2012 Coho quotas

Very strange season for Coho on the Oregon Coast this fall. The only river to reach their quota was the Alsea. I tried like crazy to catch one in the Siuslaw, and ended up getting my Coho in Siltcoos Lake. Hopefully next year will be more like years past!

http://www.dfw.state.or.us/resources/fishing/coastal_salmon_seasons.asp

This year was really weird and kinda scary.  I caught my wild coho limit for the area I fish (2 in the Nehalem and 1 in Tillamook) for the fall season BUT it was NOTHING like the last few years.  Normally in a good year on a good day trolling Tillamook tidewater its not uncommon to C&R 1-4 wild coho in a day of fishing.  This year I had to work to catch any at all and had no incidental coho hookups while nook fishing (very uncommon when pulling spinners).   

The ocean was fairly slow this summer too and Buoy 10 was mostly nooks with very few hoho's caught. Although I didn't fish the tribs for coho this fall I heard it was a ghost town also..

What the heck happened to entire run of fish??  It was only a few years ago they gave us this opportunity to harvest limited wild fish because there were so many returning??

I C&R'd one wild coho about a mile outside the columbia river.  Uncle in law caught very few this year and he normally catches lots out there.  It was a great year for Chinook out beyond the jetty though.

Sounds grim, gentlemen. You've got me counting my good fortune in the north. The regulatory limits you face, and the limited number of fish available make your successful reports all the more impressive.