New Siuslaw kayak launch

Great news for anyone that wants to hit the Siuslaw in a small boat and avoid the big boat launch. The new small city park (no fee) just below the 101 bridge allows people to launch kayaks/canoes/whatever...they left space in the car gate to carry or wheel a small boat...





and added a gravel trail to the waters edge...



this puts you right in the large wide area along the dunes, what we call the "Bridge Hole", and from here you could ride an incoming tide upstream to the RR bridge. or ride an outgoing tide to the bar, or troll this area down to the rock wall by the landfill that people cast spinners from.

Thanks for the great info and map.  My kind of launch.  Looks like a fishy spot.  Cool thing for the city to build.

I hope next years new waterway access fee will be used to develop similar looking launches across the state.

Thanks Roger! I may be taking advantage of this soon!

Thanks Roger! I may be taking advantage of this soon!

excellent, Pepper and I are heading for it in about an hour to take advantage of a light wind afternoon.   

I'll try to provide some updates on Siuslaw fishing as we get into September...we didn't have a fish counter this year but my intel is that our ocean salmon catch has been decent, more like Newports and less like Winchester or CoosBay.

my observation Friday (6 hours trolling from Rhody wall to 29 marker and back) and Saturday (slow fishing in the ocean for 2 of us, 6 hours trolling out to 200ft., plus it was slow for the PB around us or on the radio), the Siuslaw runs are either small or late...hope I am wrong 

Nice to see you again Roger!

Josh had 2 takedowns. One of them was light like a Jack and I also had 1 half way to the boat. We just couldn't make them stick! Salmon are so frustrating! Nonetheless it was gorgeously flat out there today and an easy bar transit.

Nice to see you again Roger!

Josh had 2 takedowns. One of them was light like a Jack and I also had 1 half way to the boat. We just couldn't make them stick! Salmon are so frustrating! Nonetheless it was gorgeously flat out there today and an easy bar transit.

it was great seeing you guys at the crab dock launch, I was hoping there might be good news from you but not surprised.

over the bar, I decided to shadow the group of perhaps 20 PBs moving out to deeper water, staying just in from them so I could see any hookups or nets flying, plus scanning all the channels and it was a dud for them as well, we got out past 200' (55F water) and the only positive radio chatter seemed to be a couple of boats even further out at perhaps 240' (52F water), the other radio calls sounded like boats with 3 or 4 lines out were scratching to put 1 in the box.  I had one hard whack on a Brad's that missed the hooks and then as we worked our way in, Dave hooked up a good fish at about 50' and was bringing it up as I was swinging around with the GoPro and it broke him off before he got a look at it, almost certainly a knot failure or bad line since it was 40# mono.  That was the only excitement for us, I saw a few harbour porpoises, cleaned off a lot of stringy red jellyfish crap.

I've got lots of video but no fish to show for the last 2 days fishing here close to home (probably should have made the drive to Depoe Bay!)  I think this was my 6th time over the Siuslaw bar on a Hobie, second one with Pepper on the back of the new Outback, here is a short clip of what it was like Saturday under "1 to 3 foot ebb chop" conditions and 2' + 1' ocean swells.  Siuslaw bar can get dangerous quick, I look for the forecast to have light winds and ocean swells of 3' or less.  And I don't want it building much while I'm out there.



this was Pepper's third full day of ocean fishing since late-June, you can see her tail and butt cheeks behind me here during some boring trolling way out off shore.   
 


   

It was definitely an epic trip for me, that was the first time I have been Salmon fishing out of my yak on the big blue. Despite not getting anything my 2 takedowns gave me enough adrenaline to enjoy the day. I had other small hits but not enough to stick.

And yes the jelly fish and red goo fouling up the gear starting to get frustrating.

Rodger nailed it on the tide....riding it out at 6:30 and back in at 12:30 was flawless.