Oregon Fly Fishing Report – Small Stream Outfitters & Guides

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

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
Small Stream, LLC.

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.

As the days get noticeably shorter, mornings get a little crisper and a few raindrops begin to fall from the sky, it can only mean one thing… Fall… and the arrival of our finned friends, the sea-run cutthroat trout. We guided our first sea run cutt trip at the end of last week and found numbers of fish similar to this time last year. Lots of fish around a foot in length with a few big ones sprinkled in. Typically, the smaller schooling fish enter the rivers first and the bigger ones will enter in a couple weeks as the water cools and a bit of rain raises the river. Still action was steady most of the day and we had some incredibly explosive top water streamer takes. We live for those short seconds as a sea-run cutthroat rockets off the bottom of a deep pool and recklessly smashes a stripped hair wing streamer. It doesn’t get much better than that.

It looks to be another good season and we’re excited to be back chasing these fish. We still have a few open dates towards the end of September and throughout the month of October for those anglers looking for a unique trout experience. For booking information call 503.515.3533 or Email Us