Ocean Salmon over the Siuslaw bar

Crossing the bar at the mouth of any Oregon coast river is serious business but it isn't totally crazy.  I've now been over the Siuslaw bar 6 times on a Hobie, always in late summer, when the outflow of the river is very low, and on a day with small (3' or less) swell and soft tides plus almost no wind. I like to cross to the ocean near the end of the outgoing tide and return during the incoming tide, again never on a strong tidal change day (unless you could make the crossings at low/high slack).

Pepper and I had a great outing on Aug.13, we started 3.5miles upriver at Exploding Whale park, crossed the bar at 9:30am (video: 4min) after a take-down between the jetties, then had 5 salmon take-downs getting out to 180', lost a shaker, released a wild coho and landed/released a 22" chinook (video: 9m40s), and then a relaxing crossing back into the river at 2:30pm (video: 16m20s), back to launch at 3:30pm when Pepper finally got to pee.   

https://youtu.be/GQ0jj0YxArs?si=i3QHPL8phqzpnDyz

This was Pepper's 3rd time over the Siuslaw bar and 12th ocean trip overall.  She is approaching 13yo and I think this will be her last ocean trip, we will be doing lots of river and lake salmon fishing this fall.  You will notice that she has a wetsuit and PFD with the floatation under her belly, which would help me get her back on the kayak.  But in fact, the only time she has ever been swimming anywhere is when we did our 'swim and recover' practice after getting the 2019 Outback.  That gave me (and my wife who issued our "go anywhere" fishing pass after helping make the video) confidence that the rear deck of the Outback was basically like a surf board, very easy to crawl back on.  This is the video we made doing that in a cold lake:

 https://youtu.be/T-IDAIq7e9c?si=UVKEnGUgMSU1WY_3

Great video, thank you for sharing. You brought a tear to my eye seeing pepper on possibly her last Ocean trip. Your pictures and videos are always a joy to see.

The worst trick nature ever played was giving dogs a shorter lifespan than ours.   

I whole heartedly agree with you Tinker!
 Been echoing that sentiment my whole life.

Pepper would like everyone to know that she isn't old, she's just experienced...hang on, she's dozed off again, oh she's back...and just because she can't jump on the bed or go up stairs...oops, sleeping again, resting up for our next outing...also, she's woofing mad at me for temporarily being out of 'salvage tag' venison to add to her food!  lol

(sadly, I can't do anything about her getting old, other than keep her weight correct, but that 'slightly bruised' venison shortage, it is, sadly, going to resolve itself very soon.)

She's living a canine dream, roger.  Every pup should be as blessed.