2023 Happy New Year from: Elk and Sixes Rivers
Finally adding a website post after a long hiatus. The last 2 years have been really tough for me physically and medically with numerous surgeries and recoveries. Too many procedures and hospitalizations to post a comprehensive story, but suffice to say, that recent surgeries ran the gamut, including a torn Achilles repair, a knee replacement, a rotator cuff repair, a knee debrievement, broken ribs, 2 lower back surgeries, cataract surgeries and more. Though the medical issues really impacted guiding and other parts of my life, I am certainly happy to report that I am finally back on the water and able to row the drift boat again.
Pat was one of the fortunate fishermen to connect with a beautiful Sixes River fall salmon this season!
Wes enjoyed a Bumper Day on the Elk River going 6 for 6 releasing wild fish until he finally got the 2 hatchery fish he was after. The ODFW fish checker was waiting anxiously for us at the take out where she could get measurements, a scale sample and remove any pit tag to help assess the efficacy of the hatchery program.
In the late fall and early winter of 2022, I ran some “test” trips to see how things would go and identify any limitations. I started with running some trout trips on the McKenzie and then targeted fall salmon down on the Elk and Sixes Rivers near Port Orford. Fortunately everything went okay and folks were gracious enough to tolerate a somewhat slower moving John with a bit of a hitch to his git-along. The biggest problem we all encountered was another slower run of salmon again on the Elk and Sixes rivers. Global warming indeed seems to be taking its toll on the fish populations. While the commercial trollers working out in the ocean near the mouth of the Elk River in October did pretty good, river fishermen had to wait and wait for rain to bring in fish in November and December. We really only had a couple very short-lasting rain events that brought the rivers up high enough to float the drift boats. Low warm water is not ideal for returning adult salmon. Fortunately we had some great World Cup soccer matches to fill in the gaps when we couldn’t get out on the water.
Meanwhile, to the north, the fate of the McKenzie River Valley and its Spring Chinook salmon run now teeters on a tenuous balance with the recent decisions from the Eugene Water & Electric Board and the Army Corp of Engineers to decommission Leaburg Dam and terminate fish mitigation funds. With no dam and no hatchery fishery, salmon harvest as we know it could come to an abrupt end. We’ll discus this down the road a ways as more information is provided. Lots of food for thought lies ahead.
