Hebb County Park

[Gettin' Jiggy Wid It]

I'm launching out of Hebb Park monday morning to do some bassin'. Going to run the Nucanoe up to Molalla River and see how far i can go up it. Anyone have any luck catching smallies around Hebb or in lower Molalla River lately? Wondering if salmon fisherman will be parked in the river around Hebb Park, too.

 

[chrisohm]

I have not fished it recently but I have in the past. Found smallies all over the place. On the west bank with the most tree cover I have seen plenty of larger bass feeding around the trees that you can target on your way to the Molalla, just across from Molalla State Park. I have not seen salmon anglers parked anywhere around that area. The salmon fishing tends to be in certain spots on the upper Willy and most of it is tight lipped. My friend want to take his boat out and target some upper Willy springers and I have yet to find out anything solid about that fishery. The Molalla has been dropping quite a bit in the past couple weeks but you might be able to make it pretty far and should be able to target the mouth of the Pudding.

 

[Gettin' Jiggy Wid It]

I have not fished it recently but I have in the past. Found smallies all over the place. On the west bank with the most tree cover I have seen plenty of larger bass feeding around the trees that you can target on your way to the Molalla, just across from Molalla State Park. I have not seen salmon anglers parked anywhere around that area. The salmon fishing tends to be in certain spots on the upper Willy and most of it is tight lipped. My friend want to take his boat out and target some upper Willy springers and I have yet to find out anything solid about that fishery. The Molalla has been dropping quite a bit in the past couple weeks but you might be able to make it pretty far and should be able to target the mouth of the Pudding.

Thanks for the great info! It would be cool if I could make all the way up to the Pudding. I'm taking the camera on this outing, and hope to post some picks of the rivers and such when i get back.

 

[Gettin' Jiggy Wid It]

Launched the canoe at Hebb Park at 7 am Monday morning and fished until 4 pm. Landed 10 fish...five smallies and five pikeminnow. All of the smallies were cookie cutter half pound to a pound.

Beautiful day to be on the water. Water temp 59 F. By 8:30 am I had made my way to the mouth of the Molalla River, but it was so shallow and moving so fast I would have needed waders to get through and I didn't feel like dragging the canoe. Turned around and headed downriver. Half a mile downriver from Hebb boat launch the river gets shallow 5' – 10' all the way across and the current picks up to about 2 mph. Landed a smallie in there and had some strong takedowns, but it was tough to control canoe even with the motor and I was burning lots of gas to do it.

As for the river itself, wow...what a beautiful stretch of river all round Hebb Park. Lots of bassy looking water with old bridge timbers, downed trees everywhere, and all kinds of structure from extreme shallows to 50' depths and lots of humps. But snaggy as can be...I hung up probably 20 to 30 times and was lucky to only lose one lure.

Didn't see many fish on FF and only saw a couple of schools of bait fish. Here are some pics from the trip:

 

[bass]

Thanks for the report Gettin' Jiggy Wid It! I have only tried sturgeon fishing that section, but I think it is the prettiest section I have fished. Really nice and quiet. That area looks like it would be good for smallmouth. I will definitely have to give it a few tries this summer. I figure if I get there early I can beat the speedboat crowd. Plus, I would guess that in general with the ramp being so small that there is not as much boat traffic there as in other parts of the river.

I saw on the charts about how it gets shallow downstream of the launch, but I never fished down there since I was looking for deeper sturgeon water. I wonder how the current there compares to the narrows besides rock island. That was quite an effort to get through there. I would guess at least 2mph the day I was there.

 

[Gettin' Jiggy Wid It]

Hi Bass,

Did you catch any sturgeon around Hebb? The water downstream from Hebb is probably a little faster than the shallows around rock island, but i'm not sure. In september, i motored above rock island in search of smallies, and when i went through the shallows the water was moving along at a good clip. But one thing is for sure....the fast water above rock island is only for a short distance, and the fast water below Hebb Park stays fast for a long...long...ways...maybe half a mile or more. I shot down river half a mile very quickly when i hit the Hebb Park rapids before I realized it. When I was motoring back up, i was thinking of what it would be like to try and paddle up it if my motor failed...i landed one smallie in the rapids...had a couple more nice takedowns...then that nagging feeling of my motor going down and me having to try to paddle back up to the Hebb launch...lol. I got out of there after about 20 minutes of struggling to hold my position while fishing.

Yeah, Hebb Park is awesome on weekdays. I was the only boat on the water until 10 am. I will definitely fish it again this summer. I want to hit the Yamhill on the next sunny day in May. I've never fished it...i will launch out of Dayton.

 

[bass]

Hi Bass,

Did you catch any sturgeon around Hebb? The water downstream from Hebb is probably a little faster than the shallows around rock island, but i'm not sure. In september, i motored above rock island in search of smallies, and when i went through the shallows the water was moving along at a good clip. But one thing is for sure....the fast water above rock island is only for a short distance, and the fast water below Hebb Park stays fast for a long...long...ways...maybe half a mile or more. I shot down river half a mile very quickly when i hit the Hebb Park rapids before I realized it. When I was motoring back up, i was thinking of what it would be like to try and paddle up it if my motor failed...i landed one smallie in the rapids...had a couple more nice takedowns...then that nagging feeling of my motor going down and me having to try to paddle back up to the Hebb launch...lol. I got out of there after about 20 minutes of struggling to hold my position while fishing.

Yeah, Hebb Park is awesome on weekdays. I was the only boat on the water until 10 am. I will definitely fish it again this summer. I want to hit the Yamhill on the next sunny day in May. I've never fished it...i will launch out of Dayton.

I did not catch a sturgeon on my two attempts there. It looks like great water. I am sure they are there, I just need to find them. It also looks pretty bassy! In the winter when I launched there I was the only boat one day and on then second trip one guy came out in a kayak (for exercise). I love how remote that area feels.

If I go down near the rapids I will have to make sure that I test to make sure I can get back before I go too far down.

I went up past the fast water beside Rock Island this winter when the current was moving pretty fast. I would guess that the current was 4mph in a lot of places that day. I was working hard and only often going less than 1mph in quite a few spots. The water was fast for the whole length of Rock Island the day I was there. Coming back down I was taking it easy and going 7mph. That was a hard workout that day!