It’s always been a pet-peeve not having access to any realtime (or otherwise) water temperature data on the Oregon coast. Sure, one can deduce from air temperature, but that only goes so far.
Well, watching the Wilson hitting floodstage today (it’s risen 7’ in the past 24 hours), I noticed that the gauge has been upgraded and now includes temperature, which is a balmy 47F right now.
Pretty handy, and a good barometer for the rest of the coast.
Our optimism was ebbing and flowing with the water level predictions, but when Friday finally arrived, the Holy Water was dropping right into shape. Niall and Philippe, two longtime buddies from UofO had flown into town, and we headed out to the coast with one thing on the mind: winter steelhead.
We arrived just after daybreak to a river that still had a ways to drop, but this particular stream comes into shape quickly so I wasn’t worried. With minimal rain in the forecast it would be fishing well by the afternoon, and amazing by the next day.
And just six hours and no grabs later, she was blown out, courtesy of a few inches of rain that snuck in under the meteorologist’s watch. The stream rose over a foot in a few short hours, leaving us huddled under the tarp around a propane heater praying that somehow all would be well by the next morning. Of course things were far from fine the next morning, and we packed up camp and set out in search of new water.
With the Tillamook Bay streams spiking 1,000 cfs overnight, our Plan B went out the window, and we drove around for hours looking for a swingable piece of water.
By mid afternoon, we found it, and before long Niall had picked my pocket into the first steelhead of the trip. This fish declined requests for a photo interview, but reluctantly agreed to a few long distance shots.
On Sunday, we headed back to the Holy Water hoping that it had come back into shape. As on Friday morning, it was still a bit high, but by the afternoon had dropped into great shape. But bright sunlight didn’t help our cause, and even the bait guys were getting skunked. Philippe did get his first ever steelhead grab, and the fish erupted on the surface the through the hook. Apart from that, we only managed to find some cuts.
On Monday, however, the fishing kicked into high gear (or as high as things seem to get when swinging for winter fish). First run of the day, I missed one, and 15 feet later, hooked a bright fish that through the hook about 5 seconds later. After three days of not touching a steelhead, this was exactly what I needed.
A few hours later while fishing behind Niall and Philippe on a beautiful run, I decided to bust out the fall box and tie on a #2 green butt skunk to show the fish something different. This is not a fly I normally fish in the winter, and for good measure, I slid on a little worm weight and let her rip. Within a few minutes, I was into a nice fish, one which I managed to land this time around.
After lunch, we headed out to the camp water, and Niall was promptly into a fish, a super fresh and beautiful hen that took him well into his backing.
After that, we each had a few more solid grabs, and I learned that hard way that having your running line wrapped around your reel seat does not help with hooking a steelhead.
It’s funning thinking back to just a few years ago, gung-ho on trout, when the prospect of just a few fish for four days of fishing would’ve seemed like a terrible outcome. Now, I feel nothing short of blessed to live so close to so many tremendous winter steelhead streams and having the opportunity to touch these fish. March is quickly becoming my favorite month of the year, and it’s not nearly long enough.
Nothing beats swinging a fly for a wild winter steelhead amidst an old growth coastal rainforest. I can’t get enough of it.
The flows on the big river looked too high. The other rivers a bit low. I drew the wildcard, and set out on my least favorite drive to one of my favorite coastal streams. Daybreak was just rearing her face when I set off into the mountains. Within minutes, the roadside snow was showing up, and within a few more miles I was driving through 6-8” deep snow ruts, a rare sight on the coast.
I’d never fished the stream with water this low and I knew it wouldn’t be optimal, but I hoped that I could still find some runs with steelhead that would chase a swung fly. Arriving streamside, the prospect of swinging up a fish looked bleak. For about two hours, I gave it my best, and found a few heart stopping moments in the form of feisty cutthroats.
No steelhead though, and it was clear that they were holed up in the deep pools - areas where my swung fly just hung still. I decided to break out the nuclear option, and rigged up a bobber and egg pattern to see if my theory held true.
First cast into a deep slot against a big boulder, and just as the fly gets into the zone, the indicator starts sinking. I assume I’ve got too much split shot (keeping it classy) but set just in case. It’s a fish, and before I know it my poor little 9’ rod is bent in half and a fish is bolting out of the pool, porpoising through the skinny tailout, around the corner and into the next run! I try putting on the breaks to keep him in my run, and the fly pops off.
It’s a good thing that all steelhead don’t have the mind to always leave their current run.
I fished a few more pools with the bobber, but just couldn’t take it. Repeatedly setting on rocks and mending, mending, mending, mending, just doesn’t do it for me anymore.
In hopes of finding that fish on the swing, I hopped in the car and headed North to another river that turned out even colder than the last.
