Pacific City Saturday 06/29?

Any reports from anyone who did well on Salmon today? Sounds like they may still be in close-ish

The guy I was fishing with caught a native coho (released) just behind the rock in 88FOW, but it seems like it was a stray because there were no others to be found.

Regarding the beach: Yeah, what everyone is saying is true. I've never seen that many dory rigs get stuck before. Coming or going at high tide is a bad idea because there's no hard sand left.

The outside was a desert of warm, clear water. I had one coho hookup out around 110 ft but it was small and got off near the kayak. Lots of mackerel outside, I caught one about two feet long. My new personal best! Thought it was a chinook the way it hit and dove.

I covered a lot of ground on the outside and way north, only to find the good water was right around the rock. Landed and released a big, beautiful native just south of the rock on my way in with not enough time to find more.

Beach was a cluster. Had a Dory rig park right behind me so I got stuck trying to maneuver around and back to what little hard sand there was. Dug myself out with my new handy Gerber folding shovel.

Beautiful weather!!

Do you guys not carry an air compressor with you to air back up?  You do air down, right?
If you air down your tires on (non-low profile tires), you literally float on top of the sand.

Here is a trick I learned years ago for airing down to travel over soft dry sand. 
While still on the hardpack, measure how many inches your rim is above the ground. Now reduce this distance by 25%.  Say your rim is 6" off the ground.  Lower the rim 1.5" closer to the ground. By dropping your rim closer to the ground by this 25%, you effectively increase your footprint by 200% due to tire contact spread.  You can do this at home as well while loaded up just like you would normally for a PC launch.  Take note of the actual tire pressures for each tire.  Each tire may read differently due to the weight distribution of the vehicle, the contact patch per tire will be the same. 

If you make it out on the sand in the morning and then it dries out and gets really soft in the afternoon, you will know what pressure to drop each tire down to, for the 200% increase in the contact patch as you will have a hard time using the measurement trick without a hard surface below the tire.

If you don't have a compressor with you, there is always the option to drive 25mph the ~1.5 miles to the Shell Station in Pacific City to air back up.

You can see the air station in the link below, then scroll out and see where this station is relative to Cape Kiwanda. Drive slow and you'll be fine. No hard turns or abrupt braking.

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.2018388,-123.961285,3a,22.7y,24.07h,84.69t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1se3GyzQ0T9pD4UIwNpZOKLw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

I air down when needed and it does help a lot - a good thing to have in your mental toolcase for driving on sand.

I absolutely used to air down the first few years I fished PC and used that Shell station to fill back up several times. I don't do it anymore because 1) I got pretty darn good at driving my 2WD pickup on the sand but now drive an AWD vehicle instead and 2) airing down and filling back up takes way too long. I always carry an air compressor with me and now, the collapsible shovel mentioned previously. The new rig does very well on soft sand and the shovel got me out quickly. (The push by onefish helped too, thanks buddy!)

I got stuck coming up Saturday, but it was just my kayak cart with no beach wheels. A nice tourist lifted while pulled.  It probably didn't help having the extra weight of  salmon on board.

I got stuck coming up Saturday, but it was just my kayak cart with no beach wheels. A nice tourist lifted while pulled.  It probably didn't help having the extra weight of  salmon on board.

The king of the humble brag!!!  Bravo!!!   

Parking was bad. I got there at 6.30 am and there were simply no spots left on the beach. I had never seen that many dory trailers at PC (and there were also quite a few kayak anglers out there). I unloaded my kayak and stuff on the beach and then parked at the parking lot. When i got off the water (11.30) it was a total zoo on the beach. High tide and only a very small strip of wet sand to safely drive on. Many dory boats coming in at the same time in combination with tourist foot traffic (that totally ignored all warnings to stay away from the drive paths) and the high tide caused quite some chaos. The pickup + dory trailer that was driving ahead of me when driving off the beach got stuck DEEP in the sand and it was going to take a while before he could get pulled out.. After taking a closer look at the sand i decided to take the risk and go around him. That worked out well and i didn't get stuck (although again food traffic had me slow down at the iffiest section).

And this is why I hate Pacific City.... but will still be fishing it all next week....

-Mark-

I was out there from 4:30AM - 3PM. The bottom fishing was on fire - threw back more rockfish than I could count. Weather was awesome, too!
https://youtu.be/1D-XYcYq-Ns

The bottom fishing was on fire - threw back more rockfish than I could count.

Sounds like you were one of the few who had good action on the rockfish - good job. I picked up a few Saturday but it was slow and they were small. I got blanked on Sunday.