Rock fish, non yak.

Up to the Rogue river for the WWA jet boat run.  Got their thur. and clear in Brookings and foggy in Gold Beach.  Opposite of normal.  Sunny up river boat Sat, and Friday.  Went fishing yesterday in the salt.  Landed 1 Black and missed a bunch.  How you can get a hard hit on a jig and not have a hooked fish is a wonderment,  Commercial live fish guys were doing well with squid strips, but I fished only jigs and swim baits.  Thought I has some shrimp fly rigs in the boat, but did not.  But was good to be able to fish for rock cod.  Shallow, 35-50'.  $16.75 for a 1 day license and limit is 7 plus 2 ling cod.  Was calm with some large swells.  No wind until later in the day.  I came back in at 1:30 to start towing back home and wind just starting.  Checked with the Hobie dealer in Brookings to see if any deals, as OR has no sales tax.  Basically list price, but a local guy said to talk to the people in Coos Bay, they deal.  Y marine.  Do not see them listed as a hobie dealer.  Would be a nice long weekend trip during our closed season.  440 miles from Pleasanton, CA.  Lots or nice campgrounds and $40-60 motels.  Just check the ocean report before going.

It's nice to have an early RF season there! Thank you for the report Bill.

Good to see fishing is still available somewhere in the country.  According to GoogleMaps about an 8 hour ride.  Do they have Salmon season open this year?  I would love to find a place to catch Salmon and according to some web sites they have a spring Salmon run that starts mid March (http://www.fishoregon.com/salmon.asp).  

Slow steelheading in the river now, but they say the Springers (salmon) arrive mid March.  Would be a good place for a Hobie pedal yak as you could back troll the river like the drift boats.  The Rock fishing was maybe 3 miles from the harbor to some major rocks.  I stopped on some marks early and had hits, they just did not stick to the hook.  OCean salmon may be closed, but the river is open.  Chetco river in Brookings, 20 miles closer, should be even better for a yak as it is smaller.  The ocean can be bad for long stretches I think, so may be part of the reason for fantastic rockfish numbers.

It's nice to have an early RF season there! Thank you for the report Bill.

Early?  It never close up there.   

-Allen

Sounds like a cool trip any time of year.