A visit to the Brookings Harbor Pier in Oregon

The pier in Brookings Harbor is a public pier but unlike California where public piers do not require a license, you do need one in Oregon. The one day license I bought was $19.

In September of 2014 I attended an Outdoor Writers Association of California (OWAC) conference in Smith River. As always, I enjoyed the beautiful area and made sure to visit the piers in Crescent City that were a mere twenty minutes away. The last day, I decided to visit Brooking, Oregon which sits just four miles inside the state line from California.

The pier sits above rocks lining the shore of Chetco River

My main quest was to determine if there were any piers at Brookings since no one I talked to could provide an answer to that question. Lo and behold there was a small pier of sorts in the harbor and soon after I had a couple of rods rigged up and was fishing.

In season there can be a lot of boaters seeking out salmon

The action wasn’t great but an hour and fifteen minutes produced five fish—two black rockfish, two kelp greenling (one a nice 20 inch-long fish), and one striped seaperch.

Black Rockfish

Kelp Greenling

This year (2016) I had a new chance to return while once again visiting the north coast. This time I had a little longer visit and while there caught another nice mix of fish—three small copper rockfish, one striped seaperch, one cabezon and a still unidentified sculpin.

The pier is divided into several section; not sure why.

Looking up the river and towards the harbor

The pier looking toward the mouth of the river.

Copper Rockfish

Boaters were catching salmon

Striped Seaperch

Lots of boats

Small cabezon

Half of the boaters seemed to have a dog in their boat

Unidentified sculpin (checking with the experts)

More people were crabbing than fishing

This angler was using an Eagle Claw star crab trap for his crabs

A lot of Dungeness crabs but almost all were too small

This angler was using his rod and reel and a collapsible crab trap for his crabs but with limited success

Although not in California, I think I will be adding the pier to Pier Fishing In California given its proximity to the state.

A  carving near the beach

Looking up the beach to the north

Looking down the beach to the south

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4 Responses to A visit to the Brookings Harbor Pier in Oregon

  1. Nice photos Ken. I looks like great weather.

  2. Matt says:

    This was great news for me and thank you for all the well labeled photos. I will be passing thru Brookings on my way to Coos Bay this fall.

    Just wondering what you favorite pier bait is and are you rigging for just off the bottom?

    Tips Up!

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