Tualatin River near Cooks Park looks like bass water

Totally new to bass fishing with a fly or otherwise. We took our canoe out paddling up from Cooks Park about 3 miles - looked like good water with lots of downed trees and pilings in the water for structure.

I plan to run some top poppers or a wolly-bugger near structures. Anyone fish this water at all ? Only saw a few bank fishers along the way - no boat fishers .... maybe thats a sign

Also hope to get the canoe up on the some of the Columbia River sloughs

I fish the area pretty often. It's a fun place if you can manage to avoid snagging every five seconds. You can almost always get a fish with a worm on the bottom and for lures I use a crawdad plug or the little spinner baits called a beetle spin with a curly tail grub on it. Super early in the morning i get swirls top water but haven't had a taker yet. You can catch some strange fish in there and there are lots of huge carp and pike minnow. Good luck.

Tualatin is rich in fish life. If you're fly flinging - small surface poppers are good if you see fish feeding on the surface. Otherwise, try woolly buggers, woolly worms, nymphs, or small flashy streamers. You'll get all sorts of sunfish and bass, plus the pikeminnows munch them readily (I've caught the pike minnow on everything from big streamers to #16 dry flies from the Tualatin). The resident trout will be in the coolest water you can find, and given current temps, will probably have lock jaw. There are carp to be had - but I can only give you bait fishing advice for them (bread balls first, canned corn second, worms third - all fished on a weightless rig). John Montana can give you better carp fly flinging advice.

Best overall rods I can recommend for that river would be a 5-6 wt fly rod with a floating line, and a long light rod for everything else with 4-6lb line.

If you want to target bass with lures - try 3-4" Senkos, small soft plastic crawfish, and grubs (fished on the lightest jig heads you can find) - smaller crank baits (I don't typically use anything longer than 2.5 -3 inches) or buck tail jigs.

Drift fish baits weightlessly or with as little weight as possible. You'll get more fish this way than you will plunking and waiting for the fish to come to you.

were you paddling upstream from cook, or did you go down toward Tualatin?

One more tidbit - if you ever can do it, try putting your canoe in at Willamette Park in West Linn - it's at the confluence of the Tualatin and the Willamette, and there's lots of bass down there, and lots of rocks to work around, and lots of brush on the far bank. I've also seen the results of some old timers slow trolling a night crawler near the bottom - some BIG smallies, the odd catfish, and small sturgeon hang out down there.

I paddled around near browns ferry park with the kids recently on a crayfish expedition. Had one hit on a bunny leech but didn't really fish. It looks like good bass water, I will try that area again when I can cast more than about twenty times!

Caught tons of crayfish.

GungasUncle said:

One more tidbit - if you ever can do it, try putting your canoe in at Willamette Park in West Linn - it's at the confluence of the Tualatin and the Willamette, and there's lots of bass down there, and lots of rocks to work around, and lots of brush on the far bank. I've also seen the results of some old timers slow trolling a night crawler near the bottom - some BIG smallies, the odd catfish, and small sturgeon hang out down there.

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Thanks for all the great info. On this trip we paddled up from Cooks Park about 3 miles. And yes I've heard about the fishing at Willamette Park - definitely want to fish there. Is there a lot of current there ? I've got to pick up a 5 or 8lb anchor.

We actually saw two 10" trout jump out of the water on our trip on Sunday.

I fish the Tualatin quite regular...best bass fishing is above Cook Park towards 99W Bridge and past....have had best luck with a weedless jighead hook and a Gary Yamamoto Baby Craw or Gitzit Tubes...I have also had quite some luck with top water in the evening right before sunset...but again best fishing is up river from Cook Park

Thanks for the info PartyBoy --- I hope to get on the water this weekend or next.

I fish that area all the time.Its a little snaggy but have caught some nice bass from there.I used to fly fish there but had no luck.My lure of choice to use is a grub(bright colors)...Good luck my friend.... here's a pick of a largemouth I caught this morning.