B
BushTucka
0
G'day guys, a little about me:
I've done a trip between highschool and uni backpacking up from baja california to vancouver to get a taste for the wild outdoor environments of the pacific coastline and am coming back to oregon soon for a holiday and to scout out some cool places around south west oregon to get a job in adventure tourism, as I fell in love with the siskiyou wilderness and southern oregons proximity to many other great american wildernesses - as I one day hope to live there.
On to the fishing! After nosing about for job opportunities, I plan to do a solo journey down the umpqua river from just upstream of the grants path region down to the coast over a 2 week duration so progress can be slow and allow for lots of fishing! I plan on living out of my hiking pack which holds my packraft - a feathercraft 'beast' capable of tackling white water. I love catching any fish, however asides from dropping a line in deep holes, around snags or weedbeds, into eddies and around reefy, rocky or sandy bottoms (in the sea), I love estuary fishing the most here in Australia. Here fishing for black bream (actually not a real bream but a member of the snapper family) down south where I live, or the mighty barramundi up north in the estuaries not only requires one to call upon their knowledge of fishing freshwater rivers and how to target fish (in snags, behind rocks, around weedbeds, in eddies and slack water, and assuming fish will often be waiting for food to come to them down the river), but must also take into account not only how the tides effect the best bite times, but where the fish will be.
Please excuse me if what im about to explain is really common knowledge, but after a bit of research about fishing in the US i have found none of this information, whereas this information is bread and butter in an aussie fisherman's arsenal:
Black bream and barramundi (predatory estuary and bay fish) can be found in typical structural ambush locations at low tide in estuaries, estuary mouths and shallow bays (reef, snags/timber, weedbeds, mangrove roots, shade of a willow tree etc) however as the tide rises the baitfish and prawn/shrimps the bream eat (or the mullet which the barra eat) are pushed up into the shallow flats (tidal 'mudflats' generally only submerged during high tide) or onto previously exposed reef tops, and as the tide rises overwise exposed sandflats which hold both sandworms and 'bass yabies' (a tiny crayfish) as well as snails and stuff are exposed - this means on a rising and high tide the predatory bream and barra focus their efforts on these shallow areas, so it makes sense you too focus fishing efforts on the shallow flats or the tops of otherwise exposed reef areas where the predators follow the bait. On a falling tide the bait are reluctant to leave these areas until they have to - and are ambushed at chokepoints when they do (such as at the mouth of feeder streams and run-off gutters) by the predators.
Anticipating the movements of estuary predators chasing tide affect bait is my favourite method of fishing as it is so visual and active - with the knowledge you know where to place your bait or work your lure and is a really thought provoking method of fishing from my experiences.
The reason i'm talking about this is because when you think of estuary fishing in the US (or atleast live in oz and do a google search) you hear all about salmon runs which, whilst i am greatly looking forward to, dont from my understanding involve the same tactics i described above as they only make runs into the rivers to spawn, and they dont eat during this time (forcing to use lures for reaction bites), which i'm assuming means they wont follow baitfish onto shallows and ambush them on the runoff. So after that huge explanation, I have a few simple questions.
1. At any time during the year in southern oregon, are there estuary, estuary mouth, or bay dwelling fish that you use similar tactics to target, i.e. as the tide rises and provides fish access to shallow flats and otherwise submerged reefs you target fish here, whereas on a falling tide you target runoff chokepoints as the bait fish head back into deeper water, and finally at low tide just fish structure like you would a non-tidal river? Would one target striped bass, american shad, or spawning bass (assuming american bass make annual winter runs into the estuary to spawn like our aussie bass)?
2. Is catching market squid in the bays and seas off the southern oregon coast a possibility? Squiding (for calamari) is big here, and whilst market squid I here arent in numbers in oregon like they are in san fran and washington, you often hear reports of saltwater salmon fishermen finding market squid in the bellies of their salmon - so I would assume around weedbeds, particularity at night with lights would be a good place to target them? I am not talking about humbolt squid, however if I arrive on the coast ahead of schedule might try and organise a last minute charter trip
3. What can I expect during your winter months (our summer) on the umpqua river from grant pass down to the ocean in terms of species variety?
4. Finally, we have introduced populations of wild brown and rainbow trout where I live. How do cutthroat and stealheads compare? Make me jealous please
I apologise for the long post, any grammatical errors or any misconceptions I may have about how the fishing is down on the pacific coast, as I feel not much information is readily available about american fishing to us in the land of aus, I'm really sorry if I came across as jerkish, i'm very keen to get to learn how it is done in the states
Cheers
I've done a trip between highschool and uni backpacking up from baja california to vancouver to get a taste for the wild outdoor environments of the pacific coastline and am coming back to oregon soon for a holiday and to scout out some cool places around south west oregon to get a job in adventure tourism, as I fell in love with the siskiyou wilderness and southern oregons proximity to many other great american wildernesses - as I one day hope to live there.
