Calapooia river fishing?

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Dietz03
I recently read that the Calapooia river has bass in the lower end and trout in the upper. It practically runs through my backyard in brownsville and I never thought it was large enough to hold decent fish. Has anyone caught some good trout in the brownsville/crawfordsville stretch?
 
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BigShayne
Calapooia river

Last summer my buddy and I went above the gate and found plenty of 6 inch cutties. They were a blast on our dry flies. That day I also lost a NICE fish that was in a deep pool and came from the bottom and nailed my attractor. My guess is that if you have some riffles and a pool AND you don't live below too much farm land, there is some fish in there.
 
troutdude
troutdude
There are smallies and some bucketmouths in the lower stretches. Also some cats. There are bluegill and crappie in the middle sections in the flat lands. In the upper stretches above Crawfordsville are limits of trout in the 6-10 inch range (with an occasional larger one or two).
 
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nwkiller
acually up at that big rock area almost to crawfordsville, i believe its called mckurcher park? i have caught a 12 inch cutthroat and some decent sqwas that pout up a fight, thought they were cuts b4 i got them out....once i had a nice fish on i lost that was in crawfordsville by the rope swing...hahah only locals probably know that spot, and im sure there are many rope swings so good luck!!! oh and look for agates and other awesome minerals in the river!! let us know how you do.
 
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TTFishon
Every summer I make a couple of trips up past Holley looking for the elusive Holley Blue. You ever find any?
 
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Combat Chuck
I have caught a couple tiny trout at the brownsville park, from there upstream are usually good trout populations. The higher you go the better.
 
troutdude
troutdude
Oh yeah. That's right. I forgot to mention, the best trout fishing is way up high and on Weyerhauser land.
 
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catchemfish
I tried fishin the calapooia between brownsville and sweet home last year and did okay, caught a few trout 6-10 inch range. Its a fun stream to fish!!
 
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nwkiller
TTFishon said:
Every summer I make a couple of trips up past Holley looking for the elusive Holley Blue. You ever find any?

acually TT i do i have a fist size chunk that i found up there, ill take a pic soon
 
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TTFishon
Cool. I'd like to see it.
 
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Dietz03
where is the lower section? I tried to follow the stream on google maps and lost it near tangent
 
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TTFishon
It's hard to follow because sometime in the late 1800's Man decided to split the main stream creating a ditch that runs from Brownsville to Shed. This ditch is called Sodom's Ditch. They come back together somewhere near Shed. Looks like they join up off of Wirth Rd. Google Maps Not sure if you can fish from Wirth Rd but I know there a couple of places to park off of Hwy 99E right here. Google Maps. You might want to check out Driver Rd too.
 
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plumb2fish
There are actually some native winter steelies in that crick...
 
troutdude
troutdude
The river flows from Tangent, and under Hwy. 34...just a bit east of Oakville Rd. It flows through farmland in the stretch from Hwy. 34 to SW Queen Ave. Then river flows a few more miles and into West Albany. The Sodom's Ditch dumps into the Calapooia, just before the 3rd St. bridge. Then about a 1/2 mile more, and the Cally flows into the Willy, by Monteith (SP?) Riverfront Park (Bryant Park is on the west side of the stream).

A buddy and I worked our way upstream from Queen a few times, back in the mid 80's. We caught some smallies and one bucketmouth. We also caught small trout and dozens of cats below the Queen bridge. The cats were 8 - 12", and can be found about 100 yards downstream from that bridge. Easy pickin's!
 
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TTFishon
plumb2fish said:
There are actually some native winter steelies in that crick...

Shhhhh. You weren't suppose to say that. :rolleyes: Now that the cat's out of the bag. Yes....there's a small run that they are working on replenishing by deconstructing the 2 dams that helped to create Sodom's Ditch. They deconstructed one dam near Brownsville 2 years ago. I think the other dam is at Boston Mill Park.
 
troutdude
troutdude
plumb2fish said:
There are actually some native winter steelies in that crick...

True. And there are some Spingers too.

However, the Calapooia is CLOSED to fishing for those species...because they have almost been wiped out.

P.S. Yes, there is a dam at Thompson's Mills State Park (was once called Boston). I have not, however, heard of any plans to decommission that dam. In fact, the state recently hired a full time Park Ranger to guide folks around at that historic site. Plus, the state dumped a lot of $$ into it, for restoration.
 
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TTFishon
I read it somewhere on the net. I'll try to find the link. Hey TD, you ever fish right there at the park? That water's full of pikeminnow and small bluegill.
 
troutdude
troutdude
I just found out about it last year, and talked to the Ranger there. I wanted to try it for Crappie. I hope that they haven't removed it just yet...and I get a crack at it first!
 
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Sage_Flyguy
I grew up on the calapooia in the Holley area. The only thing I have pulled out of this river were red bands. Nothing of an size , I considered myself lucky if I landed anything over 8" . For some reason there is a gate up river where they are logging which makes no sense , I have always understood that to be BLM land . Anyways yeah every now and then you hear about someone landing a steelie but its pretty rare
 
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Dietz03
I think I'll just have to pick a day to spend walking the river, thanks for all the help guys!
 

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