FRANK ARMENDARIZ/PHOTO – Don Mike Cambra, with an Umpqua winter steelhead – one of the four that we landed last week on a morning of side drifting. This one was wild and released.
At mid-winter, things are not as they should be. The dry spell that began a month ago has persisted into February and looks as though it will continue for a few more weeks. Collateral to the dry weather has been a pattern that trapped cold air in the Willamette Valley. While over on the coast in western Lane County the weather has been more like early spring, with temperatures in the mid-50s, and plenty of cloudless sunny days. The unseasonable, mid-coastal weather has been wonderful for surf fishing, crabbing and shellfish collecting. Just offshore the lingcod season is at its peak and on more days than not the ocean has been surprisingly cooperative. But remember … January and February should be two of our wettest months.
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I lamented the lack of rain in my last Angler’s Log, now I’ll only add that even though a little rain did fall last week the accumulation was insignificant and we are even drier now. And the dry weather continues to be a disappointment to winter steelheaders. Low and clear water conditions have hampered – in some instances completely dashed – the aspirations of many anglers and river guide services. A frustration to many is that winter steelhead are actually distributed throughout nearly every coastal river and hatchery steelhead continue to arrive at hatcheries and collection sites up and down the state. Just last Friday, in the Siuslaw River drainage, the steelhead trap at Whitaker Creek collected 19 steelhead. The previous week there were nine steelhead in the trap and since late January, in low-water conditions, about 70 steelhead have been processed by the volunteers of the Florence STEP (Salmon, Trout Enhancement Program). So the fish are on the move; but in the low and clear water, steelhead become extremely weary and very reluctant to bite. Until we get several inches of rain, my advice is to fish the lower portions of our largest coastal river drainages. The Rogue River below Foster Bar, the Umpqua River below River Forks Park and the Nehalem River below the confluence of the North Fork. The basic rule of winter steelheading; in high water fish high in the river. In low water, fish low in the river.
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My steelheading last week was as I suggested above, in the “lower” Umpqua River. It is the gem of the central Oregon coast and only about a 45-minute drive from the southern Willamette Valley – a large river that nearly reached flood stages in the first week of January and has held up now into February. But the double-digit numbers of steelhead that were so common in early to mid-January have dwindled to three or four in a hard day of fishing. Through much of January diving plug had been incredibly effective, the fish were coming in waves of a dozen or more. Sitting on anchor, running an array of diving plugs accounted for over 30 steelhead landed among my fishing partners and me in four days of angling. As river levels have fallen the steelhead are now much more dispersed on the Umpqua and successful anglers have switched to searching techniques like side drifting or bobber dogging, where you essentially drift at current speed, working a jig, bead or cluster of salmon eggs through the holding water. Some will cover 10 or more miles of river in a single day. Currently, that’s what it’s been taking.
The lack of precipitation, following one of the driest years in recent Oregon history, could also limit water-based recreation this summer. We do have a “good” snowpack over the Cascades this winter, near normal at many sites where measurements are taken. But snowpack only provides about 20% of the water stored in our state’s reservoirs, many of them popular fishing and boating destinations. Last season we struggled to reach about 80% of our reservoir storage capacities and by mid-summer started to see limits to access as lake levels dropped below some boat ramps. So we really need rainfall. Most immediately to stoke up what was a stellar early winter steelhead season in what should be the peak of the season. But ultimately to preserve our spring and summer recreational opportunities. It is early in the year, still plenty of time, and I’ll remain optimistic.
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Trout stocking ticked up a bit this week. Now, in addition to a number of locations in the Willamette Valley that have already received the first of the seasons hatchery trout, are Alder, Dune, Cleawox, Munsel, Lost, Crater and Thissel lakes. All of which are in the ODFW’s northwest angling zone from Florence to near Newport got several hundreds hatchery trout each. That in addition to the natural occurring coastal cutthroats and largemouth bass that also populate nearly every one of these coastal lakes.
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