Kilchis chum

[Sanddune]

Stopped by logging bridge hole on Kilchis Sun PM-about 20 fishers hooking the heck out of chums-locals said about 250-300 hookups during day (they were counting). MOST were snagged-very very few legal hooks . one was pulled in by dorsal and had two more hooks in the fin -gota wonder how many time each fish was hooked. Not a lot of jerking but all you had to do was to reel fast and you could snag one.Game cop was there shaking his head- all he could do was make sure no blatant snagging going on and that fish were properly relaesed- no wonder thse fish are in trouble.

[garyk]

V-Green,

Boy, do I remember that gravel bar above the white bridge - hard to believe it's gone.

Regarding the gravel stripping, I guess I'm totally wrong but I thought the County passed an ordinance about 4 years ago phasing it out by now.

Of interest, a hydrologist explained to me that when you pull gravel out of the bars, it's similar to pulling out the bottom marbles in a pile -- it starts a chain reaction and gets the whole river bed sliding downstream. THe miners themselves talk about how the gravel replenishes itself. Indeed it does, by de-stabilizing the entire streambed.

Trying to restore salmonids and then allowing the spawning gravels to be stripped for aggregate is sheer insanity.

[Gone Fishin]

Talk to our wonderful Tillamook County Commisioners who decided it was OK to remove the gravel. Then go look at what they did to the gravel bar at Donaldson's on the Wilson!

Good luck getting your boat in or out there!

[V. Green]

I fished the Kilches from the Park down to the Logger bridge both Saturday and Sunday and saw the same activity happening at he bridge also.

The locals on the bank told me on Sunday that they had seen 300 hookups by the time I got my boat out of the water, approx. 15% were legally hooked by their estimate.

Foul hooking fish happen, but after accidentally snagging a couple of fish you should change your method to avoid snagging a fish again. It doesn't seem that anyone at the Logging Bridge hole ever thinks about doing that.

My brother and I pulled up a nice outfit in one of the holes below the park; it was a 3oz pyramid wieght tied 6" below a 5/0 hook on 40# line. I guess someone was trying to take home some Wild Coho or Chinook form the hole.

While snagging fish is likely an issue with the decline of Chums on the Kilches, the gravel mining that is taking place is downright disturbing! I was surprised to see that they have started taking gravel out of the lower canyon about a mile above the logging bridge. This is affecting the holes in that section of the river, and I remember when the lower river was a series of chutes and holes, it seems more like one long even run most of the way now. If you are familiar with the Landall's (sp?) farm, (you used to pay $.50 to fish at the white bridge) there was a nice riffle coming into the top of the hole and a gravel bank all the way down to the bridge itself. Maybe if Tillamook County or the State would end the gravel extraction we see on this river the chums would fare better.

On a more positive note: drifting the upper river in my pram was a very nice trip even thought I had to drag or rope my 8' boat through more than one rapid, it was really nice having the entire river to just my brother an I.


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V. Green
orfish@hotbot.com
http://pages.hotbot.com/sports/orfish/V.GreenMain.html