Fogharty Creek State Park

Has anyone tried this spot out? This was on Thurs. when the surf was at about 8.5, not really any wind, and I would say around half way between high and low tide. I stopped and took some pics on the way home from fishing DPB with INSAYN. The surf breaks right on the beach and there's a channel that leads right out between two pretty big breaks from some reefs. I was even tempted to run back to my truck and grab a rod and cast out from the surf since there is a nice patch of bull kelp about ten to twenty yards off the shore that probably has some nice perch in it. Bottom must drop off pretty quick here because of the breaks right on the shore and the kelp just beyond the surf.
From the parking lot, there are paved trails leading under the 101 bridge to the beach, piece of cake with a set of wheels. The sand is pretty soft, but not too wide so if one didn't have any sand-friendly wheels, it would be about a 50 yard drag to the surf.







If you didn't have any wheels, you could just put in in the creek and ride down to the beach, hop out, portage, and launch! 


Here's a layout of the area so you can get an idea of where the pictures are...

Yaknitup: I've never fished the area, but geez, thanks for the awesome photo and overhead documentation.

Nice job! What do you mean that the surf was at 8.5?

Hmmm ... nice spot for a 3 mile one way, downhill run to Depoe?  That sounds like fun!!!

-Allen

Nice job! What do you mean that the surf was at 8.5?

That's what all the reports said for that day and I agreed with them. I posted other pics from that day in the "Newport 25-29" thread. If this is what it looks like on a day like that, then I'm game!

Yeah, cause those swell look more like 3 to 5 max. Nice looking spot.

I fish here occasionally for perch from the beach.  Mussels ripped from their holdfasts litter the beach and make for good bait.  This location reminds me of Monastery Beach south of Carmel and north of Pt. Lobos in CA for it's violent wave action and for stripping newby SCUBA divers of their gear (which I would recover and sell back to them).

The area to the north of the rocks (designated in the yellow border) in the photo, if I were in my driftboat, would be classified a rock garden and this is evident on a minus tide.  There is substantial kelp beyond that leading me to believe there would be good holding for rockfish.  If I were launching I'd be going off the extreme north section of the beach as it wouldn't be as rough, but it too is shelfy.

The Surftides restaurant, located on the north headland overlooking the beach, is a great place to have breakfast/lunch and get a good picture of the tidal action.  Each year the Coasties pull dumba$$es off the rock when they are stranded by incoming tides.

I fish here occasionally for perch from the beach.  Mussels ripped from their holdfasts litter the beach and make for good bait.  This location reminds me of Monastery Beach south of Carmel and north of Pt. Lobos in CA for it's violent wave action and for stripping newby SCUBA divers of their gear (which I would recover and sell back to them).

Did you happen to find a yellow handled dive knife?  How about a divers game bag with a couple rockfish in it?  Mask/snorkel set?  Weightbelt?  Those are a few of the donations that I can recall off the top of my head that we've made at Monastery.  And we're no newbies, well I suppose some of them were.  Actually I only recall personally losing a dive knife.  The mask/snorkel/weightbelt was a newbie that got pounded when heading out.  His day was over in a hurry.

-Allen

I'm thinking about trying this spot out tomorrow morning while the lady and I do a little overnight trip to the coast. I'll post some info if I'm able to wet the paddle.

Good luck.  Hope camping is fun too.

Looks like a rip off the creek, that's why there's no surf there, with sandbars on either side. I'd bet you'd get some pretty good waves over those sandbars on the right direction swell.
I"d be careful in that rip on a tide swing, check the direction of swell via offshore buoys to make sure they aren't coming directly the way that beach faces.

Ron: I'm new at this. How do you spot the rip?

Ron: I'm new at this. How do you spot the rip?

I think the process Ron used is an intuitive one that comes from decades of surfing.  It's the same thing I saw when I looked at the overview and confirmed when looking at the head-on's.

The ocean current is predominantly North to South.  In the overhead, you can see where a long-shore channel is cut between the rocks and the beach (This is where all the water pushing over the rocks returns to the source).  That channel changes direction just before the big rocks where the creek enters the ocean.  All that water heading out errodes the sand, forming a consistant rip flanked by variable sandbars. 

On open beaches, rips will move around as wave action builds up and eats away at sandbars.  On beaches with rock features or headlands, the rips tend to stay fairly consistant and will generally follow a rock edge.

One drawback to launching in these types of areas is that the swell comes in thru deeper water with little direct resistance and tends to stand up just before unloading on the beach.

So I wasn't able to try the spot out on Friday, we arrived a little late and by then the wind was kicking pretty hard so I settled for a good long look. Again, it looked like a spot I'm dying to try out despite the reported six to seven foot swells for the Depoe Bay area. I didn't see any strong currents in the area I had originally indicated for a launch route, but I'll still just have to check it out a few more times and actually try it out a few times to be sure I guess. If it had not been for the wind, it would have been an easy launch for sure. On the immediate north side of that rock in the middle of the beach, or on the north side of the beach as FishSniffer mentioned would be cake as a launch spot since the shore break isn't as bad in those spots, but even a launch right into the shore break in the middle of the beach would have been do-able when I saw it. So I'm still sitting here, staring at it on Google Earth, itching to get back there and actually try it.