Depoe Bay Salmon Reports - 2019

Sunday, 7/7/2019

Met Nomas at the ramp at 0530 this morning. We hit fish early around 80 FOW, just west of the reef. For the first 1.5 hours of the morning, the fishing was pretty good. Several bites from 80 to 100 FOW. Unfortunately, I hooked up on a hot Coho who broke off my only watermelon Brad's in the first two minutes of fishing. I still got bites on a Blackjack pattern Brad's, but my confidence was really in that watermelon color after Saturday.

My first landed fish was a hatchery coho. Nomas got a solid Chinook and a hatchery coho before 0800. Good thing you kept that Coho dude, because after 0800, the bite DIED. For the next three hours, I trolled everywhere from 80 to 170 FOW looking for biters. Finally came onto a bite at the 130 foot contour around 1130, for three takedowns and one hatchery coho landed. Only landed two fish today, but at least they were keepers! I think the bright sun and relatively clear water really hampered the bite later in the morning. Water temps were hitting 60 by the time I left.

No rips or color lines this weekend. Probably due to the lack of north winds to promote upwelling. Fish are relatively scattered, but it seems like there's enough of them out there that you can just cover ground and you'll eventually find some.

right on, thanks for the extra intel.   

nice of the ORC participants to leave a few salmon out there for us Sunday slackers, this nice coho came home with me:



this one did not because, well, barbless hooks...

That's a great photo!   How deep of water were you in?

That looks like a bathtub, Roger! Must have been nice.

That's a great photo!   How deep of water were you in?

thanks, I totally forgot, all 6 of my takedowns were between 110 and 130 feet.  also, I did not lose any nuts!   

Great day fishing out of Depoe Bay today.  It was about as good as ocean conditions get.  Swede and I limited by 7:45am.

I wanted to thank everyone who contributed to this thread to inspire me to give it a try.  This week was my first ocean caught salmon from the kayak. We limited all three mornings we went salmon fishing.  It was also great to see all the salmon caught during ORC.

Great job on all the salmon catching!!

I made it to the ORC but focused on salmon.  I did well getting 3 limits in 3 days.  Was hoping for a chinook but there is always next time.  I had success using pro troll and anchovies.

Great day fishing out of Depoe Bay today.  It was about as good as ocean conditions get.  Swede and I limited by 7:45am.

Nicely done!  I presume a fly rod was involved at some point?

Nicely done!  I presume a fly rod was involved at some point?

One of the days I did try the fly rod for my second fish, but it just happened to be the same time the bite shut off for everyone for a couple hours.  No luck on the fly.  Maybe next time.  It is a perfect fishery for it though.  The salmon are feeding close to the surface.

Here are some salmon pictures from the days before ORC.  The last picture documents the exact moment that a salmon escaped. Memo to self: don't grab the leader when pulling a salmon towards the net.

I'm stoked to see all these chromers! Looks like the OSIG prediction from last spring calling for a ton of hatchery coho is bearing fruit  . I landed a limit of hatchery 'hos on Friday. Intentionally left my salmon gear at home on Saturday so I wouldn't be tempted to ditch the rockfish...you guys catching salmon on the radio that morning were torture  .

Here are some salmon pictures from the days before ORC.  The last picture documents the exact moment that a salmon escaped. Memo to self: don't grab the leader when pulling a salmon towards the net.

My general rule of thumb on kayak is to keep my gear train under six feet in length, to avoid situations like this. When it exceeds six feet, it can be a real PITA trying to land those feisty buggers by yourself.

Great day fishing out of Depoe Bay today.  It was about as good as ocean conditions get.  Swede and I limited by 7:45am.

I wanted to thank everyone who contributed to this thread to inspire me to give it a try.  This week was my first ocean caught salmon from the kayak. We limited all three mornings we went salmon fishing.  It was also great to see all the salmon caught during ORC.

Nice!  Similar story for me - finally landed some ocean salmon from the kayak last week at PC - wild fish that had to go back.  Learned some lessons with that trip, and used ORC to tag some fantastic coho!  Almost seemed too easy, with limits by 8:30 on Fri and 6:50 on Sat - unfortunately reality set in with a nice 6am fish Sunday, followed by hours of nothing!     What a weekend!




With all of the excitement around coho, one of our tournament coordinators was able to find this beauty of a chinook on tournament morning:



-Sam

Word down on the docks is that with the hot bite the central coast Coho quota is projected to be filled around the 2nd week of August.