Salmon fishing in Oregon

[Sticks]

I have been home now for a few months and thought I should take the time to share a few fishing stories and photos.

This Chinook from a few weeks back was caught on the Columbia river a few miles upriver from Portland. The technique used to catch these summer/fall Chinook is to anchor up in hog lines and back bounce wobblers out about a 150 feet behind the boat.


A week or so later I meet up with TrabucoDan at wife's family beach house on Tillamook bay. the water was in pretty good shape so we crossed the bar and fished the ocean most of the first day. the next two days the bar was restriced to 24 foot boats and larger so we fished the bay instead. Unfortunately I lost a couple of salmon before getting them to the boat. But all was good it was nice to get together with one of my friends from Southern California.


This past weekend we headed down there again. The plan was to take my drift boat and fish the lower Trask river and the upper bay where all of the Chinook are piling up waiting for the rain so they can start there journey up river. Unfortunately I had engine trouble so we took my friend Jake's boat instead. Only bad part is his boat sits to far down in the water to fish our prime spots.

Saturday and Sunday we fished the jaws (between the North and South jetty just in from the ocean) along with the coast guard hole and the ghost hole.

Saturday we started in the jaws we had 8 to 10 foot rollers coming in from the ocean.  We all put out our cut plug herring and flashers and trolled with the out going tide. After a couple of hours out there it turned out to be just a little too much for my wife so we decided to head to calmer water in the bay.

A couple of miles up the bay we put our gear out again in the Coast Guard hole and with in a few minutes my wifes rod went down. after a short fight her Coho salmon was in the net.


10 minutes later I farmed another coho as we tried to net it. It was on fire doing aerial acrobatics flipping and flopping all over the place. We trolled that hole awhile longer with no bites. We brought in our gear and headed up to the Ghost hole. Ariving at the Ghost hole we noticed it was a complete zoo, had to be 70 boats in there trolling back and forth. an hour went by and we didn't see a single fish hooked. We were about to give up when Jake's rod tip slammed down in to the water,,fish on!



With 10 hours spent on the water we decided to call it a day.


On Sunday only Jake and I headed out for a half day. The jaws were unfishable but we tried any ways with 14 foot rollers and a strong out going tide we decided the fish weren't worth our lives so again we headed to sheltered water. We fished until noon only seeing a single fish caught.

It was a good weekend overall can't wait to get back down there and do it again.

Cheers,
Sticks


 

[sasquatch]

Those are some nice fish. Thanks for putting up the post, Steve.

[Latimeria]

Oh man, those are some good looking salmon, Steve.  I've been hoping/waiting for you to post up a killer report.  I can't wait until the sturgeon fishing commences for you!

[Sticks]

Thank guys

Catch and release sturgeon fishing is open pretty much year round with the big over sized fish mostly June through August on the Columbia. We still have a retention fishery, just have to keep a close eyes on the ever changing regs on the internet with only one fish per angler per year.

Cheers,

[MASSfisher]

Very, very awesome. I am starting to become very interested in salmon ever since my trip to Washington during the summer (didn't get to fish though). I would love to add them to my list one of these days. Thanks for sharing and sorry for the late response.