Mark and I headed to the coast on Sunday in search of chrome. We were graced with morning snow, spring like conditions mid-day, and frigid rain in the late afternoon.
Fished a lot of new water, and found some amazing swinging runs. The water was fairly cold and clear, but pressure was minimal and the cutthroat were grabbing occasionally.
On the last run of the day the rain kicked in for about 15 minutes and I had three grabs in about 15 casts. Two were definitely trouty, but one was a mystery that left me wondering what was lurking in front of the boulder.
Mark hooked into a hot piece of chrome in a tailout that bolted downstream into some rapids and popped him off. His first winter hookup on the swing!
Even with no fish to hand, it was an amazing day on the water. Apart from two boats first thing in the morning we had the river entirely to ourselves, always a welcome treat.
Mark also took the time to snap some great pictures.
If this weekend is any indication, it’s going to be a damn good winter.
33” Native
Lower Mossy
5lb hatchery fish
Dad learning to spey cast
The Prey
This guy had the heart racing for a second
The Nestucca River is one of the most productive Salmon and Steelhead streams on Oregon’s North Coast. While the runs are nowhere near the abundance of the early 20th century, they are still good by modern standards. In 2002 an estimated 10,400 wild winter steelhead ascended this 50 mile stream (the run has since declined to around 4,000 fish due to less favorable ocean conditions).
Today, the bulk of these steelhead enter the river from February through April, although historically strong runs of wild fish entered from November through April. Unfortunately, decades of poor hatchery practices has decimated the early returning natives, and new hatchery “broodstock” programs are an increasing threat to the late winter and spring natives.
Every spring, the Nestucca is stocked with 180,000 steelhead smolts of 3 different origins, each with different run and spawn times:
Siletz origin Summer Steelhead
The Siletz River is the only river on the North Coast with a native run of summer steelhead. In 1965, ODFW decided it would be a great idea to plant these steelhead in the Nestucca, and has been doing so ever since. Currently, the mainstem Nestucca receives 40,000 Siletz-stock summer steelhead, and Three Rivers (a Nestucca tributary entering in Hebo) receives 30,000 fish.
These fish begin entering the river in April or May, and by early fall virtually every hole on the river is holding a couple of ultra-spooky Summer Steelhead. It’s easy to assume summer steelhead don’t adversely affect winter steelhead, but they are in fact quite damaging to native winter steelhead. In 2006 ODFW fisheries biologist Kathryn Kostow studied the effects of hatchery summer steelhead on native winter steelhead on the Clackamas, and found a productivity decrease of 22-50% when large numbers of hatchery steelhead were present.
If you’re looking for some fresh fish next summer, head to the Nestucca and help remove these from the gene pool.
Alsea origin Winter Steelhead
The Alsea river originally provided the eggs for a number of winter steelhead programs on the Oregon coast. These runs are artificially early due to originally mining eggs only from the earliest returning native fish. Subsequent eggs were harvested from the returning hatchery fish, resulting in a highly domesticated steelhead - a cookie cutter fish of approximately 27” and 7.5 pounds. Fish from this domesticated hatchery program typically return from early December through late January, peaking sometime around Christmas. The mainstem Nestucca currently receives 40,000 domesticated hatchery fish.
Almost all of our coastal streams have been planted with these early run hatchery steelhead over the years, with a very negative effect. Prior to the introduction of these domesticated fish, native steelhead could be caught as early as veterans day with good numbers of fish between December and April. Decades of competition from domesticated hatchery fish and harvest on wild fish severely diminished this early native component. However, on rivers where these hatchery programs have been terminated, early returning wild fish are starting to show a comeback. It will take years for these early runs to reach their former glory, but steelhead are resilient creatures and it is entirely possibly that with better hatchery practices, some of our coastal streams will once again host epic November through January native runs.
Nestucca Broodstock Fish
While the domesticated Alsea stock fish are a decidedly old-school creature, the latest and greatest craze among fishery folks is the wild “broodstock” fish. Both the Nestucca and Wilson now have a large broodstock program that was implemented about a decade ago. The way it works is simple: anglers sign up for a tank to put in the back of their truck, and when they catch a wild steelhead the run the fish to the tank and then drive it to the hatchery. Approximately 40 male and 40 female native steelhead are harvested on the Nestucca each winter, which produces approximately 70,000 smolts the next year.
Being only one generation removed from their wild ancestors, the broodstock fish have a wider run timing (early February through May), and have a greater size distribution as well (they aren’t all 27” cookie cutter fish). In addition, they’re much better biters, and will take a fly or lure at about twice the rate of their domesticated counterparts.
