Glen Givler of Brookings holds a 30-pound albacore he caught last week. The Pilot/Larry Ellis.

Fishing report for August 12-18

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines a catalyst as “an agent that provokes or speeds significant change or action.” 

Keeping with that definition, the coaching staff of the Brookings-Harbor High School football team created an event to provoke over 20 freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors to become leaders and better people.

“We want to make more than football players,” Assistant Coach Ted Burdett said. “We want to make fine individuals – fine citizens.”

The agent for change in this case was the final event of the Bruins Speed Week camp called The Catalyst: a series of seven challenges staged on the beaches at Pistol River.

The brainchild of Burdett, The Catalyst is modeled after a Marine Corps’ youth training camp event called The Crucible.

Bruin football team hopefuls will spend this week awakening muscles that may have been dormant since the team attended the Gold Beach Football camp, by participating in Speed Week.

Speed Week is a one- to two-hour session each evening where players lift weights, work on their overall speed and brush up on football skills that may have gotten a little rusty in the offseason.

Camp instructor Chris Perkins talks to members of the BHHS girls soccer team during Tuesday’s session of camp. The Pilot/Jef Hatch

“You’ve got major league ideas, but minor league execution,” renowned college coach Cliff McCrath said. 

McCrath was speaking to an assembled group of Brookings-Harbor High School boys’ soccer players after asking them what they could do to make an exercise they just ran work better. 

McCrath, retired as one of the most winning NCAA coaches and owner of Northwest Soccer Camp in Kenmore, Wash., brought members of his camp staff to Brookings for the second installment of a personalized camp for the Bruin boys and girls soccer teams.

Gary Veach and Brian Gagnon of Brookings caught these two Pacific halibut and a 30-pound Chinook on Sunday while fishing out of the Port of Brookings Harbor. The Pilot/Larry Ellis

Normally, it should only take a person five hours to drive from Pacific City to Brookings. The 270-mile trip takes me 16. That’s the time it takes for me to drop into almost every port, inquire about the fishing, visit the local fish-cleaning facilities and then take a few casts in a half dozen or so bays. It also gives me a chance to talk to various fish checkers and get the skinny on the phat Chinook. All of the aforementioned conditions allow me to get a good overview of how the fishing is shaping up along our coastline.

When I left the Nestucca mouth on Wednesday morning, one bank fisherman was hauling in a 20-pound fall king caught on a bobber-and-sand shrimp. I got my “Kodak moment”, called it a “so-so” day, and then made tracks for Brookings. Only after stopping at Oregon’s southern-most ports did all of the rivers’ gunnysacks begin to resemble a pear shape.

This is the time of the year for couch potatoes to start doing some serious Bay Watching. Although fall Chinook are just barely beginning to poke their noses in practically every Oregon River, from what I’ve seen, you better have your favorite trolling stick locked, loaded and ready for bear, or in this case, king salmon, because what I experienced on my trek made me very hopeful that Chinook hunters should be looking forward to some serious salmon hauls in the not too distant future.

I would anticipate the river action to break loose as the new moon coincides with some wide tide exchanges toward the end of this month. Then, as the full moon coincides with the wide tide cycles at the beginning of September, anglers should also look forward for another push of Chinook. 

As I stopped into the east boat basin at Winchester Bay, there were about 15 Chinook on the fillet tables, the last of 50 kings that were caught that morning by anglers mooching the jaws. There wasn’t a dink in the neighborhood. All of the fish were between 24 and 32 pounds. 

Traveling farther south, I found the Coos River had also recently experienced several influxes of some hefty kings in between their jetties as well. Reports from ODFW and local fishing enthusiasts said there were already Chinook being spotted in the Marshfield Channel as well; not enough to warrant an actual fishery, but enough fish to get the locals all hot and bothered.

My excursion further down Highway 101 also stopped me cold at the town of Bandon, where there were reports of a few early fall Chinook already entering the Coquille River. Tony Roszkowski of Port O’ Call Bait & Tackle reported that a kid threw a silver spoon off of the Bandon crab dock while fishing next to his crab ring hauling father. The youth hooked into, and then landed, a very sizable Chinook. That bodes well for this year’s crop of Coquille kings, estimated to be almost four times the 20-year average.

