January 18th column

[Pete Heley]

There are still decent catches of crabs being made at Winchester Bay. The key is to crab as close to the ocean as is feasible. That means that a dockbound crabber’s first choice should be the Old Coast Guard Pier and boat crabbers should concentrate their efforts on Half Moon Bay. A good example of this occurred last week when a couple of people crabbing out of a boat slightly upriver from the entrance to the East Boat Basin caught lots of crabs, but none large enough to keep. They dropped downriver and in their first two pulls at Half Moon Bay, managed to get their limit of legal crabs. High river flows tend to move the crabs much closer to the ocean and a salinity level to the liking of legal-sized crabs, while cold water temperatures slows their activity level. So far, these two conditions have not yet managed to stop the legal crab catches at Winchester Bay. Ocean crabbing became legal on January 15th along the southern Oregon cost south of Gold Beach.

A decent amount of rain should get another push of steelhead entering the area’s small and mid-sized streams. A few anglers are stillfishing with bait to catch some very nice-sized trout out of Tenmile and Siltcoos lakes. Other winter trout possibilities would include Tahkenitch and Eel lakes. In Siltcoos, Tahkenitch and Tenmile lakes, using a two hook setup with one hook baited with powerbait and the other baited with a piece of nightcrawler should offer anglers a chance at yellow perch and other warmwater fish as well as trout.

The ODFW has not posted their 2012 trout stocking schedule, but a good example of the difference between stocking rates for the central Oregon coast and some smaller Willamette Valley waters is Junction City Pond. This pond of less than two acres is located adjacent to the west side of Highway 99 just south of Junction City and when I drove by it last week there was about 20 cars parked next to it - obviously because it had recently received yet another trout plant. This small pond receives more than 15,000 trout including many large brookstock fish some of which will weigh more than 10 pounds. Because the pond is so small and heavily fished there are no carryovers. Years ago, while attending the University of Oregon, I fished the pond for the very first time back when the trout plants were somewhat less massive and the pond had fair populations of warmwater fish and within minutes while flyfishing a nymph, I landed bluegills, crappies and small largemouth bass as well as trout and even had a brown bullhead catfish, hiding next to a small log that was surrounded by people, hit the fly twice without getting hooked. I still entertain thoughts of fishing the entire shoreline of this small pond after dark with a black buzzbait in the hopes that one or two bass have managed over a several year period to avoid getting caught accidentally by the thousands of trout anglers that fish the pond and have managed to find enough food among the hordes of hungry trout to reach a size where they could start feeding on a few of the smaller trout planted into the pond. I know it’s a longshot, but the thought does intrigue me.

Bassboats will start appearing at Tenmile Lakes in greater numbers as soon as we get some slightly warmer stable weather. These die-hard bass anglers are willing to fish hard for very few and usually very light bites on plastic baits such as jigs and plastic worms in water more than ten feet deep and a main reason that they are willing to do so is that they may just catch their biggest bass of the year. Striped bass are now hanging out in the upper tidewater areas and above on the Smith and Umpqua rivers as well as the North Fork Smith River and a very few anglers willing to fish at night for these magnificent fish catch them all winter long. The fishing will gradually improve as the rivers that hold them slowly warm up and often the most productive fishing is in April and early May before these fish start dropping downstream into the mid-tidewater areas.

As someone who spends a lot of time browsing online fishing sites, I occasionally come across ideas that make a lot of sense. One thing I have noticed is that almost every state does a much better job of keeping track of their state record fish than does Oregon. Oregon does a decent job when it comes to coldwater fish, but they turned over the warmwater fish records to a Portland-area fishing club (Oregon Bass and Panfish Club). The club does keep state records on most of Oregon’s warmwater species, but there are several spots where improvement is warranted. All of Oregon’s bullhead castfish species are lumped into one while most other states have separate records for black, brown and yellow bullheads. Oregon is the only state that has, but does not keep, a state record for carp. Oregon also does not claim record catches from waters shared by Oregon, when the record catch was turned into another state. For instance, Oregon’s record walleye of 19 pounds 15.25 ounces, since it was caught from the Columbia River below John Day Dam, could just as easily be the Washington state record. However, since Washington’s record walleye has gradually increased weight-wise to 19 pounds three ounces, the difference is minimal. Not so, when it comes to Oregon’s flathead catfish record of 42 pounds, because it and the Idaho state record flathead both came from Brownlee Reservoir which is shared by Oregon and Idaho and the Idaho record flathead, caught the same year as the Oregon record, weighed a whopping fifty eight and a half pounds. Additionally, many other states have online printable applications for their state record fish catches and some of these states keep records are for non-game fish species that weigh an ounce or less. Oregon is also the only state bordering saltwater that does not keep track of records for saltwater fish species.

Proof that not all of the giant halibut come from Alaska, or even the Pacific Ocean, is the 485 pound halibut recently posted on GoFish.com. The more than eight foot long jumbo flatfish was caught by a German angler fishing the Atlantic Ocean near the fjords of Norway.

Japanese scientists claim to have figured out why in extremely cold weather the feet of dogs and other animals don’t freeze and why the animals do not seem to mind the cold. The study, which was written up in the magazine, Veterinary Dermatology, stated that there is considerable fatty tissue in dogs paws and fatty tissue is less prone to freezing. Additionally, the arteries and veins meet in the paws or feet of many animals allowing the feet to remain warmer and for the blood to remain warmer as it flows through veins back into the animal’s body. Obviously, the complete article goes into much more detail , but a shortened version of it was carried on the Huffington Post last Friday. As for dogs not seeming to mind the cold, this writer thinks that the biggest reason for that is that dogs cannot verbalize how much they really don’t like frigid weather.