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With a big forecasted Chinook return this year, the Rogue Bay at Gold Beach should be on your radar. Anglers troll from just above the Highway 101 bridge down to the jetties for salmon holding in the cool, ocean-influenced waters. (WILDRIVERSFISHING.COM)
How To Catch Rogue Mouth Chinook I
f the predictions are correct, and depending on how many Chinook were harvested in the ocean before BUZZ there could be RAMSEY now, as many as 400,000 Rogue-bound salmon returning to this famous Southern Oregon river. That’s a lot of fish for a river this size, one that originates in the mountains south of Crater Lake, flows past the outskirts of Medford and through Grants Pass before continuing its journey through the Rogue Canyon to the Pacific Ocean at Gold Beach.
And while Rogue River kings come in all sizes, a few lucky anglers take home 40to 50-pounders every year. I’m reminded of our son Blake, now in his mid-20s, catching his very first salmon in late summer many years ago here. After a tussle that included his reel falling off the rod and realizing we had no landing net (somehow it blew out of the boat) we ran our craft into the shore where Blake finally beached the fat salmon. Excited, we thought it was 40 pounds; as it turned out, it was 35. Not bad for a boy just 6 years old!
AS YOU MIGHT imagine, the waters of the Rogue get warm in the summer, so
warm (it can reach 70-plus degrees) that it mostly stalls the upstream migration of fall Chinook. This causes the salmon to linger in the Rogue Bay, where they wait for temps to cool before beginning to move towards the river’s headwaters. The fish typically move upstream on the flood tide, but once they encounter the warm river water at the head end of the bay – just upstream from the Highway 101 bridge – they put on the brakes and retreat back into the lower bay, and likely into the ocean, as the tide ebbs. Each daily tide, especially big ones, add more and more Chinook to the massive salmon school accumulating in the
nwsportsmanmag.com | AUGUST 2018
Northwest Sportsman 71