TO CATCH A KING.

Byline: Mike Stahlberg The Register-Guard

Are you ready for some football-shaped fish?

Fall chinook season kicks off in earnest in September, and the prospects of finding one of these fat and sassy salmon taking crazy bounces at the end of your line are surprisingly good for anglers willing to put in the time and effort, state fishery biologists say.

About 130,000 chinook salmon are predicted to make it back to Oregon coastal rivers to spawn this fall, according to Ethan Clemons, an analyst who represents Oregon on the "chinook technical committee" that monitors Pacific Coast salmon stocks and treaty compliance.

Some of the chinook returning to their home rivers to spawn will be five or six years old and will tip the scales at more than 40 pounds. Fall chinook are the "kings" of salmon.

While Clemons says "about an average year" appears to be in store for fall chinook on the Oregon Coast as a whole the committee's model predicts lower returns than last year on the south coast, balanced by higher returns this year to a trio of mid-coast rivers popular with Lane County area anglers.

On the Alsea River, for example, "we have an estimated forecast of about 19,000 fish," Clemons said. That compares to an estimated return last year of almost 7,500 chinook.

And the Siuslaw River fall chinook escapement this year is forecast to be nearly 15,000, up 50 percent from last year's estimated 10,000 fish. The South Umpqua River forecast calls for a return of 5,600 salmon, up from 2,400 in 2006.

"My intuition tells me the forecast is a little high," Clemons said, "but this is what the bare data tells us ... My reserve is tempered by the limitations of the model."

The model used to predict chinook returns to coastal rivers has produced forecasts that turned out to be "not all that far off during the recent history of stocks on the upswing," he said. "The ability of the model to track and forecast stocks on the downswing, as chinook now are, might be a little less ..."

Meanwhile, any positive outlook for river chinook fishing probably comes as a surprise to salmon anglers who have watched chinook catches in the ocean plummet this year.

From Astoria to Brookings, only about 3,500 chinook have been tallied by creel checkers working the docks at Oregon ports this season. That compares with 5,700 at the same point of the season last year, and with 17,300 in 2005. Nowhere is the drop more dramatic than at Winchester Bay, where the 2007 chinook harvest stood at 756 through Aug. 26, according to ODFW creel checkers. Last year at that point, 3,034 chinook had been brought to the docks at Winchester Bay.

However, Oregon ocean and river chinook fisheries "are pretty well independent of each other," says Eric Schindler, project leader of the ODFW's's Ocean Salmon Management Program.

"Our ocean fishery off Oregon doesn't really impact our own stocks of chinook very much," Schindler said.

"Just because fishing has been lousy for chinook in the ocean this year, that doesn't mean anything relative to our own rivers."

In other words, the schools of chinook feeding around the Whistler Buoy out of Winchester Bay during July and August are not the same schools of salmon that swim up the Umpqua in September and October.

In fact, most of the chinook caught off the central Oregon coast during the summer are on their way back to the Sacramento River or some other California port.

Oregon-born and bred chinook swim north into the Gulf of Alaska to feed and are just now beginning to show up around the mouths of their home rivers.

Just because fall chinook are in the rivers, however, doesn't mean they are easy to catch, by any means.

In the bays, the fish can be widely scattered and move up and down in the estuaries with the tides, making it difficult to know if your bait or lure is even close to a fish. Even professional guides sometimes fish several days without putting a salmon in the box.

That's why it's important to be prepared to try several techniques, says guide Todd Linklater, who will speak on the Dos and Don'ts of fall chinook fishing at Wednesday's meeting of the Association of Northwest Steelheaders. (See To Catch A King Box for details).

"You've just got to know the water and fish it effectively as you can," Linklater said. "And always have game plan A, B and C, so if A doesn't work you can go to B, and then if B and C doesn't work, you may have to punt."

KING SALMON SUMMARY

Where: Fall chinook salmon are harvested from more than 70 rivers, streams and bays in western Oregon. Year-in and year-out, the biggest producers are the Alsea , Nehalem, Nestucca, Rogue, Siletz and Siuslaw rivers and bays, Tillamook Bay, and the Salmon, Trask, and Wilson rivers.

When: Salmon begin showing in some bays in August and move into the freshwater sections of the rivers as soon as flows are cool and/or high enough. On some small south coast streams, chinook don't show in force until November.

How: Trolling spinners or a small baitfish (such as herring or sardine) are the most popular methods in the bays. Once the salmon move into the more confined freshwater sections of the river, anglers generally report the best success using globs of cured roe and/or sandshrimp or large plugs wrapped with bits of baitfish fillet 

How to: "Angling Techniques for River Kings," a 60-minute DVD produced by Nick Amato, editor of Salmon Trout Steelheader Magazine, offers well-illustrated demonstrations of the four primary techniques used to target in-river fall chinook salmon - drift fishing, float fishing, back-bouncing and long-lining plugs. Priced at $25, the DVD features advice from salmon guide Rob Russell and retired guide Kris Olson and underwater views of the bait in action. It is available from www.amatobooks.com or from booksellers (ISBN-10: 1-57188-420-3).

More advice: Fishing guide Todd Linklater of Eugene will speak on the do's and don'ts of fall chinook fishing Wednesday at a meeting of the local chapter of the Association of Northwest Steelheaders, 7 p.m., Eagles on the Green, 1375 Irving Rd.

Eric Neal will share some of his secrets for fishing the Siuslaw River tidewaters at the Sept. 10 meeting of the VIP Club at Steelheaders West, 4405 Main St., Springfield. Details: 744-2248 or [e-mail].

- ODFW, Register-Guard research