Winchester Bay red tails

The red tail surf perch are on the bite at Winchester bay. It's looking good for this Thursday or Friday. They are being caught at the 12 channel marker, which is about 3 miles up from windy bay. It's quite a paddle, but doable with the tides. Anyone interested in giving it a try with me? Folks are catching limits on sand shrimp, and they get up to 4 lbs. Also, they count in the panfish category. We may not have any walleye down here on the central coast, but a big red tail could add some extra AOTY points!

Why does everything gotta be at marker 12??  theres gotta be some lower down, or maybe at the reedport launch?

I might go friday if things work out for me... I'll keep ya posted.

coose.. you could always move north.. LOL

GD,, tides look good,,, Would like to try for perch,,  any day is good for me. Royg

Here's a taste of what redtail perch fishing can produce. I caught these while on vacation with the parents in 1969 at the mouth of the Klamath river in Northern California. The big one weighed four pounds! Damn, it sure doesn't seem like that was forty years ago!

I paddled to the 12 marker bouy, and then across to the other side today. There were about 15 boats parked over there fishing for redtail perch. The weather was beautiful, but the fishing was just fishing, no catching! I didn't see anyone catch anything. A guy that I anchored next to had caught a few on the incoming low tide, and told me as I arrived, that the bite had stopped. I was on the water 4 hours, almost two of them paddling. A long way to go to get skunked. All in all, still a beautiful day to be on the Umpqua. There was a nice beach, so I was abel to take a  nature's calling break before heading back to Windy bay. Wearing a farmer john has it's disadvantages. I really need to get that relief zipper installed!

By the way, I was the only yak on the river!

GD,, talked to Tom at the tire shop in Reedsport about the perch,, he said they were just showing up and the bite was off and on ,, still week early sounds like..

sometimes it pays to be lazy....Sorry you got skunked. I dragged my butt dowm to Empire and bank caught a couple big planters.

Have to give it another try soon...

Just wondering where the 12 channel marker is. Only fished the  Umpqua estuary once, around the the Gardiner log booms for stripers, with no luck.

Here's a photo of the Umpqua showing where I was fishing.

Thanks for the map, Dave. No closer access eh? I can imagine a combination of wind and tide could make that a pretty tough paddle.

Hey Dave, down here Brookings way we fish the Redtails on steep bank beaches on the rising tide. What's the technique for river fishin em out of a yak?

I was rigged like I used to do for surf fishing, but used a 2oz ball sinker on the bottom instead of of a bigger surf style sinker. I had 2 size 2 snelled hooks above that. You want to keep the bait off of the bottom so the crabs and bullheads don't eat it. I was using sand shrimp. From what I could see of the other fishermen, they were using similar outfits. We were only fishing in about 18 ft of water, so I cast it out to the side so I wasn't fishing directly under the yak. The other guys were also casting out. I want to try it again in a couple of weeks. Hopefully the fish will be biting the next time!