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September 19. 2014 2:00AM Fishing Report: Friday, Sept. 19 OCEAN OUTLOOK COASTWIDE: Weekend forecasts call for small-craft and high-winds advisories through Saturday, then 15-knot winds with 5-foot seas on Sunday. That likely will keep most anglers from venturing past the jetties of most Southern Oregon ports. Bottomfishers must stay within the 30-fathom line to protect yelloweye rockfish. Near-shore jigging should be very good for lingcod and black rockfish when anglers can get back out to sea. Black, white or red jigs are always good bets. The marine aggregate limit in Oregon is seven rockfish a day. The lingcod limit is two a day with a 22-inch minimum, and that is separate from the marine aggregate. Anglers can keep one cabezon as part of that limit. The ocean is open for coho salmon north of Port Orford through tonight, as anglers have taken the wild coho quota for the year. Brookings and Gold Beach are closed for ocean chinook salmon fishing, but the Chetco River Bubble Fishery opens Oct. 1 off the mouth of the Chetco. Crabbers have been doing very well for legal-sized males in most Oregon estuaries, with boat crabbers landing close to limits. Clammers have no morning minus tides this week. Clatsop County beaches are closed to clamming, but the Coos County sands around Charleston and Empire are good. The entire Oregon Coast is open to recreational mussel harvest, and all other recreational shellfish harvesting is open, except for the Clatsop closure. The near-shore halibut fishery south of Humbug Mountain inside 40 fathoms remains open, with just a sliver of the quota remaining. COOS BAY: Trolling for chinook salmon is very good with cut-plug herring in the bay from the Highway 101 bridge upstream to the mouth of the Millicoma River. Bottomfishing is very good to excellent, and the near-shore halibut fishery remains open. Tuna fishing is good, with reports of tuna as close as 16 miles offshore. The average tuna landings this past week were 5 fish per angler. Look for water 58 degrees or warmer. Bottomfish catches have been very good. Many red rock crabs in the Charleston area have been tagged as part of a study. Anyone who catches one is urged to call state fish biologists at 541-888-5515. BROOKINGS: Good bottomfishing and some nice halibut have been caught of late as anglers wait for the Oct. 1 start of the chinook bubble fishery off the Chetco River mouth. GOLD BEACH: The Rogue bay has picked up with a good mid-morning bite that has lasted until early afternoon, with chinook still dominating the catch. Lots of 20- and 30-pounders in the mix for those trolling larger anchovies with Rogue rigs. Surfperch fishing has been very good, and rockfish and halibut catches have been excellent when anglers have been able to cross the bar. LAKE OUTLOOK AGATE: The lake has bottomed out at 3 percent full, and the boat ramp is no longer usable. What's left of the warmwater fish are corralled in about 130 acre-feet of water near the dam and the spillway. Crappie, bass and bluegill are very active early in the morning and in the evening. Fish worms, small spinners or crankbaits. No gas motors are allowed. Small electric motors are legal. The gate to the day-use park closes at 9 p.m. APPLEGATE: The lake is fishing well for for holdover rainbow trout 10 to 14 inches long. Trollers are finding fish with Wedding Ring lures spiced with worms between 40 and 60 feet deep. Hart-Tish Park and its boat ramp are closed, and the ramp at Copper is no longer usable. That leaves only the French Gulch ramp for launching, with most of the effort off that cove. Bass fishing is good with crankbaits and grubs. The lake was down to 67 feet from full, or 30 percent, as of Thursday. Applegate Lake now has a standing advisory against eating too many portions of warmwater fish caught in the lake due to elevated mercury levels found in the bass and crappie. DIAMOND: Fishing for trout has improved as the water has cooled, but most of the action continues to be near the mouths of Short Creek and Silent Creek, where the mid-summer fish were stocked. These fish are not leaving the area because they prefer the creek's water temperatures. The rest of the lake is improving as trout start to fan out into deeper water. Most of the action is still-fishing PowerBait or with worms under bobbers. Vary your depths. Trolling is slow. The limit is eight trout per day longer than 8 inches, but only one can be longer than 20 inches. EMIGRANT: The county park boat ramps are unusable, as the lake has dropped even more this past week to 11 percent full. There is some bank fishing where Emigrant Creek hits what's left of the lake and near the rowing boathouse, but not much action is going on. A standing public-health advisory continues about eating all but trout from the lake because of elevated mercury levels. EXPO: Anglers are catching bass, perch and the occasional crappie. FISH: No boat ramps are usable, and the water gauge