On to the fishing! After nosing about for job opportunities, I plan to do a solo journey down the umpqua river from just upstream of the grants path region down to the coast over a 2 week duration so progress can be slow and allow for lots of fishing! I plan on living out of my hiking pack which holds my packraft - a feathercraft 'beast' capable of tackling white water. I love catching any fish, however asides from dropping a line in deep holes, around snags or weedbeds, into eddies and around reefy, rocky or sandy bottoms (in the sea), I love estuary fishing the most here in Australia. Here fishing for black bream (actually not a real bream but a member of the snapper family) down south where I live, or the mighty barramundi up north in the estuaries not only requires one to call upon their knowledge of fishing freshwater rivers and how to target fish (in snags, behind rocks, around weedbeds, in eddies and slack water, and assuming fish will often be waiting for food to come to them down the river), but must also take into account not only how the tides effect the best bite times, but where the fish will be.
Please excuse me if what im about to explain is really common knowledge, but after a bit of research about fishing in the US i have found none of this information, whereas this information is bread and butter in an aussie fisherman's arsenal:
Black bream and barramundi (predatory estuary and bay fish) can be found in typical structural ambush locations at low tide in estuaries, estuary mouths and shallow bays (reef, snags/timber, weedbeds, mangrove roots, shade of a willow tree etc) however as the tide rises the baitfish and prawn/shrimps the bream eat (or the mullet which the barra eat) are pushed up into the shallow flats (tidal 'mudflats' generally only submerged during high tide) or onto previously exposed reef tops, and as the tide rises overwise exposed sandflats which hold both sandworms and 'bass yabies' (a tiny crayfish) as well as snails and stuff are exposed - this means on a rising and high tide the predatory bream and barra focus their efforts on these shallow areas, so it makes sense you too focus fishing efforts on the shallow flats or the tops of otherwise exposed reef areas where the predators follow the bait. On a falling tide the bait are reluctant to leave these areas until they have to - and are ambushed at chokepoints when they do (such as at the mouth of feeder streams and run-off gutters) by the predators.
Anticipating the movements of estuary predators chasing tide affect bait is my favourite method of fishing as it is so visual and active - with the knowledge you know where to place your bait or work your lure and is a really thought provoking method of fishing from my experiences.
The reason i'm talking about this is because when you think of estuary fishing in the US (or atleast live in oz and do a google search) you hear all about salmon runs which, whilst i am greatly looking forward to, dont from my understanding involve the same tactics i described above as they only make runs into the rivers to spawn, and they dont eat during this time (forcing to use lures for reaction bites), which i'm assuming means they wont follow baitfish onto shallows and ambush them on the runoff. So after that huge explanation, I have a few simple questions.
1. At any time during the year in southern oregon, are there estuary, estuary mouth, or bay dwelling fish that you use similar tactics to target, i.e. as the tide rises and provides fish access to shallow flats and otherwise submerged reefs you target fish here, whereas on a falling tide you target runoff chokepoints as the bait fish head back into deeper water, and finally at low tide just fish structure like you would a non-tidal river? Would one target striped bass, american shad, or spawning bass (assuming american bass make annual winter runs into the estuary to spawn like our aussie bass)?
2. Is catching market squid in the bays and seas off the southern oregon coast a possibility? Squiding (for calamari) is big here, and whilst market squid I here arent in numbers in oregon like they are in san fran and washington, you often hear reports of saltwater salmon fishermen finding market squid in the bellies of their salmon - so I would assume around weedbeds, particularity at night with lights would be a good place to target them? I am not talking about humbolt squid, however if I arrive on the coast ahead of schedule might try and organise a last minute charter trip
3. What can I expect during your winter months (our summer) on the umpqua river from grant pass down to the ocean in terms of species variety?
4. Finally, we have introduced populations of wild brown and rainbow trout where I live. How do cutthroat and stealheads compare? Make me jealous please
I apologise for the long post, any grammatical errors or any misconceptions I may have about how the fishing is down on the pacific coast, as I feel not much information is readily available about american fishing to us in the land of aus, I'm really sorry if I came across as jerkish, i'm very keen to get to learn how it is done in the states
Cheers
Just an overnight stay in one of NZL's pine forests with the mountains in the background and the cold crisp air and the sound of white water - it was just amazing! But having recently gotten into fishing for our salt and estuarine species (having grown up chasing tench and carp with Dad and chasing the sleep murray cod you may or may not have heard about on inland holidays) and experiencing the diversity, I don't think I could give up living somewhat close to the coast - if not for a feed of shark, reef fish or squid, a good winter surf when you have the place to yourself 
