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Rogue's spring chinook season debuts with a bang By MARK FREEMAN GOLD BEACH -- So what if the calendar claims March 20 is the first day of spring. Darrel Allen ushered in the new season on March 7, 9:30 a.m. sharp. Right here on a lower Rogue River gravel bar. That's when and where Allen, of Gold Beach, hooked and landed the year's first Rogue spring chinook salmon, marking the unofficial start to the Rogue's most famous and revered salmon-fishing season each year. "It was one of those fish that us old-timers called an honest-to-get Rogue salmon -- built like a football," Allen says. Allen's fish measured a stout 32 inches long and weighed 21 1/2 pounds -- just slightly bigger than average for a spring-run chinook here. But in places like Gold Beach, where time is kept by tidebooks and seasons are marked by what fish are in the river, Allen's fish has drawn inquisitors and visitors since word spread of his catch. Everyone, it seems, wants to see the fish that made Old Man Winter disappear. "When the first spring chinook is caught, it means spring is here," declares George Edwards, manager of the Rogue Outdoor Store at the Rogue's mouth in Gold Beach. But just as important as Allen's catch is what has transpired in the two weeks since that fateful moment. Rogue anglers have followed Allen's catch with about 40 more spring chinook landings, mostly from anglers fishing from powerboats anchored in tidewater migration lanes near Gold Beach. "Usually," Edwards says, "somebody catches the first springer in the first week or so of March, then they go two weeks before catching any more." The start of spring chinook fishing always has anglers fidgety. The Rogue's springers are the crown jewel of the Rogue's three runs of salmon and two runs of steelhead. They are big, bright, fine-eating and tough-fighting. The fish migrate into the Rogue from the sea in the spring, blasting upstream toward spawning grounds around Shady Cove, and all the way anglers line the banks or pile into boats hoping to intercept the best that the Rogue can offer. Suspicions that the first few springers could be in the Rogue lured Allen, a Gold Beach native, to the gravel bar at Huntley Park shortly before 9 a.m. on March 7. Allen joined the line of bank fishermen, who each cast out a large pearl- and pink-colored Spin-Glo plastic lure held steady just off the river bottom by a heavy lead weight. The poles were placed in holders pounded into the gravel bar, and the anglers simply sat around and chatted while waiting for a suicidal salmon to swim by. Allen's Spin-Glo was the last upstream offering -- hardly a choice spot in the bank-anglers' pecking order. When someone else vacated a spot two spaces down, Allen jumped at it -- and leap-frogged over friend Doug Moore. "He said, `Hey, don't go down there and catch the first salmon,"' Allen says, laughing. "So I did." By 9:30 a.m., the big salmon was in Allen's pickup, and off to town he went. Parading the first spring chinook through town is an annual rite, with tackle shops often giving rod-and-reel prizes to the fisherman. "The tackle shops don't give away prizes anymore," Allen says, "but it's still a big contest, to see who catches the first one. Bragging rights." Pictures and stories in local weekly newspapers often ensue, and the captor receives that fleeting fisherman's fame. Everyone wants to hear the story. Everyone wants to know Allen's secret for success. "That fish swam past seven or eight poles to get to mine," Allen says. "Why he did that, I don't know. "If a fella did know, he'd do pretty well for himself," he says. Several more anglers have done well for themselves after Allen's eventful catch. Already, springers have been caught as far upstream as Agness, about 34 miles east of Gold Beach -- an indication that the salmon are moving upstream -- another good sign, Edwards says. No spring chinook have been caught yet in the Grants Pass area, says Jim Broman from Jim's Bait and Tackle shop in Grants Pass. Usually, the first springer for the middle Rogue is caught at Rainie Falls three weeks or so after the first chinook is caught in Gold Beach, Broman says. That makes next week a good bet locally for the first springer -- if water and weather conditions cooperate, Broman adds. For now, though, all eyes are on Gold Beach. And soon, hordes of boats will follow as word filters among the salmon-fishing community that the springers are, indeed, here. "It's not super red-hot," Edwards says, "but this has been a really good start." But, alas, the optimism of spring seems destined to transform into a frustrating summer. State fisheries biologists are predicting another poor spring chinook run for the Rogue. This time, it's poor ocean-rearing conditions and the New Year's flood of 1997 that are conspiring to make this year's run into the upper Rogue likely to hover around half that of average. "Twelve thousand to 20,000 is the range I'd expect it to fit into," says Mike Evenson, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist in Central Point. The returns of small jack salmon -- whose numbers are considered precursors to the adult runs -- have been low each of the past three years over Gold Ray Dam, the boundary for the upper Rogue. And last year's count was the worst of the three. Plus, the bulk of wild fish bound for the upper Rogue were eggs laid in the river during the fall of 1996. Biologists estimate that virtually all of them perished in the ensuing New Year's floodwaters. "It doesn't look like a good year this year," Evenson says. "A good year to go trout fishing, I think." Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at [email protected] ) Outdoor Journal Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Mail Tribune � 2000 -- Medford, Oregon USA