Fishing has been terrible this year on the north, but your best bet would be up high around packsaddle at first light. I'm done with this river even though it's 5 minutes away. I'm gonna save my time, money, bait and frustration and go to the coast
I'm glad to hear it from someone else. I've hit the river over ten times this year. I get up at 4:30 am to hit the water somewhere before 6am (dragging my gorgeous girl with me so I could show her a good time on the water). I've thrown everything from jigs, spoons, spinners, baits (real and fake), yarn, spin n glos, egg beads, floats, drifts, and plunked from N Santiam state park to Packsaddle and walked upriver and downriver from all the main holes to where people generally don't go and fished the ruffles, behind rocks....not one bite.
All the other fishermen I've talked to haven't caught anything this year and don't know anyone who has.
Got a lot of nice stories from years past and enjoyed quite a bit of fellow fishermen comradery, though. So not a total loss.
Also, when is it a waste of time to be in the middle of the wilderness?