2022 Newport / Yaquina herring thread

I'm going Sunday.
Not bringing crab traps based on my luck last time and the rain we've had/are going to have.
A poster on Ifish said they were in thick today, but that's internet too.
See you there.

where are you going to launch at what time. True on the massive fresh water in the bay. May drop a pot or two just for grins

I am in a Old Town AP 120 Blue/Black. Grey F150

Aka Bob

8 am sounds good

Thanks. May be closer to nine, picking up my son in Lebanon. You won’t be hard to find

Your strapping for the WS cart got me thinking. Love to show you my version. This will be the first go. Beach wheels I assume?

Look forward to it, now I just need to figure out my chilling/storing procedure.

Reading through this thread has been fun, and I might see y'all out there if anyone is planning to fish Saturday. 

A question - are there herring in all the bays up and down the coast, or is this a purely Yaquina Bay run? It would seem odd to me that Yaquina would be the only run, and I don't think one bay in Oregon could sustain all of the spawning needed to supply the ocean with herring, but I haven't heard of anyone talking about other bays. Thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge!

--Steve

I'm fairly new to Oregon, so am not an expert by any means, but I know I saw big balls of them off Depoe bay last year. They might have been making their way to Newport...

It's likely that most of the Oregon bays host some kind of herring spawn. I've heard of it happening in Florence/Siuslaw River some years. But those runs don't seem to be as large or as consistent as the ones in Yaquina Bay, Crescent City, San Francisco, etc. Juvenile herring require certain growing conditions in the first few months of their lives, and places like Yaquina Bay seem to have the right ingredients to consistently produce juvenile herring. There was a time where commercials were allowed to seine spawner herring from Yaquina Bay, and when that was happening, the runs plummeted for several years.

I don't know if herring have high site fidelity, but tagging studies show that herring of the same school tend to stick together for their entire lives. That would indicate to me that they do have high site fidelity, with the adults returning to spawn where they were born.

Not an expert by any means but they use to return in pretty decent numbers to Winchester Bay but from what I have heard is that the run isn't as substantial or as consistent as it used to be. When I was a kid like 12-14ish years old (I'm 32 now) we used to jig for them off the crabbing docks and did pretty well in the harbors but I haven't seen people doing that for a long time, maybe I'm not down there at the right times. My grandpa was guiding down there during that time and he would use the herring we caught as bait.

Look forward to it, now I just need to figure out my chilling/storing procedure.

I like to add a box of rock salt to the ice in my catch bag. It turns into a very cold slurry and salt really helps to keep the herring firm when being used for bait. Sometimes I’ll add a little table salt during the packaging process also, because soft bait sucks.

Ohh brine slurry! Maybe feed them dye and scent 😄
I just meant I have to figure out where to put the slurry bucket and cooler et al.

Ohh brine slurry! Maybe feed them dye and scent 😄
I just meant I have to figure out where to put the slurry bucket and cooler et al.

Just trying to help. I’ve seen plenty of people harvest them without chilling well enough or salting them and end up with soft bait

I'm sorry, and thanks for the help.
I wasn't making fun of you I was making fun of me.
I'm a bit of a smartalic and it doesn't come across in text. I'm at that age that I've forgotten more than I remember but we jigged herring when I was a kid and when I tell people about doing it they always look at you funny and ask "do you eat them?" and I always tell them
"no, they magically turn into salmon and lingcod and halibut" Then they REALLY look at you funny. 😁

All good. Hope you guys whack them. I would head over on Sunday too, but I am running out of freezer space

Weather was great most of the day.

Got on the water about 10, and had quite a slow start, with only one herring in the boat for the first hour or so.

The bite picked up considerably, as the day went on. Not an overwhelming amount of boats, and close to half were kayaks. Everyone was pretty friendly and accomodating.

Thanks to BeerRun for letting me borrow a sabiki, after I busted off half of the only one I brought, early on.

Thanks to WetNet for the use of his wheels when I landed. Version 2.0 of my homemade beach wheels failed pretty bad launching.

I ended the day with 50 herring, (about 10 of which were big guys), and three lil rock crabs in my single trap.

It wasn't an amazing day, but was fun and productive enough to be worth while. I enjoyed everyone's company, and hope to see y'all out on the water again soon!