Oregon Guides Fishing Report

Greeetings Anglers,

Oregon Coast Winter steelhead season kicked off in typical fashion with a huge late November rain followed by a week of great fishing on dropping river conditions. However, since that rain event we’ve gone cold and dry with no moisture to speak of in three weeks. It’s a rare to have a conversation discussing the lack of rain on the Oregon Coast in December, yet here we are, staring at unseasonably low water levels. There are still Winter steelhead to be caught, but most of those are in the lower sections of bigger coastal systems. Fish are waiting patiently for the next freshet and fishing is certain to catch fire after the next good rain.

If the early December push of steelhead is any indicator of run strength we are looking at another great season on the Oregon Coast. We are now booking hatchery and wild Winter steelhead through mid-April, 2012. Give us a call at 503.515.3533 or email us to inquire about booking a guided gear or fly fishing trip.

An early season Oregon Coast Winter steelhead

A nice late season chrome Fall chinook

It’s almost September and that means Fall fisheries are beginning to heat-up. The cooler coastal waters get going first with Sea-Run Cutthroat Trout (Blueback) arriving in Mid August and early Fall Chinook showing up slightly later. We spent the last few days poking around Oregon Coast tidewater areas chasing Sea-Run Cutthroats and keeping our eye open for Chinook. We found great numbers of Cutthroat and especially encouraging was their average size. Last year, a majority of the fish we caught were under 12″ and we believed that this year those fish would be return this year in the 12″-16″ range. That appears to the case so far as we are catching more fish over 13″ than under. Encouraging results for early season!

Also encouraging are a few early Fall Chinook present as high as upper tidewater. More fish are showing near the mouths each day and we expect the best Salmon season we’ve had in years. We have just a few openings left in the Fall Season. Now is the time to book a trip if you’re thinking of chasing Sea-Run Cutthroat, Coho or Chinook in September, October or November. Give us a call at 503-515-3533 or email us

Sandy with a nice Oregon Tidewater Sea-Run Cutthroat Trout. Caught August 23, 2011

Summer Steelhead are now showing in fishable numbers on the Central/North Oregon Coast as well as in the Clackamas and Sandy. We took our first Summer fish on April 30 and look forward to good fishing throughout May and June.

We are currently fishing the Nestucca, Siletz, McKenzie, Sandy and Clackamas. Give us a call at 503.515.3533 or Email us to book a Summer Steelhead and/or trout fishing trip.

After a long wet, and cold Winter steelhead season, we finally had a nice little break in the weather and I was able to get my oldest son Noah (2.5 yrs) out on the water for the first time. We took a nice little troll around Big Creek Reservoir outside of Newport, dangling woolly buggers, wedding rings and rooster tails out the back of the drift boat in pursuit of the elusive hatchery trout. Noah enjoyed potato chips, Andes mints and catching his first trout equally. Next time, he’s rowing.

We are currently fishing the Nestucca, Siletz, McKenzie, Sandy and Clackamas. Give us a call at 503.515.3533 or Email us to book a Summer Steelhead and/or trout fishing trip.

January steelheaders are hearty souls, braving the worst mother nature has to offer, all in hopes of catching a steelhead. Weather throughout the month of January was fairly typical marked by one long period of high, dirty, blown out rivers in the middle of the month and the rest of the month the river was up, green and fished great. The Coastal river blow out in the middle of the month marked the end of the early hatchery runs and first big push of native steelhead. Numbers of fish dropped off slightly throughout the month, but the quality increased tremendously. We hooked a lot of big fish late in January, landed a few and lost a bunch. Those big ones have a habit of trying to get away and often succeeding. January was a great month of steelheading on the Oregon Coast and we expect the good fishing to continue right on through April.

The Oregon Coast Winter Steelhead season of 2010/2011 is in full swing! We still have a few late season dates left, but they won’t last long. To arrange a guide trip for Winter 2010-2011 steelhead action, give us a call at 503-515-3533 or email us! We’ll be fishing these agressive, acrobatic fish through April.

Click here or on the images below to view this month’s photo slide show.

The weather on the Oregon Coast in December is well… crappy. It rains a lot, snows a little, blows some and can get pretty cold. However, the rewards for braving these conditons can be tremendous. On days we caught the river on the drop, fishing was lights out for hatchery steelhead. The fish weren’t huge, about 6-8 lbs, but numbers of fish were excellent. Double digit hookups between two anglers was normal. We also landed a few nice natives here and there. Again, no giant fish but we’ll take chrome steelhead in the 6-10 lb range any day of the week.

The river we fished stayed in shape more days than it was blown out and for December, we consider that a success. We had to move a few trips around early in the month due to high water, but during the second half of December, the river stayed fishable. It even got a little on the low side after Christmas, but it kept kicking out coastal chrome.

