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After bouncing around the west for a few years we finally circled back to our favorite place living in a town called McMinnville in between Portland and the Coast. Building a nice little family with a kid on the way. Working our tails off and having fun when we can. So much good water up here. Figured I’d try to encourage someone to go chase winter fish. The big ones still exist. Floated a class 3+ river today and got a bud on a big one. Get after em while we still can!
Sounds good.......keep us posted.
I'm headed up in 2 weeks... planning to fish somewhere between the South Umpqua and the upper Suislaw for several days. Bringing our raft so we will have some flexibility. Last year we R2'd some great class III water on the upper S. Umpqua and slayed the steel in Feb. I really wish central CA still had runs like that.
John
Going to the Eel here in Cal in a couple of weeks. I would have to agree about steelhead here in California.
We are definitely on a decline here. I’m hoping we get a better return this year…… Fingers crossed!
I swung a couple of half days on the coast not far from McMinnville this past week. The river looked great. I had a tug but I think it was a cutthroat. I talked to a guy who talked to a guy who caught a fish but the way he said it I think it was on gear. The guy also told me he fished eight days last year without a fish caught. Later I got seven nice crabs on a snare at the jetty which took the sting out of my steelhead skunk and fed me for five days. I bought some expired chicken for bait at the grocery store for $1.45. From the beach one day I could see 9 commercial crab boats. The Dungeness crab population is not in decline.
Congrats on the family, Tayler, and a fine spot to settle! JohnR, are you fishing the SU with fly or gear? Never heard a lot of talk about it, except as a gear fishery. Used to see a lot of fishing around the casino, but only got to fish it for smallmouth in the summer.