Sunset Bay/Coos Bay area report

My wife had the week off from both work and grad school, so we made plans to do some kayaking and vacationing this week.  Was originally planning on Hood Canal, but the heat in Portland over the weekend drove us to the Oregon Coast... more specifically, Coos Bay.

We towed our semi-restored 1964 travel trailer over and stayed at Bastendorf Beach county park just outside of Charleston.   Nice enough place.  On the upside, has a cliff side viewing area with great views of the Coos Bay jetties (and the surfers on Bastendorf Beach), along with showers and a fish cleaning station, at reasonable rates ($20 bucks a night).  It is first come, first served with no reservations for tents or trailers (though they do have some small cabins for $30 a night).  Downsides were the crowds this week (to be expected), and packs of roving pre-teens chasing along behind a handful of teenagers, rampaging through the campground on bikes, skateboards, roller-blades, etc... Sunset Bay State Park is just around the corner but was all booked up.

We spent two days fishing and kayak on Sunset Bay, and a third day poking around the town of Charleston.  Sunsent Bay is really a kayaker's paradise, with a great sandy beach for launching and landing (and a spot to drive down and launch before parking your vehicle in the lot).  The bay itself is almost completely sheltered from the Pacific swells, making it easy to launch with no drama.  Some nice looking reef areas on the right and left side of the bay, along with nice kelp beds (I managed one greenling off the edge of one of these beds without really having much of an idea what I was doing).

A little further out, a series of rock reefs block the pacific swells from hitting the bay with full force.  At high tide, these reefs form some interesting boilers, at low tied they become rocky islands with big swells spilling over them.  I had my dog in the back of my kayak, and my sea-sickness prone wife (who was in her new OK Prowler 13 for the first time), so we did not venture out too far into the Pacific, but the transition is pretty painless.  Off to the right is an island that is protected as a nesting bird sanctuary, with some great wildlife viewing.  Could also see a lighthouse a little ways off to the north.

I wasn't really expecting to spend a lot of time at the Bay, and actually had my freshwater bass fishing gear with me.  My one greenling came on a twin curly tail jig, in a sparkly chartreuse color. 

I also brought along our "Coil Away" folding crab rings, and tried them at various locations near the mouth of the bay (baited with rockfish carcasses).  These things work great!  As long as you are fast on the pull, the crabs get securely tangled in the netting.  We brought up mostly undersized bugs, but manage 5 keepers over two days in about 4 or 5 pulls (pulling checking them every hour.)  Another plug here for the OK Big Game -- it was rock stable pulling up crab rings filled with 10-20#'s of angry crabs, with a 45 pound dog in the back, in 2 foot swells.  Teamed with my wife to do this at first (she carried the crab bucket in the back of her boat, and the rings when they were not in use).  Things would have gone better still had I not tried to get fancy with one of the pots and attach it to the float line with a brass clip and swivel (swivel came open as I was unloading crabs, and the ring was lost to Davey Jones when I tried to deploy it again... DOH!)

Biggest surprise was running into 4 other kayak fishers over the course of two days.  Ran into a gentleman from Florence in a bright green Cobra fish and dive on day one (he was coming in as we were launching, and had a couple nice fish he'd caught outside the bay).  Later, while loading our boats, we ran into a local who asked how the fishing had been, seems he was debating running home and getting his boat.  On day 2, we ran into one of the Coos Bay Roy's and his daughter as we were launching (they arrived as we were unloading our boats, and were out fishing before we were in our boats!)  Roy has a sweet OK Trident, and the two of the handled the big swells on Thursday with confidence.  Later got to sit along side Roy's Trident on the swells just inside the bay and chat about fishing for quite a while.

Then as I was coming in for the day, my wife (who had been hanging out in our Jeep with the dog, shaking off sea sickness) told me there was a guy in the parking lot asking if she was Threeweight's wife.  Turns out Roy #2 (Hobie pilot and lingcod king) came by with his dogs.  Had a great chat as I was breaking down my gear and loading my boat, and got some great tips.  Roy graciously extended an invite to join him and one of his buddies this morning, but my wife and I were both suffering from sore backs due to a crappy mattress in our trailer, and she has a family gathering in Seattle on Sunday).  I was tempted, but we ended up driving back to Portland today.

Didn't paddle the South Slough, but it looked like a great place to do some exploring (and some perch fishing and clamming).  Might also be worth considering Sunset Bay for some off-shore salmon fishing, if a season opens up.

It's about 4 1/2 hours from Portland to Coos Bay, so this isn't a weekend overnight kind of trip.  But if you've got a three day weekend or longer, this is a great area to explore by kayak. 

Few photos below:

Great Report!

Glad to hear about you using that coiled crab ring. I saw some in Pacific City and thought they'd be perfect for the kayak. They have got to be easier than my folding Danielson's. But a lap full of crabs, the dog, and the swell sound like a bit much! Seems like you managed pretty well though.

It was nice meeting you and your wife Steve, wish i would have known you were there earlier, could have showed you some of the good spots. Funny thing was i fished wednesday and thursday mornings but we didn't cross paths until thursday afternoon after royg called me and said he met you down there.

You did manage to do something i haven't been able to do there, catch a fish  on chartreuse.

you didn't miss anything friday morning, the wind kicked up so we didn't go out. Hope to get to fish with ya soon, though.

oh yea, just for an FYI, the limits are going down to 5 fish total on monday, not sure if thats for the whole coast but it is for here, bummer!! gonna have to be more selective now

Our diversion from the Olympic Penn down to the OR coast was kind of a last minute thing... I was actually planning on fishing Tahkenatch Lake, but Sunset Bay was just too close.  My wife isn't too enthused about fishing (but oddly was happy with crabbing, as long as I handled the critters).  I'm going to try and plan another trip down that way this summer.