The Oregon Coast

[John H]

I spent some time on the north coast of Oregon as I have done the last few years. I fly fished a little for bass but nothing happened there so not much to report. I went out on an ocean boat a couple of times and both of those trips were good. I spent a lot of time walking around looking for birds and anythng else I could photograph. I drove up and down Highway 101 checking out the towns and beaches. I ate a lot of blueberries which were ripe and very affordable at the u pick em. I kayaked out to some rocks to check ot the bird life. Generally messed around and had some fun. Here are a bunch of pictures I took. You might like them or you might not. I took 4600 photos and kept 34 of them. The last three are phone shots. The others are Nikon DSLR ath a 500 mm lens.


Rufous hummingbird


Cedar Waxwing


Western gull adult passing a crab leg to a juvenile. Maybe her own juvenile.




Western gull looking a little stressed out by life.


Brown pelican with full wing extension. Pretty impressive.


Pelicans coming back to the roosting rock after fishing. I could see them diving about a mile away.


Low tide.


Townsend's chipmunk looking to see if it is safe to come out with me sitting there.


Highway 101. Lots of activity in the summer.


Rocks I kayaked out to.


The pacific halibut. A pretty nice two fish limit. That is worth getting seasick for.


My dog after mopping up some halibut scraps.

[guido]

Great shots John! Looks like a nice trip!

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Thanks John.........brings back lots of memories.




Marilyn and I love the Pacific Ocean from Monterey north to Washington State, especially in the summer and fall.



Monterey, CA high today is 65 degrees.

Bodega Bay, CA high today is 66 degrees.

Fort Bragg, CA high today is 61 degrees.

Gold Beach, OR high today is 67 degrees.

Seaside, OR high today is 67 degrees.


Our entire lives were spent RVing the Coast first with our parents and friends when we were young.


For the last 30 years Marilyn and I had two different small class C motor homes with a small outboard 15' fiberglass skiff in tow.

Our favorite thing to do was to drive over to Dillon Beach/Tomales Bay and stay at Lawson's Landing.

We knew everyone who worked there so it was wonderful.

We could dig clams, set crab traps, and drift inside the bay for Halibut.

We could also drive from there to the Tides and go to their restaurant or drive to Occidental to the old Italian restaurants there.

We had lots of friends over there at Lawson's who had permanent trailers there and kept a nice boat there too.

Some of my good friends from growing up in South Sacramento had trailers there and commercially fished salmon many years ago.



Hard to beat the Pacific Coast in the summer and fall.

[Vaughn Willett]

Beautiful pictures, John! Great strong colors in the tide pool shot and an amazing shot of the three brown pelicans with matching wing positions. Wow.

Vaughn

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

John, looks like you rent a cottage or someone you know owns one.




It would be nice to have a cottage on the Coast.

Or a permanent trailer.



My cousins have gone to the wonderful Winchester Bay RV Park for a decade for the entire summer.

It is on the Bay, on the mouth of the Umpqua River.

They catch Salom off the rocks near their trailer.

They have a boat to set crab traps and fish for salmon, ect.

https://www.winchesterbayresort.com/

[John H]

The Oregon coast is a lot more affordable than the California coast but it is just as loved and just as crowded as the California coast.

The weather is remarkably consistent in the summer. At one point I think the forecast had a high of 65 for six straight days.

We went to Lawsons Landing when I was a kid. That was pretty old time California in my memory. I have not been there for a long time.

The Oregon Coast now reminds me a little of how the California coast was when I was a kid in the ‘70’s. Lots of people towing a boat and looking to get some fish, crabs or clams. Lots of people looking to enjoy a few days at a hotel and not spend an arm and a leg. Lots of people with kids camping for a week. Lots of retired people driving around seeing the sights. For the most part they are all gone in the winter but if you do want to find a crowd in the winter just go to a steelhead river that is in fishable shape.

[cutthroat22]

Thanks for posting your beautiful photos and congrats on a very nice limit of halibut. There are lots of great meals in your future.

[Tony Buzolich]

When I was a boy the Tides used to have small cabins right where the parking lot is now. After a day of digging clams and fishing at the beach, it was too late to drive all the way back to Sacramento. We'd stay and have dinner at the Tides restaurant and then after dinner my dad and I would fish off the dock at night. I remember catching lots of jack smelt under the lights next to the boats. They made good bait for the crab traps but not to eat.
Tony

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

My folks always kept an old travel trailer over on the Coast.

The Tides has gone through many changes over the years.


We also spent time in Santa Cruz because my uncle, aunt and cousins lived there.

I spent most of my time there fishing off the main pier.




Back in the "Good Old Days" people in the Valley either went to the Coast in the hot summers or to high elevations to get cool.

This has made Sacramento a pretty wonderful place to live.

[John H]

My Tides days go back to about 1980 and they did have cabins at that time. When I was 17 I dragged two buddies over there to do some crabbing and we stayed in one. We crabbed at a marina nearby until some commercial fishermen told us it would be bad for our health if we did not leave. They must have thought we were going to steal stuff off their boats. We chose to leave rather than brawl with the brutes.

My earliest view of the Tides came from The Birds. They have a shot of it in the movie. They also have a little footage of a guy rowing around in the bay. They filmed most of it at a house five miles inland but made it look like the house was right next to the Bay.

The most interesting thing I know about Bodega Bay is they started construction on a nuclear power plant on Bodega Head in 1969. The hole they dug for the cooling towers is still there. Apparently someone pointed out it was right on the San Andreas fault so they stopped construction and scrapped it. There is probably more to it than that but that is the story as I understand it.