3/19/07 West Salish Pond. First impressions of a close in, family friendly trout pond in Portland, Oregon
This weekend was the first time my family fished at West Salish Pond in Portland Oregon.
Mud Hens Fool Fishers At Salish Pond but the fish are really jumping!
I only found out about the pond because I saw someone carrying a fishing rod in the parking lot as I drove down Glisan St. not too long ago. I stopped and asked a nice woman and man in the parking lot how long it had been there. They said it had been there a long time, but had only been stocked for a few years. The woman said she caught at least one trout every time she went there, so that sounded very promising for me. I have a 9 year old daughter who loves to fish or at least loves to watch me fish while she plays in the mud and water.
Author Fishing At Salish Pond
Before we went I studied the 2007 trout stocking schedule at Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's (ODFW's) website and saw that they had stocked 750 "larger" trout on 2/12/07. Here are their definitions of size.
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They also had a disclaimer that they would stock sometime during the week after that date and that the dates were subject to change due to water conditions and equipment failure.
We started at about 3 pm and the lake was full with about 20 fishing parties.
Fishing Parties at West Salish Pond near Fairview and Troutdale
About half of the parties had school age children with them. West
Salish Pond is fairly small. There are two manmade ponds right next to
eachother divided by earth berms and a small stream; West and East The
West one, closest to Portland, is the one they stock with trout.
Handicap accessible dock at West Salish Pond
No Boating or Swimming Allowed at West Salish Pond in Portland OR
Many people were there just walking and biking around the lake as well although the paths can be pretty muddy in the spring.
East Salish Pond
The garbage can was overflowing with empty Ready To Fish packages. There is an outhouse at East Salish Pond which is a great help for being able to fish for a long time with children. A nearby quickie mart sells worms which seemed to be working well. I saw people using bright green Powerbait, worms, grubs, and Mepps and Rooster tail spinners. Both ponds have a fishing dock which is somewhat handicap accessible. You cannot walk all the way around West Salish Pond since part of it is fenced off for Fairview housing.
Fairview Homes adjacent to West Salish Pond
We caught no fish and got no bites, but we did see two people catch "trophy" trout (trout 15 -16" long and FAT!). One was caught on grubs by a man who did not speak much English (so I could not get all the details of how it was caught)
Trophy Trout caught at West Salish Pond
and one on worms at the surface with a bobber around sunset.
Another Trophy Trout caught at West Salish Pond
The later fish was donated to my smiling daughter who walked around the lake with it on a stringer showing it off to everyone. Those two trout must have been stocked last August according to the ODFW 2006 trout stocking schedule unless those were the "larger" trout grown to 15 - 16". When I cut the fish open at home, it had a lot of stomach fat left in it and not much in it's stomach, so they could have been stocked fat enough to live over the winter in the pond. We did not measure until after the head was removed, so I am not sure of the exact length of the fish. I look forward to going there again in May and June after they start stocking a lot more of the legal size trout. I hope the stocking schedule meets the pressure of this easy-to-get-to pond.
West Salish Pond is located on Glisan and 207th Ave in Fairview, OR
Here is an interesting excerpt from the 5/31/07 Oregonian:
They stopped to watch as Gary Galovich netted black crappie from a large tank on a trailer and handed them to volunteers to take to the water.
The crappie had been caught by members of the Oregon Bass and Panfish Club and held in a trap in Prineville Reservoir. The crappie have been tested for disease, and the transplant was conducted under a permit from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Galovich, the department's western warmwater fish biologist in Corvallis, transported 604 black crappie and six largemouth bass from Prineville to Portland in a tank fitted with an aerator. Salish Ponds are enclosed public waters, with no outlet to a stream. They offer good crappie habitat in an urban setting, a perfect place to spend a summer evening with a rod in hand.
West Salish Pond First Impressions
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