We are just getting started with the Winter Steelhead season of 2010/2011 and as you can see it looks to be a good one! The big native fish will soon be on their way!!! To arrange a guide trip for Winter 2010-2011 steelhead action, give us a call at 503-515-3533 or email us! We’ll be fishing these agressive, acrobatic fish through April.

View the photo gallery here

Our friends over at North Fork Composites have just gone live with a brand new website. Hobby and Professional Rod Builders now have the ability to view specifications on all rod blank models (traditional and fly) through an advance search function as well as order blanks on-line. The new system is pretty slick and provides all kinds of details including, power, action, length, line wt, lure wt. and more.

If you haven’t tried these NFC blanks yet, find one to try and give it a go. These are locally manufactured, Gary Loomis rod blanks, made with top of the line materials and experienced hands. As Tony the Tiger says, They’rrrrre Grrreat!

Tight lines,

The Oregon River Guides Staff

We’re not talking Turkey anymore, it’s Winter Steelhead time!

With leftover Thanksgiving day bird in the lunch cooler, we set out on Nov. 29 to find out if there were any fresh chrome hatchery winter steelhead along the North/Central Oregon Coast. Mission accomplished. We found great numbers of fish for this time of year. Our catch consisted mostly of chrome hatchery winter steelhead, plus a bonus native steelhead and a bright Fall Chinook. Water conditions were excellent. Angling pressure was fairly high, with lots of guys looking for early chrome. It didn’t seem to matter much though, as we were able to find plenty of good water and catch a few fish behind other anglers. Hatchery steelhead aren’t exactly know for being the pickiest of eaters and it was nice to find good numbers of very willing biters.

It looks to be an excellent run this year and we’re excited to get everyone out on the water. We only have a couple days left in December for those anglers looking for early hatchery fish, but we still have availability during the bulk of the run (Jan-mid. April). Give us a call at 503.515.3533 or email us for more information.

Tight Lines,
Jesse
Oregon River Guides.

Check out our new fall chinook salmon, coho salmon and sea-run cutthroat photo gallery. View great catches from our guests throughout the Fall of 2010.

To arrange a guide trip for Winter 2010-2011 steelhead action, give us a call at 503-515-3533 or email us!

Each Fall day as we dump the boat in the water, just before first light, a day of promise, opportunity and surprise awaits us. Armed with light fly rods for sea-run cutthroat, six and seven weight rods for coho and steelhead and big sticks for the mighty king salmon we set off to see what the day may bring. Each fishing day brings with it a unique fishing experience that varies greatly from day to day, even in the same section of river. The diversity of the Oregon Coastal fishery is what makes it so fun, challenging and rewarding at the same time.

So far the Coast has had two significant periods of rain, one in September and one in mid-October, each of which has been followed by long periods of high pressure and sunny skies. The first rain in September flushed a lot of the sea-run trout from tidewater into the river while the second rain brought with it an excellent push of salmon into the lower and middle reaches of most systems. As we write this post we’re staring at enormous weather system that looks like it will dump rain for the next few days and push the rivers to their highest points to date this Fall. We expect that this rain will essentially end the lower tidewater fishery and push most anglers into the main rivers for the balance of the season.

Fishing has been generally good. We’ve had a couple slow days, lots of decent days and a few exceptional days. Highlights include a day of upriver sea-run cutthroat fishing where it seemed every fish in the river wanted to eat our dries flies. Giddy anglers landed scores and scores of beautiful trout. Overall sea-run cutthroat numbers have been good, but we haven’t seen as many really large fish as last year. Perhaps they are still to come, but with just over a week left in the season, we’re running out of time.

The coho salmon run is good this year, but appears to be a fraction of the epic returns we had last year. There are still plenty of fish to target but the native coho quota on the Siletz did not fill as quickly as biologists thought.

The biggest surprise of the year has been a better than expected Fall chinook return. After several years of poor runs it’s really nice to see these fish coming back. Chinook fishing was fair during September and early October but since the last rain it’s been red hot both in tidewater and the lower river. Fly anglers have been doing really well fishing Comets and Clouser Minnows in orange/black and white/chartreuse combinations.

We’re excited for the last week of “Come prepared to catch whatever swims” before the sea-run cutthroat season closes Oct 31. We’ll continue to fish salmon through mid-November before switching over to hatchery Winter Steelhead. We still have a couple days available for November salmon and plenty of days for winter steelhead.

To book a late Fall or Winter trip, please call 503.515.3533 or email us.

Justin hooked up to a 40 lb. Chrome Chinook on a 4wt and 3x. We didn’t really stand a chance with this fish, but he fought it bravely for 20 minutes and survived 3 jumps. We won’t forget the one that got away.

One of the nicer sea-run Cutthroat landed this Fall, a beautiful Fall specimen.