Fall fishing in full swing

October 20, 2014, 6:23 pm

(SALEM, Ore) — Fall has arrived in Oregon, whether you were prepared for it or not.

The leaves here in the valley are just starting to turn, and we’re seeing almost as much rain as we are sunshine these days.

If you travel up into the mountains you’ll find that many of the leaves are in bright fall colors, or some of them already littering the ground.

And if you can catch a glimpse of the High Cascades, you’ll see the first fall snows have already blanketed their peaks.

This means it’s time for some great seasonal outdoor opportunities.

Deer season is well underway in most units, and Elk season is also coming up fast.

This is great news for the fishermen, as many of our outdoor brothers and sisters are donning camouflage and heading for the woods.

This leaves the rivers to the rest of us.

And the salmon have come in full force this year.

Although we have yet to see our first truly heavy rain event, we’ve had enough of the wet stuff to get the fish interested.

Local reports indicate that fall chinook have moved in large numbers into the Nestucca system with this recent push of rain, even though the river has yet to crest the 5’ mark.

This bodes well for other coastal streams also.

Driving to the coast, you’ll see plenty of fisherman working the Salmon River around the hatchery, a sure sign that those fish are in as well.

ODFW has reported strong returns this year, which has prompted some positive regulation changes.

The Hatchery Hole on the Trask River at Gold Creek is now open with a two fish, salmon and steelhead, bag limit.

This normally doesn’t happen until the end of November.

The daily bag limit for coho on the mainstem Willamette above Willamette Falls, including the Santiam, Tualatin, Yamhill and South Yamhill systems was recently increased from two to three fish.

ODFW fish biologist Tom Murtagh said, “It’s exciting to see another strong return of coho this year”.

Over 10,000 coho have climbed the fish ladder at Oregon City this year, marking another good return.

That will make 4 out of the last 6 years as good to excellent years for fish numbers.

In confirmation of this, I recently checked the counts at Bennett Dam on the North Santiam, Salem’s home waters.

This year’s totals are already at over 7,000 chinook and 4,700 steelhead for the year.

This is almost twice the seasonal total chinook and three times the steelhead for all of 2013. Strong indeed!

The rivers will be thick with fishing in the coming month.

This early strong showing on our coastal and interior river systems is a positive harbinger for the rest of the fall season.

Don’t wait for the first big rainstorm to come, the fish are in now!