fish suspend in one of several 25- to 50-foot holes. For less-attentive anglers, like most of us, flatlining plugs can be lethal at times, especially if one acquires lighted plugs that achieve a range of depths. Guide Toby Wyatt of Clarkston’s Reel Map art: RJThompsonART.com

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INLAND NORTHWEST Time Fishing (208-790-2128), who, like Schultz, still has a stockpile of classic Vortex lighted lures, flatlines plugs but uses a banana weight when he marks fish in the deeper holes. Schultz uses a three-way setup with a 2-ounce dropper all the time to reduce the amount of line behind the boat: “With only 20 feet of line from the rod tip, the strikes are explosive!” said Schultz. He thinks the post-midnight bite is overrated, but he will gladly customize anything from an all-night fishing trip to his recommended early afternoon to 11 p.m. trip. Wyatt prefers to fish during the early morning and the evening. “The fish might bite a little better at midnight, but I’d prefer not to be out there,” said Wyatt. “There are plenty of fish to be caught during the trips I run from 6 to 12 a.m. and from 3 to 9 p.m. You don’t have to fish in the dark.”

He fishes lighted plugs too, but says, “One of my best lures during August is the old Hot Lips in ¼- and ½-ounce sizes.” LEARNING THE FISHERY If hiring a guide isn’t in the cards, reduce the learning curve by watching others. Ask questions at Water’s Edge Bait & Tackle (509-758-2474) in Clarkston, Camp Cabin and Home, and on the water. Read the bottom carefully, mark waypoints, and repeat past successes. Without invading others’ space too much, look for concentrations of anglers in places like the railroad bridge, the confluence’s north shore and the Memorial Bridge. The fish tend to seek structurelike bridge pillars at night and current whenever they can get it. As is typical, trolling in circles, zigzags and serpentine patterns will usually draw more strikes than a straight troll, but it’s im-

Jeff Main of Spokane battles a summer-run near the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers. (WRIGHT & McGILL/EAGLE CLAW PHOTO CONTEST)

160 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

portant to remember that one’s trolling pattern has to remain flexible for safety’s sake. There’s no need to be “one of those guys.” It’s true the retention fishery spans only 1.5 miles of river that can be crowded, but this isn’t Drano Lake. The lower Clearwater offers plenty of room and fish for anglers to spend happy summer evenings whacking fish, enjoying the nightly cool down, and eating bitesized steak. –JEFF HOLMES Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

BOBBERS AND THE BAIT KING OF THE L.C. VALLEY

Stu Waters of Water’s Edge Bait and Tackle (509-758-2474), a throwback fishing and rod-and-reel repair shop on the water in Clarkston, cured 2 tons of shrimp last year for local anglers and guides. His selection of colors is impressive and informed by the most local and tested knowledge. Other shop specialties include the most tried and tested local steelhead jigs in the valley. Waters is a bobber fishing guru whose advice and custom steelhead jigs helped fuel the author’s passion for steelhead when Water’s Edge opened in 1998. “Some guys just don’t like to be focused on that damned bobber all the time, but that and lots of fishing is how to catch 200 or 300 fish in a season,” said Waters. Whether on hook or jig, thousands of steelhead are landed every year by anglers dangling Waters’ shrimp below slip bobbers. Schultz and Wyatt confirm Water’s claims about bobbers; both begin their guided trips with slip-bobbers before resorting to trolling, using shrimp, jigs, and sometimes eggs. Waters says his Red-Hots are the bait of choice for the lower Clearwater, and that Stu’s Purples are also becoming popular. He also sells his Oranges, Pinks, and Nuclear Power (chartreuse), and his latest creation, Stu’s Hookey Shrimp, which is left undyed so as not to stain one’s hands – a dead giveaway at work for playing steelhead hookey. —JH

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Look East, To Montana

NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN SALES MANAGER FINDS ANTLERLESS DEER TAGS APLENTY IN THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF THE STATE, DETAILS HOW TO GO ABOUT HUNTING THERE.

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WHAT I LEARNED The biggest misconception I had about hunting in Montana was that it’s too expensive to do every year, it takes too much time, I’d need to hire a guide to find animals, etc. All excuses! With a little homework anyone can find great public hunting all over Montana as well as its neighbor to the west, Idaho. For example, we hunted in the Missouri River basin outside of Plentywood. I sent away to the local tourism bureau (missouririver.visitmt.com) for their travel guide early in the year and started getting

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aving been a public-land hunter in Washington all my life, I have noticed a marked decline in the opportunities we once enjoyed here in the Evergreen State. As a kid, I can remember a buck hanging at our house at least every other year. That was before “watchable wildlife,” antler-point restrictions, shorter and earlier seasons, and “choose your weapon” became the foundations of game management here. Like many other frustrated West Coast hunters, I’ve decided to do something about it by exploring my outof-state options. Because life is too short for mediocre hunting. My desire to hunt with my wife, Gina, who had never pursued deer before, also factored greatly into my decision to hunt Montana this past season. I did not want to subject her to the “quality” armed camping experience of seeing more hunters than deer back home.

