Suislaw steel in Sept October

[upperroguepirate]

Well, i'm moving just north a few miles of Florence, the first week of Sept. I can't wait. I'm gonna be so excited to be living on the Oregon coast. I was checking USGS river levels and they don't give a water temp. graph. Is there a way to get their site to show the temps if there is no graph? It seems it's only offering 2 of them. Guess I could check for an online newspaper. Anyway, what is the fishing usually like in Sept, Oct for steelhead? If we can get some rains I guess it's what we could use to get the fish moving up. Can someone tell me how is the Alsea this time? Looks like I'll have the Umpqua about 20 miles south too. Will be float fishing, using weighted stone flies with a trailer copper canyon or other bugs. and tossing spinners.

I bet the duck hunting can be pretty good around the bay and hope ODFW allows us to hunt there. If someone wants to share some decent pull out spots along the Slaw up from the mouth and up to 8 miles or so I appreciate the info. Saw some nice water on G. Earth up around Mapleton. Thanks

 

[rogerdodger]

welcome to OFF and the Florence area, as for the Siuslaw- Winter Steel gets rolling much later in the fall, December to February seems to be the best. We have a good native run and the STEP group here gets about 65K of clipped fish (hatched from fresh wild broodstock captured each year) into the system, so there are fish to harvest...the Florence Circus is just getting going, Kings are the stars from mid-August through Sept., the coho usually start taking over the spotlight by late September and that run holds up got through October most years... cheers, roger

 

[upperroguepirate]

65K fin clipped per year? holy smokes, that seems crazy and a bit hard to believe. A lot of steelhead. but why do they clip the wild fish? I did not even know they did such a thing. In order for us to catch and harvest? so that means they fight and have color like a wild native? I'll hope to get after Kings and buy my smoker at Bi Mart. In need of one. Cheers indeed. Thank you Sir

 

[eugene1]

Lots of duck hunters on Siltcoos lake.

 

[rogerdodger]

65K fin clipped per year? holy smokes, that seems crazy and a bit hard to believe. A lot of steelhead. but why do they clip the wild fish? I did not even know they did such a thing. In order for us to catch and harvest? so that means they fight and have color like a wild native? I'll hope to get after Kings and buy my smoker at Bi Mart. In need of one. Cheers indeed. Thank you Sir

they trap wild fish at Whittaker Creek, milk them and mix it all up, hatch the eggs here in Florence at Munsel Creek hatchery, then send off 65K to one of the ODFW hatcheries. they come back here, get clipped and release at several locations up in the Siuslaw watershed. so they are hatchery fish but each batch comes from a fresh set of wild fish each year....

if you are interested in bigger coastal salmon-steelhead situation, here is newly adopted Coastal Management Plan, great resource on our fisheries, identifies areas where the focus is on wild fish, where the hatchery fish are going in, strength of runs...good stuff:

http://www.dfw.state.or.us/fish/CRP/docs/coastal_multispecies/CMP_main_final.pdf
http://www.dfw.state.or.us/fish/CRP/coastal_multispecies.asp

hatchery and planting info starts on about page 46...

eugene1 is correct, we see duck hunters on Siltcoos in October, there is at least one camouflaged boat (floating duck blind) that is fun to watch as they cruise up on the ducks and then pop-up and start blasting away...cheers, roger

 

[bran_man]

65k release is actually not too many considering only 1-5% return rate an average. People with a lot of experience of the river usually start catching steel at the end of the fall run around thanksgiving and most of the earlier fish are usually wild fish which means they get released. Theyre a decently difficult fish to catch, but there is a small chance like Roger already said, run on slaw for winters doesn't really start getting decent (if at all lol) until January. good luck