Winchester Bay chinook

[nashby]

Here's a question for you locals. I notice that the stats show that Winchester Bay has almost 4 times the amount of chinook landings as any other central Oregon marina. Since I'm going to miss the silvers, and my only option is to fish for chinook, are my chances better if I drive down to Winchester from Newport?

[finclipped]

Nashby, consider driving North to Astoria and fish for silvers & Kings. It may be closer than Winchester Bay.

I spent a fair amount of time fishing in WB and the Kings are typically deeper,(like anywhere) so fish with downrigger or fish the mouth at the end of the Jetty's or south of the south jetty for chinook. Mootching is a popular way to fish for Kings also. Be careful, waves can take you right into the jetty's. I would recommend fishing with someone if you haven't fished there before. Fishing from the Jetty is also an option, but you will pick up both Chinook and silvers.

[Orca]

Nashby,

Talked to a guy from Corvallis, OR, who went out with a guide last Thursday from Winchester Bay. They took home 9 Chinook and 3 Coho. They limited early, and never went past the second bouy as I understand (never been there to know the bouy arrangement or distances, but it has to be pretty close to land).

The smallest Chinook was 12 lb, and the largest about 30 lb. You may be able to catch Coho quicker up north, but you may end up with more meat down south.

I didn't get the name of the guide, but could get it if you would like.

[nashby]

Mystic,

Yes, please do send me the charter information. Has anyone else out there had much Winchester Bay experience fishing for Kings? We're staying close to Newport but if the chinook fishing is better down by Winchester I'll certainly make the drive.

[Orca]

nashby,

The guy I talked with went out with this guide service:
http://www.fishpatrick.com/

It was about $80 / person, and he took out 6 anglers.


He also said that the boats from StrikeZone were catching a lot of fish as well:
http://www.strikezonecharters.com/

[Scaup]

I have fished Winchester Bay for 30 years and it can be a very good place to pick up chinook in late July/early August. I fished out of Winchester Bay last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Between two of us we landed 6 chinook 15-25 lbs to go with 6 fin clipped silvers during those three days. We also released 10 non fin clipped silvers. We weren't specifically targeting chinook, but there were a lot of hungry chinook there and those individuals targeting them who knew what they were doing were taking limits of chinook quite easily. Some people were only keeping chinooks and releasing all silvers.

We fished the late afternoon and evening incoming tide in 50-60 feet of water south of the red bouy. I have always found this a good time to catch chinooks. You have to fight the ocean and wind, but there are fewer boats than in the morning (and those boat drivers that are out in those conditions tend to know what they are doing). We picked up most of our Chinook on large 6"-8" cut plug herring fished at a depth of 30-35 feet. We caught them both with and without flashers and with or without hoochies on the herring. The hoochie colors we used were purple and green. Most of the silvers we caught were up practically on the surface, although we also picked up the largest Chinook on the surface (he hit it right as I was letting it out). To tell you the truth, when the bite came on you could throw pretty much anything out there and it seemed to work for either the chinooks or the silvers.