As the most common fish species in Oregon, trout have historically thrived in the southern Willamette Valley and many other Oregon regions. Both cutthroat and rainbow trout are indigenous to Oregon and you will find native populations of both “cuts and bows” in every stream and river that drains all[Read More…]
Author: FRANK ARMENDARIZ for The Chronicle
Warming climate, budget cuts among most serious challenges
I’ll leave it to my readers to determine the cause, whether our changing climate is the result of a cycle or human activities. There is no doubt, however, that our climate is warming. The warming has become so acute that according to climatologists the number of days we now experience[Read More…]
Troubling times for anglers as hatchery production dips
I concluded my most recent column for The Chronicle with what I had hoped would be a specious rumor. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The Corps of Engineers that provides funding for hatchery trout and summer steelhead in the upper Willamette River Basin, under a compensatory mitigation program with[Read More…]
Anglers facing a variety of weather challenges
It’s been a mixed bag of good and some not-so-good news for local anglers during the past few weeks. Work at the Junction City Pond has wrapped up after a major overhaul to the parking surface, fishing dock, and improved general access to the banks of the water in general.[Read More…]
Anglers Log: Steelheaders to take riverways
It was a tough start for winter steelhead season this year in the Northwest. Snow and ice swept over large parts of the Willamette Valley, followed by a series of warm Pacific storms that accelerated the melt of much of the low-level frozen precipitation. The rapid runoff took rivers in[Read More…]
Tough sledding for anglers
Last week’s winter storm brought ice and snow to much of the Willamette Valley and heavy rain to the entire Oregon coast, completely suspending the winter steelhead season from one end of the state to the other. In the Siuslaw and Alsea river drainages, the precipitation fell as a mixture[Read More…]
Anglers Log: Oregon avoids major flooding
The recent heavy rain that swept across the state brought moderate flooding to many coastal rivers and streams. But nowhere in Oregon was the flooding critical. It was a good flushing, and as the waters began to recede, anglers were delighted to find the first push of winter steelhead had[Read More…]
Paying it forward for our managed lands
Way back in the day, it was pretty easy. With your fishing license in hand, you’d head out, park anywhere you wanted, and recreate on public lands that, for the most part, were free of fees and access restrictions. Unfortunately, all of us and the other thousands of[Read More…]
Winter steelhead, free fishing highlight the outdoors calendar
In decades past, it was about Thanksgiving of each year that hatchery winter steelhead would begin to quietly slip into our coastal rivers and by the middle of December we would be well into a season that still runs into the spring of each year. It was pretty common[Read More…]
‘Let’s gather on the Rogue’
It’s been a challenging season of sport fishing, a lack of consistency between fisheries and regions being the main driver. Fall fishing was good in a few places, fair on some rivers and poor on most others. My fall favorite has always been steelhead fishing on the McKenzie. In good[Read More…]
