Species: American Shad (Alosa sapidissima) Location: Willamette River, Oregon City, OR Date: June 11, 2017 Oregon is weird. We have a culture built around gamefish, but not all of our gamefish are native. Rainbow Trout are the most popular species in the state, but most fish caught annually by Oregon anglers aren’t native fish; they’re mostly hatchery…
Species: Monkeyface Prickleback (Cebidichthys violaceus) Location: Newport Public Docks, Newport, OR Date: November 21, 2016 Time can be so fluid when fishing. Seconds, minutes, and hours can all meld together when you feel weight or a tick on the end of your line, melting into a soup of suspended timeflow that is so personal and subjective…
Species: Whitespotted Greenling (Hexagrammos stelleri) Location: Yaquina Bay, Newport, OR Date: November 21, 2016 I’ve had better days fishing the hundreds of docks in Newport, but this day wasn’t half bad. Since I normally go there to target Striped Seaperch for the table, anything else is just a bonus. Rarely do I fish this area…
Species: Copper Rockfish (Sebastus caurinus) Location: Yaquina Bay, Newport, OR Date: March 24, 2016 If you’ve never been on the open ocean on a small boat intended for use in the lake, then you haven’t lived. My first trip was on a 17-foot Bayliner with high gunwales out of the Port of Brookings-Habor. It was a little rough,…
Species: Brown Irish Lord (Hemilepidotus spinosus) Location: Yaquina Bay, Newport, OR Date: July 22, 2015 This fish frustrates me for a number of reasons. After returning home from my trip to Washington D.C., I landed in Portland, and my brother Gabe picked me up. I stayed with him in Corvallis and convinced him to come fishing with me…
Species: California Halibut (Paralichthys californicus) Location: Chetco River South Jetty, Brookings-Harbor, OR Date: July 13, 2013 While fishing with my friend David Clarke, I tried to relive an amazing trip to Brookings I’d had years earlier. Sadly, it wasn’t happening. The charter boat had provided good fishing, but David was so seasick, he didn’t get…
Species: Widow Rockfish (Sebastes entomelas) Location: Off the coast of Depoe Bay, OR Date: December 18, 2014 I wrote about this in my January 30, 2015 column in the Herald and News. Read it below: In 1988, the United States government outlawed the production and sale of three-wheeled ATVs, commonly known as “three-wheelers,” because the third…
Species: Kahawai (Arripis trutta) Location: Kuaotunu River, Kuaotunu, Coromandel, New Zealand Date: February 25, 2014 After going it alone for weeks, my friend David Clarke and I decided to get a charter. We’d planned to chase tuna and kingfish and marlin off the coast with one of this friends, but when that fell through, we…
Species: Yelloweye Mullet (Aldrichetta forsteri) Location: Kuaotunu River, Kuaotunu, Coromandel, New Zealand Date: February 25, 2014 I’ve already told the story of this day in elaborate detail, so I won’t talk too much about this fish. I’ve since caught a lot of mullet (three species in three countries outside the United States), and one thing…
Species: Shortfin Eel (Anguilla australis) Location: Kuaotunu River, Kuaotunu, Coromandel, New Zealand Date: February 25, 2014 The Tunnifar is a mythical beast found in the waters of New Zealand. It is storied to be half-man, half-eel and comes out to feed when it feels so inclined. It is inspired by real monsters native to this…