While ODFW has successfully created a more “harvestable” hatchery fish, they cause the same amount of damage to our native fish as do domesticated fish. In a recent study (still in draft) by ODFW’s Kevin Goodson and NOAA’s Mark Chilcote, it was determined that both “broodstock” hatchery fish and domesticated hatchery fish impose the same reproductive limits on wild steelhead. For every 100 hatchery fish you let spawn in a stream, native reproduction goes down by 87 fish. In other words, having 100 hatchery fish spawning in a river is just as damaging to future runs as killing 87 wild fish.
Furthermore, the broodstock program has introduced hatchery fish into our rivers from February through May, which is the peak spawning time for native fish. We’ve already seen the damage caused to are early run compenents from the Nov/Dec domesticated fish, and we’re now at risk of causing the same damage to the rest of the run.
Where Things Stand
I find it difficult to wrap my head around all these different hatchery programs and figure out what is impacting what, but I’m doing my best. The more I read and the more data I look at, the more the pieces start coming together. ODFW recently released a study on the Nestucca broodstock program, and while full of holes, still contains some interesting data. In particular, they did fish capture surveys from 2004 - 2007 where they literally netted steelhead from all over the watershed, tabulating the origin of the fish. I was able to obtain the raw survey data and compiled it into annual charts showing the timing of each stock of fish. The results are rather interesting for a steelhead geek:
The “stray rate” for hatchery steelhead in the Nestucca was 33% over these three years, of which 50% was comprised of hatchery summer steelhead. NMFS has determined that a 5% stray rate should be the upper limit, and anything beyond that will be detrimental to native fish. The Nestucca (and the NF Nehalem, Wilson, Siletz, etc…) are all well beyond this limit.
If we’re going to save our anadromous fish for future generations, it is imperative that we curtail, and in some cases entirely terminate our hatchery programs. Year by year they are whittling down our fisheries until there is nothing left. We’ve seen what has happened to our wild fish on the Clackamas, Sandy, Washougal, Wind, Siletz, Salmon, etc… Let’s band together and save what’s still worth fighting for on the Oregon Coast.
If you’re feeling generous this holiday season and want to help with these ambitions, go join the Native Fish Society - the only fish conservation organization devoted entirely to taking on the ODFW and WDFW in the fight to scale back these damaging hatchery programs.
I watched the NOAA flow predictions all week while working from downtown San Francisco, hoping for some fishing time on the approaching weekend. The situation looked bleak - the Sandy and Clack out of the question and the Tillamook rivers predicted to come close to flood stage. As the week went on, the predictions showed a window of opportunity on Saturday morning, and Nick and I took it.
We headed to one of Tillamook County’s smallest rivers with Chinook and Coho on the mind, knowing there’d be a shot at Steelhead as well. No hatchery steelhead program since 1994 means the early returning winter fish have now had 4 generations to recoop, and I always have more confidence when I’m not casting over a bunch of hatchery misfits.
Neither of us had fished this stream before, so it was as much a scouting mission as anything else. We found some nice salmon holes and some nice steelhead runs, spotted a number of Coho and Chinook but didn’t have any grabs. The stream itself had mile after mile of log jams, excellent looking spawning habitat, and the banks were littered with salmon carcasses. A very nice watershed - it’s no wonder that redd counts are consistently so high.
The rain had been incessant all morning, but shortly after noon it really started coming down hard. We decided to head south to another river and by the time we reached it a serious monsoon was under way. I made my way across the Little South Fork of the river, which was already fairly brown. Normally this tributary is gin clear, so there must’ve been a slide upstream recently. I fished back down towards the fork for about 20 minutes, by which point it was turning to chocolate milk and was no longer crossable unless I wanted to risk a dunk. I was able to hike up and around, and we fished for another 30 minutes until the entire river downstream of the muddy fork had gone out.
Upstream was no better and the further up we drove the worse things got, so we decided to call it a day. We stopped off at another highly productive spawning tributary of the Wilson on our way home to count carcasses for a few minutes, but that was short lived. The Wilson was coming up 1,000cfs an hour at this point, and said trib was toast - well over it’s banks with about 1” of visibility.
It’s nice to be back out on the coast after a solid Fall east of the Cascades. The fishing is only going to improve from here on out, and it’s only a matter of time before the first big shouldered native of the season tugs at my fly.
It’s by no means a done deal, but three community groups that have been evaluating the creation of marine reserves at the behest of the Oregon Legislature have recommended that the reserves be created. The ODFW will consult with the Ocean Policy Advisory Council in December, and hopefully Oregon’s first marine reserves will go into effect next year, joining similar reserves already established in California and Washington.
The sites of the three reserves are Cape Perpetua near Florence, Cascade Head near Lincoln City, and Cape Falcon south of Cannon Beach.
There should be another period for public comments, and I’ll post more info when I have it.