The lower Rogue Bay also had a combination of good and bad days in its estuary as well. Amy from Jot’s Resort in Gold Beach reported handing out oodles of buttons for Chinook ranging from 30 to over 41 pounds.

Two 30-pound buttons were awarded to Gary and Earl Dorsey for their 30-pound-plus Chinook caught on Sunday, and a strapping 41-pound monster king caught by Ken Hemphill of Gold Beach earned him a 40-pound button. 

All fish were caught on spinner bait/anchovy rigs. The Dorseys caught their ’nooks on No. 5 THI green-on-green blades, while Hemphill was using one of my favorites, a No. 4 gold Hildebrandt blade.

Chinook aficionados hold these buttons in very high esteem. They wear them on their hat with great pride. The best thing about these badges is that they are free. In order to qualify, all you have to do is have your fish weighed in at Jot’s Resort and have a Chinook weighing at least 30 pounds.

There is evidence that fall Chinook are starting to keg up in the Rogue estuary now. Your best bait in the bay is, as always, pure tenacity. 

“I think we got a lot of fish here and I think we’re in for a good spell,” says Larry Cody from the Rogue Outdoor Store in Gold Beach. “The pattern right now, according to the guides that I respect the most, is that in the mornings a lot of them are going upriver to try and catch those fish that moved up there overnight. Then there’s a theory that the fish are dropping back into the bay through the day as the river heats up.”

It’s my theory that even more salmon may try heading into the Rogue estuary on the evening of this weekend’s full moon cycle, more on the new moon cycle at the end of the month, and then a slug of fish on September’s first full moon.

~~~

Bottomfishing – halibut – ocean salmon – tuna

Anglers are continuing to bring in some very nice Pacific halibut to the Brookings cleaning station. On one day last week I saw five halibut carcasses in the fish barrels.

Chinook salmon continue to trickle into the station but rockfish and lingcod continue to be the predominant fish species being filleted at the Brookings facility. 

Dungeness crab also continue to be caught with regularity at the Brookings public pier. It is Wayne Butler’s contention that the reason why the entire coastline has been having such stellar near shore halibut days has to do with being attracted to the inordinate amounts of crab that are molting in the bays up and down the Oregon coast.

While traveling south on Highway 101, Butler was also unloading a ganglion of large tuna in the 27-pound class his passengers had caught that day. The captain of the Mis-Chief took his passengers 50 miles out to sea for that trip and did not find blue water, but found the tuna in green water that was ultra clear. He also mentioned there were thousands more tuna on his meter that wouldn’t come up for the surface lures.

As we all know, tuna action can change on a day’s notice. The National Weather Service is now calling for moderate seas with winds dying down to 5 to 7 knots for the rest of the week. Combined with a SSW swell, this scenario could bring warm tuna water again within the reach of Brookings, Coos Bay and Bandon recreational vessels. Keep your eyes on the 30/125 line for possible encroaching warm/blue water.

Tight lines!

Brookings-Harbor High School cross country coach Terry Axel took nine BHHS cross country team members and one former member of the team to the Christian Team Ministries High Altitude Camp located in the Sierra Nevada mountains between Grass Valley, Calif., and Lake Tahoe for a week of running and team building exercises.

“It was great,” Axel said. “We were 1,000 feet lower in elevation that we have been before because of snow, but the camp was great.”

The camp provided coaches and physical trainers to the runners to help them develop their stride and running form. They also had motivational speakers who talked about how they achieved the success they had.

The Brookings-Harbor High School fall sport athletes will have their summer breaks come to a close sooner than other high school students as the first date students are allowed to officially practice draws nigh.

Monday, Aug. 22, marks the first day that coaches can hold formal practices for the fall sports teams, and the coaches have plans to start the season with a bang.

The boys soccer program, coached by Pancho Garcia will have practices at 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, beginning Aug. 22. Practice will be held at the high school soccer field.