Siuslaw bar/ocean salmon outing- Thursday Aug.8

I'm planning to launch at the small bay by the South Jetty Crabbing Dock about 6am (doesn't require big beach wheels), we will most likely head over the bar, dropping our crab pots, and then search for salmon. 

smooth ocean, light winds and a soft 5' high tide about 7am, gently outgoing to a soft 2' low tide about 12:30pm, about as good as it's every going to get.

Anybody here in the central coast area interested in also heading out and sharing intel, I always monitor ch69.  I'll be checking with some of my local PB contacts to try and get a report on how fishing at and over the bar has been going this week.     

cheers, roger   

Pepper coming, too?

Pepper coming, too?

affirmative. 

Cool!

Pepper and I came so close to ticking 'ocean chinook' off of our AOPL list, more on that below.  The "2+1 foot" swell forecast was right on, smooth rounded swells going over the bar at 6am, no wind, 54F water. 


Salmon are really just showing up in the "Siuslaw Bubble", a few poking their noses into the river, but overall it's been fairly slow fishing here, the PB chatter had the few boats out there heading for 200'.  I hit a crud line at 150' and temp jumped to 58', worked that for a while and had a herring stripped off by something, then beat feet deeper, dropped a herring at 175' and hooked up a few minutes later, great fight with a hot 10-12# chinook that I had right to the kayak 3 times, almost in the net the third time, it was pulling the Outback around good, took one more short run and turned to run right back towards us and...curse those barbless hooks!

Pepper's opinion of me losing our nook-  bleah!


Trolled the hell out of the area at 175' but no more take-downs, picked up my crab pots on the way in at noon (6 big semi-soft keepers).  2 gray whales feeding just outside the river mouth and several pairs of harbor porpoises followed up around out there most of the time.



Great recon trip for me, 7 hours on the water, 6 of those outside the bar, now that I have a better feel for the "Siuslaw Bubble",  I am hoping we have some relatively smooth days during the "Any Coho" season, that is right when our main chinook run is entering the river and loads of coho showing up outside the mouth.  I feel like 4' swells is about the limit for the Siuslaw bar (me solo with no crab pots) and not on a day that conditions are getting worse, although the South Jetty beach does provide a sheltered alternative landing point if the bar gets too rough, it is about 1/4 mile walk from there to my launch point by the crabbing dock.   cheers, roger

Nice report!