Fall fishing's fine.

Byline: Mike Stahlberg The Register-Guard

FLORENCE - Twenty-two times Bruce Craviotto towed his boat from Eugene to the Siuslaw River to fish for fall chinook salmon. And 22 times he came home empty-handed.

He finally caught his first Siuslaw salmon on the 23rd trip. That was 18 years ago.

So Craviotto is speaking from firsthand experience when he says, "the Siuslaw is a very tough fishery, probably one of the hardest on the Oregon Coast for learning - you've got 20 percent of the fishermen down here catching 80 percent of the fish."

These days, however, Craviotto is one of the 20 percenters.

A licensed fishing guide, he seldom returns to the boat ramp without at least one fat fall chinook salmon in the fish box of his jet sled.

"It took me several years before I finally started consistently catching fish here," Craviotto said during a Monday outing with a Register-Guard reporter and John Hoppe, a Eugene insurance auditor, whom Craviotto has known since high school

"There's a lot of snags in this river that can eat up a lot of your time if you don't know where they're at. You've got to know what bait to use, and where and when to fish.'

Craviotto said we'd fish "the morning bite" higher in the river and then drop down to the confluence of the North Fork Siuslaw as the tide started to come in.

"I like to fish for those nice bright fish that have just come in from the ocean with fresh sea lice on them," he said.

No matter where in the Siuslaw you're fishing for fall chinook, Craviotto said, "you've got to stay close to the bottom (with your bait). That's where the strike zone is."

During that first frustrating season on the Siuslaw 18 years ago, Craviotto said he made the mistake of targeting chinook that he could see on his depth finder suspended in the middle of the water column.

Those fish will bite occasionally, he said, "but 80 percent of the fish are caught on the bottom."

Craviotto began the day trolling cut-plug herring, using three- or four-ounce lead sinkers - depending on the current - to keep the bait within two or three feet of the river bottom.

"If the weight starts bouncing on the bottom, I'll just pick up the engine speed a little or ask you to crank the reel a couple of times, and that's your strike zone," he said.

There have been plenty of salmon in the zone so far this season.

In fact, word of an exceptional bite produced a flotilla of parading boats to the lower tidewater section of the river last week.

"I've never seen it so crowded as I have the past few days from Murphy's hole to the Cushman Bridge," Craviotto said. "There were so many boats running up and down, churning up the water. ... I've crossed bars that were calmer."

The crowds had thinned somewhat by Monday, and not a single net was seen waving during the first two hours.

This, apparently, would be one of those days on which anglers would have to know what they were doing if they hoped to catch fish.

Finally, around 10 o'clock, the rod on the right side of the sled bent in half. But the fish was gone before Craviotto could set the hook. A couple of hours later, another fish was on briefly before shaking free.

Craviotto decided a change in tactics was in order and rigged one rod with a "spinnerbait" - a combination of bait and lure. In this case, the bait was a whole anchovy and the lure was a medium-sized green spinner - all connected to a large gold treble hook.

Craviotto ties the line in a fashion that keeps the anchovy in a slightly bent shape, so it will "roll" constantly as it is towed through the water.

"I use spinnerbait a lot on the Rogue River," said Craviotto, who guides on that river from late March through August. "Not many people run them up here, and the fish are probably getting a little tired of looking at Blue Foxes and herring all the time.

"I like to throw them a little curveball and run something different. Some days they won't touch a spinnerbait. Other days, it's the best bait I've got in the boat."

This turned out to be one of the "other" days.

Four times the rod with the spinnerbait went down, and four times football-shaped salmon were brought to the net.

The first one, landed by Hoppe, did some serious leaping, splashing and thrashing before it was finally netted.

Craviotto made sure each fish had tired itself out before getting the net ready.

Anglers lose a lot of big chinook by getting too anxious with the net, he said.

"A lot of times, you'll hook 'em and they won't know what's going on. They'll come in pretty easy. Then they'll see the boat and - attitude adjustment! - off they go. That's where a lot of people make their mistake. They try to net 'em when the fish first comes to the boat. As soon as he sees the boat or the net, he's going to take off, almost on cue."

In addition, he said, waving a net on the Rogue is like ringing a dinner bell for some savvy seals and sea lions who've learned that where there's a net in the air, there's often a salmon that can't escape their jaws.

Of the four salmon brought to the boat Monday, one was not netted because it was a wild coho salmon. The Siuslaw is closed to the retention of coho.

The three keepers were about 24, 20 and 13 pounds. That made them a little smaller than Craviotto had been seeing.

"The average's been about 25 pounds," he said. "We caught a lot of fish in the 30s last week, and all four fish we hooked on Friday were in the 30s."

The biggest Siuslaw salmon so far this season, Craviotto said, was a 55-pounder reportedly weighed in last week at one of the marinas.

Fall chinook fishing in tidewater usually remains good through October, or until the fall rains raise the river level enough for the salmon to reach their spawning beds.

"Later in October, I could go up around Mapleton and catch more fish on bobber and eggs and shrimp, but unless I've got customers that really want to go up there and do that, I like sticking it out down here and going for the brighter fish," Craviotto said.

WHERE THEY CATCH 'EM

Based on data from angler salmon-steelhead tags, the Siuslaw River ranks among Oregon's top three coastal rivers for fall chinook salmon. Here are the annual fall chinook harvests for the latest available three-year period:

Lower Rogue River and Bay: Average catch - 7,962 chinook.

Tillamook Bay: Average catch - 4,860.

Siuslaw River and Bay: Average catch - 4,048.

Nestucca River and Bay: Average catch - 4,015.

Alsea River and Bay: Average catch - 3,497.

Nehalem River and Bay: Average catch - 2,963.

Wilson River: Average catch - 2,827

Trask River: Average catch - 2,581.

Siletz River and Bay: Average catch - 2,336.

Yaquina River and Bay: Average catch - 2,148.

Coquille River and Bay: Average catch - 1,937.

Coos River and Bay: Average catch - 1,928.

- Oregon Department Fish and Wildlife.

CAPTION(S):

This bait-lure combination proved effective for catching Siuslaw River chinook salmon. Fishing guide Bruce Craviotto nets a hefty chinook salmon aboard his jet sled.