May 16th column

[Pete Heley]

It seems that quite a few Winchester Bay anglers took advantage of the “supermoon” on the night of May 5th (Saturday). One angler said that the South Jetty had numerous night anglers fishing that evening including about 20 people fishing inside the Triangle. He reported that the visibility on the rocks was almost as good as it was during the daytime and fair numbers of fish were caught.

Some redtailed surfperch were reported caught off the South Jetty last week and hopefully that is an omen of the Umpqua River’s annual pinkfin run taking place in the very near future. Of course, somebody has to catch the first surfperch upriver before it becomes official. Another good omen would be for someone to make a good catch of shad upriver on the Umpqua and some good catches were made over the last several days at Elkton and Yellow Creek.

This last week, a number of commercial salmon anglers made some good catches while fishing fairly close to the Umpqua River Bar. Fishing for spring chinooks in the Scottsburg area and above has occasionally been very good. As for the Wells Creek Inn’s annual springer contest, the heaviest salmon turned in as of last week was a 34 pounder and the contest is ongoing and does not require pre-registration.

Diamond Lake lost its ice cover last week and fishing has been very good. In fact, this may be the best spring and summer fishing in Diamond Lake in many years, because the daily limit per angler is eight trout and in future years, Diamond will be open the year around and there won’t be a six month period where the trout are not being harvested by anglers.

Cool morning water temperatures and afternoon winds continue to hold down fishing success for largemouth bass and panfish. Tenmile continues to reward experienced bass anglers, but fishing in the smaller lakes and ponds has been, so far, disappointing - but that could change rather quickly.

Not being able to afford a trip to central California, yet itching to try some shallow water bass and panfishing, last week I headed to tiny Selmac Lake, a shallow water impoundment located near Selma - about 20 miles south of Grants Pass. At less than 150 acres, Selmac gets very heavy fishing pressure which is usually directed at the rainbow trout which are heavily stocked in the lake. However, Selmac is rather famous for infrequently giving up some very big largemouth bass including three that were officially weighed in as Oregon state records which have since been bested elsewhere. Selmac’s bluegill and black crappie can occasionally reach lunker size, but usually the bluegill will measure between six and eight inches and the crappie will average about eight or nine inches. Less common fish species in Selmac include brown bullheads and green sunfish.

The fishing was very good last week except that the bass were very skittish, but they usually are when there are nearly 100 people fishing the lake. The bluegills and crappies were very cooperative and one of the bluegills that I lost just as I was getting ready to release it would have weighed a pound. For the first time, while fishing Selmac, I caught some golden shiners on crappie jigs.

The first shiner I caught measured more than ten inches in length, was full of roe and weighed all of a half pound. It was bigger than any of the recently stocked rainbow trout that I caught. After catching the shiner, that was pretty much all I could think about. Selmac Lake drains into the Illinois River and then into the Rogue River. Although they were originally present in the Southeast, where they are the preferred bait for big Florida-strain largemouth bass, they have managed, with help, to find their way into a number of other top bass lakes including a number of lakes in California. They are capable of reaching a foot in length and provide major forage for large bass and other predators while at the same time competing with other gamefish for food and even consuming newly hatched gamefish.

A call to the the ODFW office in the Denman Management Area in Medford, confirmed that the fish were, indeed, golden shiners and not rudd, a very similar minnow found in Europe. They have been in Selmac for at least several years and the biologist I talked to was unworried about them escaping Selmac, because the Illinois River is extremely unsuitable for them and in several snorkling surveys on the Illinois, he has yet to spot a golden shiner.

In the meantime, the next time I visit Selmac, I will probably use even smaller gear while panfishing in the hopes that I can catch some of the minnows should I get bored with the lake’s very cooperative bluegills and crappies. Selmac, more than any other Oregon water that I am aware of, responds the quickest to warming spring temperatures and as of last Tuesday, the bass were in immediate pre-spawn mode and the panfish had moved to shallow water in big numbers. Trout angling, also because of the water temperatues, was much better in the early morning and right before dark.

After hearing hundreds of boat owners complain about having to get an Aquatic Invasive Species Permit, I was starting to get a little sympathetic until I learned that in the first week of operation this year, two inspection stations found invasive mussels on boats undergoing an inspection after being moored out of state. One boat, inspected in La Grande after being moored in Saginaw Bay, Michigan was found to have zebra mussels which could have contaminated a number of nearby waters that drain into the Snake or Columbia rivers. The other boat, inspected in Central Point and moored at Lake Havasu (on the California/Arizona border) could have easily have contaminated any number of waters that drain into the Rogue River system. While these tiny invasive mussels cause millions of dollars in damage to boat motors, pumps and water-related construction, the biggest problem with them is that they filter out much of the food that very small and newly hatched fish feed on - causing a crash in fish populations from the bottom up. At any rate, it appears the program is working and I, for one, am very glad it is.