has stopped measuring how much water is left in the lake. A few people carrying canoes or kayaks to the water are faring very well for a mix of trout and chinook salmon. Most of the fishing is with bait near the center of the lake or from the bank near the resort. Tiger trout must be released unharmed. Chinook are legally considered trout and can be kept as part of the five-trout daily limit. The chinook are in 12- to 14-inch range. HOWARD PRAIRIE: The impromptu launch at Willow Point Campground is unusable now that the water has receded enough that the rock ledge used of late by boaters is exposed and fronted by mud. Fishing effort is very light. The lake is listed at 29 percent full and dropping. Bank fishing is slow but float-tube fishing for fly-fishers using streamers and sinking lines is good. HYATT: The lake is down to 7 percent full, rendering the BLM boat ramp unusable. Some bank anglers and those fishing out of float tubes have done well of late for both rainbow trout and bass. LOST CREEK: Wildfires have crippled fishing opportunities, but the open water near the dam remains good for trout for boaters trolling deep with lures and worms. Water upstream of the marina is closed to make room for helicopters filling with water for fires in the Sky Lakes Wilderness Area. Some 15-inch trout have been taken there recently. Bass fishing is very good with a mix of crankbaits and plastics. The water is almost at the bottom of the marina boat ramp. LAKE OF THE WOODS: Trolling with green or black Wedding Rings is working well for rainbow trout, while pink ones are knocking the kokanee well. Still-fishing with PowerBait from the bank has been good for trout, especially early. Bass are thick in the shallows, and night fishing for catfish is good. Water levels are excellent. LEMOLO : Another load of legal-sized trout were stocked this past week, adding to the hold-over lunker trout from the pre-Labor Day stocking. Trolling deep gets a mix of trout and kokanee, while still-fishing near the resort with PowerBait is good. WILLOW: Fishing from the bank with PowerBait or worms has been good around the resort and directly across from the county boat ramp. Trollers could try Tasmanian Devils or Triple Teasers, or wind-drift worms in the afternoon. The lake was 55 percent full Thursday and dropping quickly. RIVER OUTLOOK ROGUE: The upper Rogue is in the midst of the two-month flies-only season, and water levels have dropped to their typical autumn lows of about 1,000 cubic feet per second out of the reservoir. The low flows have made it tough to fish Kwikfish in some middle Rogue holes, but fishing is best in Taylor Creek Canyon for guides. The lower Rogue is good for fall chinook and very good for summer steelhead amid seriously low flows at Agness. That makes the middle Rogue this week’s best bet but probably for the last time this season because the chinook are starting to get dark. Fall chinook, however, are getting caught consistently from Lathrop's Landing on down, with the mouth of the Applegate River best for bankies. Lots of smoke in the area from the Onion fire, so rowers should take notice of the bad air days. Most early chinook destined for the Applegate have made it in, and the water releases to the Applegate will be cut in half by Sunday to 125 cfs. Boat anglers are fishing K-15 Kwikfish let out farther than normal from driftboats or powerboats. This "long lining" is most effective now. Even try some K-13s and K-14s in the slower water, with weed guards a must. Flows at Grants Pass were down Wednesday to 1,260 cfs, and that's pretty darn low for September. Water releases from Lost Creek Lake will be sliced this week to 1,000 cfs. Fall chinook are moving through the lower Rogue, and fishing for them should be good at heads of pools downstream from Quosatana. A mix of halfpounders and adult steelhead are getting plenty of attention from the mouth of the Illinois River on up into the Wild and Scenic Section. Catch these on anything from streamer flies to Panther Martin lures to worms. Flows Wednesday at Agness were a slim 1,310 cfs, which makes powerboating in places like Shasta Costa a no-go. Fly-fishers swinging streamers in the mornings and evenings, however, are loving the low flows and doing very well for halfpounders and adults. Green-butt skunks and royal coachmans are solid choices. In the upper Rogue, it's flies-only for summer steelhead and closed for chinook upstream of the Fisher's Ferry ramp. Early-season fly-fishing has been somewhat slow for those swinging streamers or nymphing, largely because the steelhead are spread out and not a lot of new fish are moving into the upper Rogue now. From Fisher's Ferry on down, anglers can catch and keep hatchery and wild chinook through September. There's virtually no action until anglers get down to Gold Hill. http://www.mailtribune.com/article/20140919/NEWS/140919673 © 2015 Copyright © 1995-2011 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use Privacy Statement -->