Back to the reefs. ODFW’s samplers in Charleston had boats averaging 3.3 rockfish per angler this week, mostly black rockfish with yellowtail mixed in, and reported lingcod as slow. Brookings was similar at 3.1 rockfish and 0.33 lingcod per angler. Saturday, September 26, was the last one-day coho opening of the year and Charleston boats kept 25 on it. The ocean was the biggest of the month, with a 10.8-foot peak and a 6.8-foot weekly average, which is part of why the rockfish number is a touch under the four-fish limit: fewer calm hours on the water.
The week in numbers
| Charleston | This week | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Rockfish per angler | 3.3 | Mostly black, some yellowtail; Brookings 3.1 |
| Lingcod | Slow | Brookings 0.33 per angler |
| Salmon angler trips | 86 | 4,400 for the season |
| Chinook kept | 3 | 416 for the season; 98 at this point in 2025 |
| Coho kept | 25 | Saturday opener; 1,741 for the season |
| Swell, Port Orford buoy | 6.8 ft average, 10.8 ft peak, 10 seconds | Wind 14 knots average, gusts to 30 |
| Water temperature | 57.5 degrees, 60.1 peak |
Bottomfish
3.3 rockfish per angler with a four-fish bag means most boats were close to limits and a few were not, which on a week with this much swell is a good result. Black rockfish are the fall fish off Coos Bay; they school on the reef tops off Cape Arago and take a shrimp fly or a jig as fast as you can get it down. Yellowtail showing in the sample says some boats were working the deeper edges or the long-leader grounds. Lingcod were slow here and everywhere else on the south coast. They are on the structure; they are not eating. That changes with the first good run of calm days, and October usually delivers a few.
Limits: four rockfish, three lingcod, canary two within the four, cabezon one per day, descending device required for the yelloweye and quillback you will see and cannot keep.
Salmon
Saturday the 26th closed out coho for 2026 from Cape Falcon to Humbug. From September 27 the ocean is open for all salmon except coho through October 31, two a day, Chinook 24 inches. Charleston’s season: 4,400 trips, 416 Chinook, 1,741 coho. Last year the port finished with 98 Chinook. The ocean Chinook fishing out of Coos Bay in 2026 was the best in years, and the coho total, while under last year’s 3,636, came on a shorter, quota-limited season.
Tuna
No sampled trips. The season is over for Charleston unless October surprises us.
Halibut
Summer all-depth days continue on quota, two a day, through October 31.
Crab and clams
Ocean crab closes after October 15. Two weeks left to pull pots outside the bar. ODA shellfish line: 1-800-448-2474.
Ocean and bar
The biggest week of September. Swell averaged 6.8 feet with a 10.8-foot peak, 10-second period, wind 14 knots with gusts to 30. The Coos Bay bar on an ebb with a seven-foot swell is a wait-for-the-flood situation, and the fleet fished the windows between fronts rather than every day.
Looking ahead
October rockfish, Chinook through the end of the month, two weeks of ocean crab. Watch the forecast for the first stretch of light wind; that is the lingcod day.
Neighbors
Brookings: 3.1 rockfish and 0.33 lingcod per angler. Tillamook Bay, far to the north, is in the thick of its fall Chinook run.
How this report is built: catch rates are ODFW Ocean Recreational Boat Survey dock-sample estimates for the week of September 21 to 27, 2026, published October 1. Salmon counts are ODFW’s preliminary weekly estimates through statistical week 39. Ocean conditions from NOAA buoys 46015 off Port Orford and 46229 off the Umpqua. Photos are file photos from the Pacific Charter Services archive (2023) and were not taken during the week covered. Compiled by Pacific Charter Services, Charleston, Oregon.