Coastal towns look beyond salmon bans

CHARLESTON, Ore. – It’s not a good time to go fishing along the Oregon coast if what you have in mind are chinook salmon, or even coho, but the people who have boats and equipment shops say you can still catch a fish or two.

Andy Manning, of Merlin, was out on the Betty Kay last week with friends catching black rockfish, a quillback, a couple vermilion and some lingcod.

“We caught a lot of fish,” he said. “We had fun.”

Manning and Ike Smith, of Rogue River, visit the coast a couple times a year. They stay with fishing buddy Dave Price, of Myrtle Point, and take trips out on the Betty Kay.

Price caught a 17.5-pound lingcod, a monster compared with catches by others on the boat, which he showed off to visitors at the dock.

That’s the kind of fishing the tourist industry hopes will keep tourists coming to the coast despite the virtual shutdown of chinook fishing to protect stocks of Sacramento River salmon.

Headlines earlier this year put a damper on some charter businesses because of the closure of chinook season.

But there’s still a coho season, although it’s only 9,000 fish, not a lot by historical standards. And there are halibut, tuna, bottomfish, surf perch. flatfish, crab.

For those folks who get queasy on the ocean, lakes and rivers offer a plentiful supply of scaly critters that make for good camping meals or barbecue dinners: trout, bass, crappie, perch, shad, bluegill.

“We’re confident people will come to the coast,” Betty Kay owner Marjorie Whitmer said. “There are still halibut openings and good catches.”

And it’s a good time to figure out new attractions.

“We’re promoting tours of the dismantling of the New Carissa and the Cape Arago Lighthouse,” Whitmer said.

Englund Marine Supply Manager Mark Fleck expects the summer to have its attractions.

Sport fishermen have made barely a dent in the halibut quota, he said.