Port Orford 8/28

Came up to to Port Orford for a week of vacation and brought the Outback. Headed for the beach about 8:00 am and met Tinker who gave me some advice on where to fish. Started fishing in the cove just west of the harbor and picked up two keeper lings and one black rockfish. Fished around Nellies cove and then out to Tichenor Rock where I picked up three more nice blacks. Done by noon. Saw three guys at the cleaning table with 30 tuna and they traded me some tuna for a lingcod. Score!!! Going to give it another try tomorrow.
Keith

Job well done on the tuna. Me and tinker will be back out there as well tomorrow as well. Can't pass these conditions up in the ocean and with the fish biting so well.

Gotta feed the wife too ya know.

Left the beach around 8:15 this morning and headed out to the west side of Tichenor Rock. Picked up "dinner" again in the form of seven nice blacks. Gave it a half hearted attempt at the lings as I was feeling a little sea sick from the swell. Decided I was happy with the rock fish and called it quits. Back at the beach around 11:00.

Isn't there a sub bag limit of 6 black rockfish out of the 7 total?

Where is that listed in the regs? According to the marine zone chart on page 81 "seven fish in aggregate, of which only one may be a cabezon, only one may be a canary rockfish, and no more than three may be blue rockfish." Was there an in season change?

Over the years, I've helped other NWKA members who come to Port Orford find fish.  I'm grateful to those folks for not pinpointing where they fished and what they caught.

Port Orford is a marine ecosystem struggling to recover from desertification caused by decades of commercial overfishing and the damage dome when the new dock was built.  To their credit, the commercial fleet were key in establishing the Redfish Rocks Marine Reserve and Marine Protected Area established and instrumental in bringing OSU researchers to town in a permanent ocean research facility.  Every day, a team of research associates take water samples from the Redfish Rocks to the headland coves, measuring zooplankton and monitoring the ecosystem's health.

In 2017, after more than a decade, the kelp beds are finally looking healthy and the zooplankton counts suggest the area is starting to recover.

There are fish to be caught here, but they aren't abundant, and even sports fishing can stress the ecosystem if it creates too much pressure on the resource.  Those of us who live here are only asking that folks understand the area and how fragile the recovery is - and will remain - for many years.

And for pity's sake, when you ask me where to fish in these little coves, don't publish those locations and the kinds of fish you caught in each little cove!  It took me years to learn how to fish in Port Orford and now it's public knowledge.  Criminy! 

Tichenor Rock and Hell's Gate

From Cape Blanco to Humbug Mountain, the exposed coast one of the more treacherous areas in Southern Oregon.  If you take the hiking trails along the bluffs of the Port Orford Headlands State Park you can peer down and see that the waves are constant, usually several times taller than the open water, and the currents are strong and unpredictable.

There are no more than a half dozen of us who live here who ever go out to fish beyond Tichenor Rock and Hell's Gate and we never, ever go alone.  If you visit Port Orford, fish inside the rock, not to the ocean side, and even then, don't go alone.  Outside the Rock and the Gate, things can go from darned treacherous to life-threatening in a heartbeat, not just for the victim but equally so for the rescuers.

     It looks like I owe you an appology Tinker. I apperantly was not thinking and am sincerly sorry. I didn't think my posts were specific enough to give away any secret information.
     Skirting around the south end of Tichenor rock and avoiding the shallows also seemed safe. Apperantly I was wrong there too.
Keith

Where is that listed in the regs? According to the marine zone chart on page 81 "seven fish in aggregate, of which only one may be a cabezon, only one may be a canary rockfish, and no more than three may be blue rockfish." Was there an in season change?

You have an old book.

2017 sublimits:

6 blacks
4 in combination of blue/deacon, china, copper, quillback
1 cabezon

There is no sublimit on canaries.

Looks like you got a 2016 book.

     It looks like I owe you an appology Tinker. I apperantly was not thinking and am sincerly sorry. I didn't think my posts were specific enough to give away any secret information.
     Skirting around the south end of Tichenor rock and avoiding the shallows also seemed safe. Apperantly I was wrong there too.
Keith

There is a huge break right there that can come up out of nowhere.  Give it a very wide berth.

Tinker got upset with danr and I after we met him on the beach on Easter Sunday this year and I put our report on facebook.  It certainly felt like a Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde experience. 

The regulation book I'm reading says 2017 on the cover. Picked it up on Sunday at Walmart in Bandon. I'm not arguing with you just confused. Maybe it's just safer to stay on the beach and watch.

The regulation book I'm reading says 2017 on the cover. Picked it up on Sunday at Walmart in Bandon. I'm not arguing with you just confused. Maybe it's just safer to stay on the beach and watch.

NWKA has a long history of bitching about this very problem.  Some folks louder than others.

I don't consider it bitching to point out obvious POACHING when more than a legal limit is taken!

Pretty easy to find online the limits and allowable species in the marine zone. It changed for 2017 but not an in season change.  To be a responsible fisherman, you should follow the laws and the limits.

I don't consider it bitching to point out obvious POACHING when more than a legal limit is taken!

Pretty easy to find online the limits and allowable species in the marine zone. It changed for 2017 but not an in season change.  To be a responsible fisherman, you should follow the laws and the limits.

Whoa.  Not you.  Bitching about printed regs being out of date and still out on the shelf, which happens All.The.Time.  Nothing wrong with calling out violations of the regs.  I guess I wasn't clear.