Big Creek

[Beaver1]

Any reports from Big Creek lately? Thinking of a sunday trip (saturday would be another Beaver victory....) but not sure if its is too low or if it is combat fishing right now.

Any info helps!

[MountainLion84]

I believe that Big creek closes for the month of September (same with Bear and Gnat creek)

[Trick]

Big Creek is closed, including the trestle through the month of September. The nets are in off the mouth of the creek 4 days a week 7pm- 7am thru October 31st :depressed: .

Gillnets suck.....had to put that in!

[Steelie Ben]

I just gotta say that I stopped my Gnat and Big creek on sunday while driving home from the beach. Gnat creek was chuck full of big chinook, some were dark but there was a good portion of bright fish in there. I figured that it must be closed if there was that many fish in there and no one fishing, I found the sign that says its closed for the month of september. Dang it all to heck and gone!! I betcha if you would've hit it one the last day of august you could've scored easy limits on those big hogs. I understand why they close it though, I imagine it would be pretty hard for some people to resist hooking them in the back while it is fully exposed in the two inches of water in the creek!! Just out of curiosity, did any one fish this creek while it was open and if so how did they bite? I would think they would be pretty sketchy in such small water. Anyways, drove by Big creek too, there was nothing in that creek that I could see, it was bearly a trickle.

[verysweepy]

Most of the fish in big creek are all up around the hatchery, I fished there a couple of days before it closed with some eggs and a bobber and did pretty good, there are definatly some big ones in there, but like you said they are stacked in there pretty tight and most people I saw were fishing with corkies and just fowl hooking the fish left and right . I would have to say that around 90% of the fish that I saw kept were tules with the flesh being mostly if not all white [img]graemlins/berry.gif[/img] . Ive never fished gnat creek before, what parts do you usually fish?

[Get Bent]

Definitely check your regulations prior to fishing any stream that you aren't intimate with. Those tickets can be very expensive.

Tules are the only strain of fall chinook that the hatchery handles, after stopping Rogue production around 1995. A few of Rogue fish can still be found in the stream, but they are few and far between.

[hawgcatcher]

It is sad that a fishery like Big Creek and Gnat Creek are closed due to snagging. Many years ago,We were able to walk down Gnat Creek and were able to fish the deep holes. We took some beautiful fish there. Big Creek had limited access but also had good fishing. Then the egg hunters started in. Carcasses littered the ground where the fish were snagged, cut open then dumped on the ground.

My partner and I observed one subject throw a rope with a big treble hook on it. No pole or no even trying to fish. He pulled in five fish and gutted them. The males were just killed and the hens gave up their eggs. We approached him and when he was confronted, he said that the fish were not good to eat only good for his supply of eggs. He then threatened us. We took his license and went to a phone and called OSP. We never did find out what happened.

The next year, the creeks were closed in September. Still fish were killed but not as many.

So sad that these creeps got the system closed. What a waste. :depressed:

[husker]

95% of those fish are tules this time of year

[will_e_fish]

I went there last year to look and what a waste so many big fish dead dying stink so bad you could smell it on the trail before hitting the creek. Sad to see thousands of 20 to 40 lb fish dead everywhere. Talk about waste that is waste at its wrost nothing got used not even a egg. I heard the hatchery guys don't want to handle all those big fish so they die and rot. Last year was especially bad because of the low water. Heard also that they were net pen fish escapee's. I posted that question last year why so many dead fish in Big Creek and someone had mentioned that it should have been an emergency opening by ODWF to let some anglers get them and use them. "Fish Gleaners" someone to go in and clean them out for food banks or old people, handicapped, prisons, catfood, whatever. So last year big creek got lots & lots of nutrients for sucker sculpins ok maybe for some steelie smolts or downriver sturgeon after high water carried all those rotting carcuses out. I wish I had taken a picture it would have turned some heads. I could see someone turning this around for a reason not to keeping hatcheries open because of the waste and little being done about it. Lets do something about it!

[choppers]

dude, i went up their five six years ago during early winter steelhead and almost fell into a ditch just filled with carcas. probably took ten to twenty truck loads to fill it. you guys must of missed the fish bonking contraversy a few years back. that's how they killed them when their in the pen. makes tyson look kind.

happy trails.

[verysweepy]

I took my kids up to the hatchery today to see all of the fish and what a sight it was, standing up at the hatchery you can look down the creek and just see fins sticking out of the water everywere :grin: , all the way down the creek. This is on top of the huge concrete pool that is already full of a bunch of fish. Acorrding to the sign, around 14,000 tules, 11 rogue chinnok, and 330 coho have been acounted for returning to the hatchery, this is as of 9-13-02. Thats alot of tules! I would say that over 3/4 of the fish already have the moldy white stuff growing on them , so i'm guessing when they open it back up on oct. 1st it's going to be one stinky place. But it was really cool watching all those fish just sitting there and watching the ones by the fish ladder attempt to jump up and get into the chute, the kids got a real kick out of watching that.

[fishon]

What are Rogue Chinook? Why did they stop the Rogue chinook production? Thanks oh ya and is the coho fishing any good on big creek when it opens up again?