By KATHLEEN O’CONNOR/YachatsNews
The Alsea Bay is a central Oregon coast treasure chest, full of crab and fish and oftentimes boats. For the novice there are many questions: What are the “rules of the road” on the bay? How can one participate? What are the best techniques for catching crab? Where is the best fishing?
When Damien Torrez moved to Waldport in 2020 he had the same questions. So he decided to start a Facebook page so he could learn from others, and vice versa. That Facebook page — Waldport Fishing & Crabbing Alsea Bay — now has 4,300 members, with new ideas, new questions and new catches being recorded almost daily.
Torrez grew up in Antioch, Calif. just east of San Francisco. Although it was close to the city, Antioch was a world away. A relatively small town back then, Antioch is on the San Joaquin delta where Damien’s father taught him to catch catfish and crawdads. As he grew older he learned more and more about fishing by visiting bait shops, talking with fishermen and trying things out for himself.
As a young adult he stayed in the Bay Area for several years, but as California’s population kept growing and Antioch kept changing Damien and his family began looking for a calmer place to live. They decided to move to Albany. The biggest draw was the Santiam River and its fishing opportunities, but all that the rest of Oregon had to offer was important, too — the coast, the mountain lakes, and the small towns everywhere. He worked as a long-distance trucker for 10 years but by 2020 he realized the Oregon coast was where he wanted to be, a big draw being Alsea Bay. He and his family moved that year. Since then Torrez has worked primarily as a commercial fisherman.
Question: What has it been like to manage this highly successful Facebook page?
Answer: The rules are clearly stated on the page, and there have been very few times when there have been any rude comments. Since I’m the only administrator I can stop bad behavior quickly. I want the site to have a welcoming, positive tone. The page has been very helpful to me as I learned about the Alsea River and the bay, and all the fishing opportunities that are here in addition to crabbing. People are looking for insights. I think it’s been very helpful to local residents and to people from everywhere. The Alsea Bay is well-known. People from literally all over the world come here hoping to land a salmon or catch enough crab for a family crab feed.
I enjoy fishing everywhere along the coast so I also run a Facebook page called Siltcoos Lake Fishing, and I just started an unrelated one called Waldport Oregon Garage Sales and Surrounding Neighborhoods because I’m always hunting for a bargain.
Q: What are the most important things boaters should know to stay safe?
A: Most importantly, wear your life jacket. No personal flotation device will do any good stored under a seat. Watch out for floating logs. All driftwood is waterlogged, and each log can be like an iceberg, with the biggest part under the water. Even though driftwood is soft, hitting a piece can cause costly damage to a hull or a propeller. Have two motors — one smaller than the other for backup. Always have good equipment. Give other boaters a lot of space. Stay at least 100 feet away from another boater’s crab pots so lines don’t get tangled. Respect one another.
Q: There are lots of theories about the best ways to catch crab in Alsea Bay. Which ones are true?
A: It is true that the best crabbing months are from September through January, basically all the months that end with “r”, plus January. The crab are the fullest during these months. I think the best time to crab is from two hours before high tide until the slack tide. I always use chicken as bait, fresh chicken. I don’t think the crab like old, decaying food any more than we would. Some people say that a smaller difference between the height of the high and low tide is important (the swing), but I haven’t ever seen that to be true. Crabbing suffers when there is too much fresh water in the bay so the days after a big rainstorm are not as good. I mostly crab from the shore, and I use Crab Max traps. But, all these guidelines can be proven wrong. You can catch crab just before low tide. You can catch crab in July. You can catch crab with half-rotten chicken. You can get lucky any time.
Q: As a fisherman how do you decide whether it’s safe to go out to the ocean to fish?
A: I have a small boat; it’s just 17 feet. I can only go out when the ocean is cooperating. I always look at what the combination of the height of the ocean swells, how far apart they are, and how hard the wind is blowing. For example, I won’t go out if the swells are higher than 4.5 feet coming every 10-11 seconds with the wind blowing at more than 12 mph. I have only learned this through experience, and that’s how every boat owner must learn what his/her boat can do. I use several websites to keep track of current conditions: WeatherBug for local weather information, NOAA for local bar observations, and the Windy App for descriptions of the wind and swells.
Q: What makes you happiest about fishing and crabbing?
A: I have loved teaching my three teenagers to enjoy these activities. We have gone camping all over Oregon and fished in so many places. My daughter, Liliana, caught a beautiful steelhead just a few days ago up the Alsea River, and we ate it that night with our favorite side dish, lemon butter pepper rice. I am happy to see them learning so many life skills from a simple activity like fishing, just as millions of people have done in the past. I also like watching all the visitors enjoying the bay, both on boats and on the beach. Visiting families make so many memories here every day, every year.
Q: Tell us a secret.
A: This sounds a little crazy, but I am allergic to crab shells — only the shells. I clean my crab very carefully and eat it very carefully. If I swallow a bit of shell I will have an anaphylactic reaction. This does not deter me — Dungeness crab is one of my favorite foods.
- Kathleen O’Connor is a Waldport freelance writer who can be reached via email at kmoc8916@gmail.com
- “5 Questions and a Secret” appears every other week on YachatsNews. Have a suggestion for a subject? Send your ideas to YachatsNews@gmail.com
A word to the wise. If you want to continue to have a somewhat serene place to fish and crab, publicizing our area in the social media is the worst thing a person could do. That may be the way that they do it where you moved from, but I have seen many pristine places ruined since social media came along and had people giving too much information on a specific area. It’s already crowded enough without more and more coming. We love our area here and don’t want it exploited to the point we can’t even go fishing ourselves. Not saying you can’t brag, just don’t be so specific.
Your missing the whole point Steve. Sharing is caring. The Alsea is no secret.