Oregon Fly Fishing Report – Small Stream Outfitters & Guides

Recently, five intrepid anglers set off for Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. Our mission, which we freely accepted… bum around the island looking for Spring steelhead, explore, find some cutthroats and/or dollies and catch some crabs, the dungeness kind. Mission accomplished.

We spent five days on the island, burned two tanks of gas steelheading, pulled crab pots nine times, ate lots of ferns, saw countless Sitka deer, scared two black bears, fished an outgoing smolt feeding frenzy for cutthroats/dollies and climbed the world’s largest logging claw. Not to mention other debacles. Five days was simply not enough.

We didn’t have a chance to bottom fish for ling cod and yellow eye, down-rig for king salmon in the strait or forage the beaches for clams, abalone and other goodies. There are not enough hours in the day. Quite simply, there is a lifetime of exploration on America’s third largest island and we plan to go back and experience it again. As long as you don’t mind the rain, Prince of Wales is an outdoor exploration paradise.

Our stay was made more comfortable by the fine folks at Adventure Alaska Southeast. Jason and his family have top notch facilities and accommodations for a very reasonable price. Great for the do it yourself gang and full-service alike.

For a complete photo essay of this trip visit our facebook page. We would love to hear from you!

A picture is worth a thousand words. This one… three thousand.

We found steelhead in some tiny water. This is less than three miles from salt chuck. Awesome!

We were on the backside of the run, so fish were a bit darker, but still beautiful. I love the orange fins on this fish!

Hi Anglers,

We now have a new Winter Steelhead video online. This footage is from a late February day on the North Oregon Coast. Small Stream Outfitters would like to offer special thanks to our guest Chris for hooking up this great video via his HD headcam. Enjoy!!!

To view video in full HD and read or add comments click on the red YouTube logo

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.

Selection of modified lifters. Simple. Fast. Effective.

Weather beaten hand holds a low water favorite.

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.

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 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.