Hey guys I was just wondering if any Oregon guys live on the coast and how do you like it? I may have the opportunity to move to Tillamook but I am a little intimidated by the amount of rain that they recieve, 90.5 inches a year on average. That seems like it may get a little old and depressing.
Thanks,
Jon
Jon
I used to live in Tillamook. Not a bad place. There is a fair amount of good elk and deer hunting there. Salmon and steelhead fishing can be very good.
I now live a couple hundred miles to the north on the coast in Forks Wa. where it also rains a little. Average yearly is 134" You get used to it.
John
It is not for everyone...or everyone would move and stay there! Places like that or inland where it is real cold you always see for sale signs. Someone moved there and in the summer or spring and thought it was paradise. Lived there one year and decided it wasn't for them. It is a lot of rain and a lot of wind. But the trade offs for less people and traffic and hunting out your backyard can overrule the wind and rain...for some!
If your retired you could always fly south for the winter.
Jager makes an excellent point. I hunt each year with Oregon friends who live and raise cattle in central Oregon within the Fossil unit right on the John Day River. They also have property on the coast near Tillamook, in Lincoln City right on the Nestucca River. There is excellent Rocky Mt Elk in the interior and incredibly tough terrain where you will find Roosevelts Elk near the Nestucca which is the Wilson Trask Unit. You can get access to the timber tracks pretty easily. The rain comes in vertically and you better be well above the flood plain wherever you settle or be prepared to deal with seasonal flooding. They spend all their vacation time in Mexico and the Coachella Valley in the winter. It is great fishing and hunting but jobs are tough to find, real estate is not cheap given the cost of living and yes the weather is a challenge. You might try Portland and Beaverton first if you want a job and travel around the coast or interior. Go Ducks! Go Beavers too!
If you don't want to do things outside in the rain occasionally, you won't go outside for 9 months of the year. It is beautiful and green, but there is a reason it is green! Outwest is right, you get used to it (I was born and lived in Washington for 46 years, and even I thought Forks was too wet).
Ron
Thanks everyone for the input. I will still have to give it some thought. I am a forester so I would be working outside alot of the time and I am definatly not retired at 26 so the option of moving elsewhere for 1/2 the year is not an option. Thanks again.
Jon
Highboy, If you are going to move to Oregon, I'd love to fill your billet in Shasta. It's down right gorgeous up there.
I live part time in Jewell and do all my hunting there. You have to be able to take the constant wet, damp, cold weather. The up side is those huge Roosie Bulls,and hunting them in some of the toughest terrain in America. If you like me believe that when the going gets tough the tough get going you'll love the Oregon coast.
No one has mentioned the pleasant aroma that surrounds Tillamook from all the dairy cows. It can get a little intense at times. The Mookies call it the smell of money. Once you get out of town you get away from it though. It doesn't seem to bother the elk they just bed down in pastures like the cows. There are five rivers that empty into Tillamook Bay and flooding there is not uncommon in the winter with the right storms. Seek a place out of town and on higher ground and you should be fine. You are only an hour from Portland so you would have access to what the big city, by Oregon standards, has to offer.
I don't know about the wet weather of Oregon, but I was stationed at between Bremen (think St. Paulie's Girl) and Bremerhaven (think Beck's) in Germany from 1986 to 1988. There it rained every day it didn't snow. It was the most melencholy weather I ever experienced (though I suspect those in eastern Michigan, western Washington and western Oregon might relate). You have to really LOVE the outdoors and be able to carry your sunshine in your own body. Good luck if you choose to go. Watch you drinking, it can become dangeroulsy "recreational." :knothead:
-Brett
Thought I'd revive this thread just to say that when I cruised out to Tillamook the other day to see Mr. John Strunk, I saw a road killed black bear on the side of Highway 6, the main road leading into town. It was between the cow pasture on the right, and that dairy right next to the road if you're familiar with the area. John said it was the first time he had ever heard or seen a bear this close to his neighborhood.