Coastal rivers -- help.....

Hey everyone,

I'm a new member and also new to the Portland area. I've had some trouble hooking into fish, and could use any advice people are willing to hand out.

I was over on the Coos River last weekend (9/13/2014) and hooked into/landed 1, but I was the only one (while I was there) to land one. The Coos is a little far away from me in Tigard, but I was thinking about making the trek to the coast this weekend. Any suggestions for river choice? Also, I will be strictly bank fishing, so a rough location where I could access the water would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance for the help!

I'm definitely not close to being an expert on this, and there are people on this forum that know a lot more than me, but are you looking to target salmon or steelhead? As far as coastal rivers for steelhead, they're not great right now, but the Wilson still has a couple in some holes, and it's closer to Portland. All the other coastal rivers pretty much have a couple of steelhead in them, along with the tidewater sections having salmon. You could also wait a few weeks and fish the Sandy for coho, which I've never done but heard great reports about. Anyways, that's about all I know for right now, I'm sure someone else will be able to help more. Thx!

I would be targeting salmon. I did try the Sandy awhile back. It was a little late in the summer run, but I didn't have any luck for steelhead.

Welcome to the forum! Unfortunately, none of the northern rivers are going to be worth much of a trip until it rains more than the few drops we had a few days ago. Everyone is itching to get out there, so you're not alone. Keep watching the reports on the forum, the folks here will let you know when to strike. As for where, someone will share enough to get you to the right spot.

Light rain Wed. night brought more Coho into the coastal rivers and fairly certain it put them on the bite Thur. am (wink), bank casting here in Florence is delivering Coho, more rain coming middle of this week should make fishing all along the coast great heading into next weekend... go get'em!

Thank you for all of the help. Are there any specific spots out side of Florence (near the Siuslaw) where people have had success from the bank? I heard near the Humane society they've been picking some up? True? False?

This is true, i was there for just a few minutes on Wednesday and seen a guy land a coho OFF the rocks

Siuslaw it is, next to the Humane Society. I will let you all know how it goes.

Well, I managed to hook into 1 fish briefly, but wasn't able to land em. There was a handful of people there were hooking into fish. Primarily the people in boats who were trolling.

Work2Fish said:

Well, I managed to hook into 1 fish briefly, but wasn't able to land em. There was a handful of people there were hooking into fish. Primarily the people in boats who were trolling.

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keep at it! that stretch is always going to be hit and miss (just like trolling the tidewater is.. ), we have observed that most of the salmon (especially chinooks) do not hold at all in the lower part of the Siuslaw, it is narrow, has several large seal haul-outs near the CG station and as a result, the salmon appear to move on their first incoming tide past that lower area and to the big hole below the 101 Bridge, then '29', then Cushman...each year there seem to be a handful of times (block of several hours) when a lot of fish get caught from the Landfill stretch, more when a fish gets caught now and then (1 per hour)...and lots of no fish times..with the big storm hitting tonight with 1-2" of rain predicted, there should be some big surges of coho coming, trick is to be fishing when they are passing by...

..I guess it is just like trolling, we put lots of hours, catch a nice fish now and then, and occasionally get in on a hot bite! hook'm, net'm, bleed'm, bonk'm and BBQ'm!

I definitely see the potential in the river. It would probably be my river/bay of choice, but it is a little out of my driving range.

There's plenty of fish come into the rivers closer to you.