re: Was Columbia river, now Oregon Coast

Derek Jensen (djensen@teleport.com)
Sun, 01 Nov 1998 12:17:48 -0800


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West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
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>
>
> I drove to Washington this past summer and returned on the Oregon coast. I
> didn't have my boat but saw many bays and lakes that I would have liked to
> explore. My wife and I stayed at Wheeler, Oregon, for two nights to
> celebrate her birthday. We stayed at a small motel with a guest dock at the
> motel and a launch ramp next door. Would have been a great place to Potter.
> Wheeler is on the coast, about the same latitude as Portland. It's on
> Nehaleh Bay, or Nehalem, or something like that. August usually has some
> sunny days.
>
> Wollochet Bay, where Dick Freshley lives, near Gig Harbor on the southern
> Puget Sound is a beautiful site also.
>
> Anyway I hope to go back with my Potter next year for what Larry Brown
> calls "coastal trekking."
>
> Harry Gordon
> P14 #234, Manatee
> Mountain View, cA

Its Nehalem bay. That is a good area for Pottering ... Nehalem Bay state park is a large campground
with electrical hookups in every site, so if your setup right, it can be fine all year long. I tow my potter
with my Westphalia camper, so the campground is very convienient. The campground has a reasonable ramp,
but the floats are removed in the winter and spring, as are the channel markers. I would suggest an up to date
chart for the bay however, as it has many shoals and much of it is a stinky mud flat for much of the
tide. I ran agound several times. The bay is full of Dungeness, and most of the traffic you encounter
out there are rental motor boats setting traps. In the summer, the more daring could sail out the "jaws" for
some spirted ocean sailing off Manzanita. Strange thing about Nehalem, is that it seems to
get more sunshine than alot of places on the coast. Could be Nekahani (?) Mountain or something,
but I've never been there without getting a little sun. None the less, its wet there alot!

Newport Bay, Tillamook Bay, Siletz, etc. are all probably great places to potter. I would recommend
the book "Fishing Oregon" if you were to attempt this trip, as It has a description of just about every
fishable body of water, from the glorified mudpuddle, to indepth discussions of the larger waterways.
I use this book as a supplement to almost all of my outdoor activities in Oregon, as it has
more up-to-date information than almonst any publication I've seen.