Thursday, May 21, 2009

TRIP REPORT: Surfing Sea Kayaks at the Oregon Coast

It's been a while since my last post. I admit I got a bit hung up on catching a spring salmon on the Columbia, and needed some serious catch up time for school and everything else.

Shay and I did manage to break away for a weekend at the Oregon coast. We feverishly packed our gear Saturday night after a long days work. By the time our essentials were loaded, I realized the tackle shop was closed. "No problem." I thought. "I'll just find one in Lincoln City." I had been aiming to test a few different hand lines for a couple of weeks now.

It turns out there is no tackle shop in Lincoln City, so rather than drive around aimlessly searching, we scratched the idea of catching rock fish and lingcod for playing in the surf and relaxing on the beach. I have been itching to get back out in the surf for some time now, so the prospect of not having fish and chips for dinner was easier to swallow.

We launched from the boat ramp onto the Salmon river estuary at around 11:30 AM. Skies were sunny, but the fog bank loomed close offshore. Temperatures were warm, in the low seventies, the wind grew to a steady fifteen mph with gusts to twenty mph out of the West. Swell was mild, averaging two to five feet out of the West with a period average of eight seconds.

The Salmon river estuary and Cascade Head is a beautiful place to be:








We paddled down river towards the mouth, encountering a colony of seals along the way guarding a few young pups. We kept our distance, but were still gently harassed by this brash male:





As I passed by the seal, I was focusing in on a photo of Shay when he slapped the stern quarter of my boat with a startling splash and thud, nearly giving me a heart attack. It's a good thing the camera was tethered to my PFD, because I dropped it like an old sandwich and paddled forward 100ft in about a second. I did get this pic of Shay as we approached the river mouth:



Approaching Cascade Head and the mouth of the Salmon River:





I was hoping for bigger swell, but had fun outside the mouth in the break:





We pulled out on the beach at the South side of the mouth to relax and watch the fog roll in:








We paddled back to the launch late that afternoon, riding the incoming tide and strong West wind the whole way:




I've got finals coming up in the next two weeks, and then my brothers wedding, so I won't be back out on the water kayak fishing and surfing until after June 10th. But when I do get back, I am going to try and get to the coast as much as possible, and will give a full report on the hand-line kayak-fishing test.

Until then,

Jason