Oregon

Anybody been fishing off the coast of Oregon? Looking at potentially going during my honeymoon in the middle of June.

It's a bit early for most salmon species, and lots of the deepwater stuff is closed off. There's some fun inshore fisheries for rockfish, cabezon and lingcod on light tackle. Will have to google for the dory guide service that I remember up there - they launch right from the beach through the surf.

Yeah, looks like you're too early for albacore which is the the other main thing up there, I think.

Lingcod are fun, though!

The wife and I went out with Pacific Charter Services and had a blast. The captain invented a lure that apparently a lot of people up there use for ling cod. Copper pipe filled with lead with a hook on either side of it. It's jigged bouncing it off the bottom. We limited on ling cod and assorted rock fish in 90 minutes then went and checked crab pots. I don't know that any crab beats fresh Dungeness

3rd from left on the display - is that a vermillion rockfish?

Looks like a very nice productive trip, especially fresh dungie crabs!! Did you happen to hook into any halibut?

It was a vermilion rockfish. We caught a bunch of huge yelloweye rockfish we had to release. They are the red snapper of the Pacific Northwest. We didn't hook any Halibut but the captain posted pics a few days after us they hooked and released a couple.

What did you think of the deepwater descent devices the boat used to release them? Better or worse than the "fizzing" methods used in the Gulf of Mexico?

They got fizzed just like red snapper.

Huh, interesting. Oregon law is that descender devices are mandatory.

Not criticizing you, just surprised that a charter boat up there wouldn't be using them.

Interesting, after you said that I saw it was a law in Alaska but couldn't find anything about it being required in Oregon, just suggested.

https://www.dfw.state.or.us/mrp/finfish/groundfish_sport/index.asp

I could be misinterpreting "mandatory" on this page. It might mean that they're mandatory to have on board, but not mandatory to use. But that seems silly.

I can't find the writing on the actual law but here is a little more specific info from Englund Marine. Here they specify 30 fathoms. Soo.. maybe they weren't fishing that deep???? I defer to sounder minds.

Nice lingcod! They're great fish to catch and to eat!


http://www.eregulations.com/oregon/fishing/marine-zone/
Any vessel fishing for, or possessing, groundfish (bottomfish) in the ocean must have a functional descending device onboard, and use on any rockfish released outside of 30 fathoms. For more information go to http://www.dfw.state.or.us/MRP/recompression/index.asp

So they're mandatory to have on board always when fishing ground fish, and mandatory to use when fishing deeper than 30 fathoms (deepwater season is closed from Apr1 to Sep30). Or at least that's how I read it. Though my experience with rockfish even in thirty fathoms is that they have zero chance to get back down without help. Maybe they're phasing it in?

We were fishing around 150-165ft so maybe that's why they didn't use them.

I just moved from Oregon, the devices are targeted for the critical yelloweye and other rockfish whose catch is restrictive.
Unless your outside 30 fanthoms, liklihood of catching them is lower.