Bob Straub State Park

Bob Straub State Park sits at Pacific City in Tillamook County on the northern Oregon coast, where the Nestucca River meets the Pacific Ocean along a long sand spit. The park provides parking, restrooms, and direct beach access to one of the coast's classic salmon rivers and a popular walking beach. It was renamed in 1987 for Governor Robert Straub, who fought to protect the spit from a proposed highway and helped shape Oregon's public beach tradition.

Oregon treats its ocean beaches as a state recreation area, and administrative rules allow limited personal collection of loose natural souvenirs. For agates, stones, shells, and similar non living items found loose on the ground, each person may collect up to one gallon per day and up to three gallons per calendar year using an individual container. Material must be for personal noncommercial use. Embedded wood in dunes, living marine organisms, and disturbance of park property remain prohibited.

Bob Straub is honest agate country at best. The Nestucca spit is mostly sand, and summer beaches here bury cobbles under seasonal sand build up. Collectors seeking serious agate hunts usually drive to rockier beaches near Oceanside, Cape Lookout, or the central coast. Bob Straub works as a beachcombing stop with legal limited take rather than a destination dig.

Time your visit for low tide after a winter storm if agates are the goal. November through April removes sand from many Oregon beaches and exposes gravel bars. Summer visits are better for walking the spit and watching river mouth activity than for rockhounding.

Bring a one gallon bucket per person, not a shared container. Oregon rules require individual collection limits. Pick up only loose material on the surface. Rock picks, shovels, and metal detectors are not allowed in state parks.

Pacific City offers food, lodging, and the famous dory boat launch near Haystack Rock at Cape Kiwanda. Combine a short beachcombing session here with a more productive rocky beach elsewhere on the coast if you want a fuller agate day.

See other Oregon collecting areas including Succor Creek for inland exceptions to the general state park collecting ban.

Bob Straub State Park commemorates Oregon Governor Robert W. Straub, a key figure in the 1967 Oregon Beach Bill that preserved public access to the coastline. Straub opposed paving the Nestucca Spit for a highway, and the park's existence reflects that conservation victory. Pacific City's dory fleet launching into the surf beside Haystack Rock is one of the coast's most distinctive fishing traditions. The Nestucca River's fall Chinook run has a long regional reputation among anglers.

Oregon's gallon limits exist because unrestricted beach collecting would strip cobble armor that protects dunes and habitat. Take only loose surface stones you will actually keep, and stay within the annual three gallon cap. Do not remove embedded wood or dig into dune faces, which destabilizes vegetation holding the spit together. Pack out all trash including microplastic and fishing line common at river mouths. Heavier collecting pressure on sandy beaches like Bob Straub matters less than on cobble starved shores, but the rule applies everywhere equally. Responsible beachcombing keeps the ocean shore open to limited personal use.