Report: Florence Troutfest (Early May)

Better late than never, but a short while back I took a buddy down to Florence to cash in on some of the heavy trout planting they were doing down there. It was my first road trip with my Subaru Forester, which has been one heck of an improvement over the Hyundai Elantra I had previously. The Thule Hullivator Pro I picked up largely due to advice here has also been a game changer.

Our plan was to check out three lakes over the course of a few days, but we ended up staying at Munsel. It's surrounded by private (apparently vacation) homes and has very little public bank access, so it makes for a great spring lake for catching pellet heads by kayak.

First day took us about two hours to limit out on 11-12"ers. Second day took me an hour to find where they had went. Then over period of 20 minutes we caught one on every cast to our limit. It felt like cheating--like fishing at the hatchery or someone's aquarium. Having only one pair of forceps between us also made it comical, as passing those back in forth was slowing us down. Ending on a high note, the last fish was a "trophy", which my buddy had a blast bringing in.

I was amazed to see that a few of our fish had what appeared to be bass marks on them. I recall an old-timer mentioning you had to race the bass for your catch when we headed over there, but I thought he was joking. Turns out he wasn't, haha. Talk about a bad day for the fish.

Sounded like a great trip.  Now it's time to fire up the smoker!

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excellent, I love Munsel lake, in addition to being deep and getting lots of trout plantings Feb-May (trout are gone by mid-June), it usually has nesting Osprey and Bald Eagles, and it is a great place test out new or modified kayaks and also to practice self-recovery.

putting on my Florence STEP hat, anyone fishing Munsel should be aware that there are no kokanee in the lake but there can be shiny silver coho smolts, in the 7" to 12" range, both clipped and unclipped, and they must be released. 

But the easter egg at Munsel is this- the egg-to-fry program we run here in the Florence area (tanks with chillers in ~30 elementary classrooms, about a 100 Siuslaw steelhead eggs in each..) ends in early May with each kid getting to release a few of the fry at the boat launch.  Each year in Jan-March, some of these steelhead make it back to the lake as cookie cutter ~24" fish and they are totally legal to retain, once they reach the lake they are considered >20" rainbows under the regs. (1 per day as part of your trout limit).   I saw one caught near the boat launch (go figure..), and 2 years ago saw one in the water swimming by the dock.  We get some every year in our STEP coho trap on Munsel creek and pass them through.  I have not caught one yet but always try just before they start dumping in the pellet heads...

cheers, roger   

Thanks for the heads-up Rodger. Sounds like some amazing programs. Did a little digging and found ODW's article on the how/why of their program:

     http://www.dfw.state.or.us/fish/HGMP/docs/2016/Munsel_Creek_STEP_Coho_Salmon_HGMP_6-20-16_to_NMFS.pdf

Looks like on average the coho are expected to hang around in there until they're 10-12cm (3.9-4.7") before trying to head to the salt, looking something like this. Very cool!

Thanks for the heads-up Rodger. Sounds like some amazing programs. Did a little digging and found ODW's article on the how/why of their program:

     http://www.dfw.state.or.us/fish/HGMP/docs/2016/Munsel_Creek_STEP_Coho_Salmon_HGMP_6-20-16_to_NMFS.pdf

Looks like on average the coho are expected to hang around in there until they're 10-12cm (3.9-4.7") before trying to head to the salt, looking something like this. Very cool!

Munsel creek is so small and full of debris, some years they can't get out to the ocean as planned, a few summers ago Munsel was loaded with 8-9" coho by July and you would hear people at the launch.."I didn't know there were kokanee in this lake.."...   About 5 years ago, when we were new here, I caught a 19" coho hen in Munsel that had just never found her way to the ocean, still had her forked tail and kokanee silver color.  Some years, when the creek flows are just right, we get some adult back that spawn in Ackerley creek, that is how unclipped coho can get in there.  We didn't get to plant any coho this year, no adults made it into our trap last fall...

I don't mean to hijack your thread but I spent the night in Florence about 10 days ago on the way down to San Francisco and I think I sounded like a broken record, "we have to bring the trailer down here and spend some time!" You folks live in a lovely spot.
T2