Welcome to the Small Stream Outfitter's Oregon Fly Fishing Blog!

This blog is dedicated to Oregon fishing reports from Small Stream fishing guides, fishing stories, fly fishing adventure travel, our outdoor adventure fishing films and a few of our favorite local fish recipes. We invite you read, watch, enjoy and post comments. We would love to hear your feedback!

Small Stream Outfitters is Western Oregon's premier fly fishing guide service for Steelhead, Salmon and Trout. Guiding fly anglers since 1997, we focus on the Oregon Coast, Willamette Valley and Portland area streams including the Siletz, Sandy, Clackamas, McKenzie and Nestucca. Our knowledgeable and friendly guides can help put you some amazing fish, like sea-run cutthroat trout, wild steelhead and huge coastal chinook all on a fly rod!

From beginning to expert anglers alike, we have the perfect fly fishing trip to match your needs, desires, skill level and geographic location. We provide all tackle including flies so you don't have to think about it. We also serve great streamside sack lunches and love to create tremendous shore lunches upon angler request. Visit our rates and bookings page for more information!

Whatever the time of year, there are always great angling opportunites on the rivers we guide. Let us help show you the Oregon Fly Angling Experience!

Recent Posts

Life of a Guide Photo Essay, Part 1

February 8th, 2012

I like fish porn just as much as the next steelhead junkie, a great hero release shot of a chrome a@$ fish half submerged in steelhead green water does not, in any way, suck. However, most of the time spent steelheading is not spent photographing fish. It’s spent, tying, shopping, talking, writing, traveling, prepping, fishing and cleaning.

And so to the Small Stream Outfitters faithful, over the next year or so we aim to create a few photo essay posts, called “Life of a Guide”. It’s what we do, it’s what we love and here’s what it looks like.

row of steelhead egg patterns
Selection of modified lifters. Simple. Fast. Effective.

guide holding a steelhead egg pattern
Weather beaten hand holds a low water favorite.

February Means Native Steelhead Time

February 5th, 2012

Greeting Anglers,

Rivers on the Central and North Oregon Coast have come into shape nicely over the last few days after a couple big storms earlier in January, bringing with it a really nice push of Native fish as well as the tail end of those early hatchery runs. We are A OK with the transition, as we love to chase these treasured native steelhead. We still have a handful of guide days left in March to chase these monsters. If you are interested, please give us a jingle at (503) 515 3533 or shoot us an email.

Eric with a big double stripe buck steelhead from the North Oregon Coast

Eric of Portland, Oregon took this great double stripe native buck steelhead on Feb 3rd. As most big fish do, it stayed deep and pulled like heck for a what seemed like an eternity before coming to hand. Nice job Eric!

Archive Photo of the Week

January 20th, 2012

A customer just sent me this photo and it bears sharing. Steve caught this massive red sled buck coho in Mid-November, 2011 on a North Coast stream. He caught on a 6-10 lb. rod with 8lb tippet. The fished stayed deep and drug the boat around for 15 minutes before laying over. I didn’t weigh the fish as it was released immediately after the photo, but I’ve handled thousands of coho from Alaska, South to Oregon and never saw one quite this heavy. It wasn’t 25 pounds, but it was certainly well over 20. Awesome to see big coho like this in Oregon. I anxiously await their return next year.

twenty plus pound coho salmon

January Steelhead Fun

January 20th, 2012

Greetings anglers,

It seems as though the rivers are either really high or really low anytime I get a chance to post. Funny how that works. And so we sit, staring at some pretty darn impressive current CFS numbers. The Sandy hit darn near 30,000 while the Siletz crested at almost 40,000 and reached moderate flooding. That’s some big water. Rivers will all be out at least through the weekend. The extended forecast looks wet, so it could be even longer before rivers are green again.

On the flip side, the last couple weeks fished great and there were lots of fish to be caught. Our anglers tangled with at least a hundred fish in the first couple weeks of January, including a day of 24 hookups and several other double-digit days. We found mostly hatchery fish, with an occasional native here and there. Natives have yet to arrive in any numbers and the hatchery run is still going strong. There will be another fresh batch of hatchery fish around once the flood waters recede.

Based on the moderate returns we’ve seen so far, this year’s run is average or better than average and fish are just a little late in arriving. We’re hoping for the latter, but either way fishing is good as long as those pesky streams come into shape. Drop fast little rivers….

Tight lines,
Jesse
Inquire About Booking a Guided Trip with Small Stream Outfitters

chrome hatchery hen
They don’t get much brighter than this fat 10-11 lb. hatchery hen. Nice job Mike!

releasing a hatchery buck
Releasing a center-pin caught buck. The center pin was really fun until the actual center pin fell in the river. Good thing for back-ups.

A December to Rembember

December 13th, 2011

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 fly fishing trip.

Sean Tate displays a reallly nice early Winter steelhead
Sean displays a reallly nice early Winter steelhead

Justin with a chrome bright late season chinook
Justin shows off a nice late season North Oregon Coast Chinook