INLAND NORTHWEST familiar with the lay of the land. Idaho has a great website too, fishandgame.idaho.gov/public/hunt/, with an easy-to-use nonresident hunt planner. Deeper digging revealed that the area we chose, Sheridan County, has a very easy-to-read land ownership map book, which shows exactly who owns what. But if you’re not up for knocking on doors, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks has plenty of Block Management Lands throughout that area. All one has to do is sign in at the posted drop box at the property (look for the bright green signs), and retain the receipt stub while you’re on the property. The state compensates landowners for opening their lands up to public hunting access, so it’s very important to sign in each time you hunt. SHOW ME THE DOES While it is true that Montana and other Western states’ nonresident pricing for horn tags has gone up, the antlerless tags are still a huge bargain, in my opinion. At $80 each, I was able to purchase four doe mule deer tags, two for my wife and two for myself.

At the beginning of last year, I wouldn’t have expected to have been able to do that. The nonresident tag quota was greatly reduced due to last winter’s horrific weather, so we thought the trip was off. Imagine my surprise when our friends Jeff and Carrie Richardson called and told us to phone in Sept. 3 because surplus tags were going on sale that day. (In a “normal year,” there are usually plenty of antlerless B tags left, enough that one can expect to purchase them over the counter.) The second benefit of doe hunting is that permission to get on private land is often much easier than it is for bucks. Many landowners want the bucks for their family and friends. 1,026 MILES ON THE ROAD If you look at drive time as a negative, Montana probably isn’t for you if you live west of Spokane, Lewiston or Baker City. In Montana and Idaho, everything is at least 3 hours from Nowheresville. Indeed, me and Gina’s drive to Plentywood – which is up near where Montana meets North Dakota and Alberta – took 16½ hours over two days of travel. We

Gina Blancaflor, the author’s wife, and friend Carrie Richardson, both killed their first as well as second deer while hunting Montana. (BRIAN LULL)

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Another tag gets notched. All totaled, the hunters harvested eight antlerless mule deer on their trip. (BRIAN LULL)

drove Seattle to Missoula the first night and then down the Hi-Line to Plentywood. But we felt the road trip was half the fun. Outside of Alaska, I have never seen a more beautiful land. THE HUNTING With five days in the field and eight tags to fill between my wife and I and our friends, we were very busy hunters. The typical day meant killing one or two deer, taking them back to camp and hanging, skinning and butchering at night. With everyone participating, we could process the meat of two or three deer each night within a few hours. A warm wood stove, cold beers, and good tunes added to the ambiance of the butchering shack. The terrain of Eastern Montana is varied and open, with expansive wheat, lentil and other dryland grain fields interspersed with coulees filled with brush and box elder trees. You can see for miles from any vantage – they don’t call it Big Sky Country for nothing! Deer were not around every corner, but they were around just about every other corner. In this particular area, I’d estimate the ratio to have been 10:1 mule deer to whitetail. And these muley does are no pushovers – they are hunted hard and do not stand around to see what’s up when you push them out of the coulees. Our shots ranged from 93 to over 317 yards. Gina killed her first-ever deer at 250 yards with one very well-placed shot from my late father’s vintage Remington Model 600 Mohawk .308, one of the proudest moments of this

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INLAND NORTHWEST Gina with her second deer of the trip. (BRIAN LULL)

day, and it almost cost me a deer. That brings me around to the most important part of the trip: Hunting with my wife and our good friends was something I’d always dreamed of. I know we would not have had anywhere near the quality experience in terms of game seen, animals available to harvest, and yes, meat in the cooler, if we’d tried this in Washington. Montana and Idaho are not just for the TV hunters. Regular people like us, who save our money and vacation time, still have a great opportunity for a true quality hunting experience in the great American West. —BRIAN LULL Editor’s note: This article is from a previous issue of Northwest Sportsman. Be sure to check current regulations before going.

hunter’s life! Gina practiced long and hard this summer on her field-shooting skills and it paid off. Expect shots that are over 200 yards, and practice a lot for them. Northwest Sportsman’s On Target columnist, Dave Workman, cooked up

some handloads for us that featured Hornady’s wind-bucking 165-grain SST boattails in front of 43 grains of Hodgdon H4895 powder. Indeed, wind is your constant companion out on the high plains of Eastern Montana. I forgot to calculate windage one

TRIP CHECK

It wasn’t all hunting, all the time – the crew dressed up for Halloween and hit the Antelope Bar in Plentywood. (BRIAN LULL)

Destination: Plentywood, northeast Montana. Distance: 1,026 miles from Seattle; 1,132 miles from Portland. What a gas: My Toyota Tacoma gulped down $512 worth of unleaded, which included the round trip and all the daily driving to hunt locations once we arrived. Gas stations are few and far between out here – know your vehicle’s range and carry an extra gas can. Weather: Expect it all. Hunting over five days in late October, we had snow, fog, wind, sun, rain and freezing rain for good measure. Final score: Gina; 2; Brian: 2; Carrie: 2; Jeff: 2 — and plenty of deer leftover; we shall return. Game check stations: You must stop at each one. Have your license ready and your animals’ meat clearly labeled and notched tags packaged with each if you’ve butchered them. Carcass quarters require evidence of sex naturally attached. More info: Missouri River Country Tourism (800-653-1319; missouririver.visitmt.com/ contact/) 166 Northwest Sportsman 2013 ATLAS [Spring-Fall]

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