Fishing Report 04-15-2022
Spring Chinook fishing continues to heat up on the Willamette River from the falls at Oregon City to Multnomah Channel. Fish are now spread throughout the system, so pick your favorite location/technique and get your fish on! Mason Waddle, Grandson of John Shmilenko, caught this gorgeous chromer earlier this week while fishing with his Grandpa near Sellwood. The delicious-looking fish slammed a Yakima SpinFish trolled behind a Fish Flash. Nice fish, Mason!
Fishing Report
Spring Chinook Fishing has been going on in the lower Willamette from the Oregon City Falls all the way down to Scappoose. Anglers have been finding success using many different techniques, including trolling cutplug herring behind triangle flashers, prawn spinners behind 360 flashers, backtrolling divers and eggs, vertically jigging up near the falls and back bouncing bait along current seams in Oregon City. This Willamette fishery is only just getting going as we have several more months of targeting these delicious Salmon. With all of the rain and low elevation snow that is now melting, there is a possibility that the Willamette might blow out. However, you don’t need that much visibility to be successful chasing Springers in the Willamette. So if the river does rise and get off color, don’t be discouraged as it will more than likely be fishable shortly thereafter.
Winter Steelhead Fishing is all but over at this point, however, there have been some summer Steelhead caught in many of the valley streams already. These highly acrobatic and delicious Steelhead can be very aggressive, especially this early in the year. Casting spinners, backtrolling small plugs, bobber and jig or bobber and bait are all great techniques to use when searching for these ultrabright Steelhead.
Catch and release Sturgeon fishing in the Portland Harbor has been great as of late. Now, as this is a catch and release fishery, it doesn’t get nearly the amount of pressure as one might think. There are many baits that will work when targeting Sturgeon. These baits include herring, squid, smelt, sand shrimp and even prawns can make for great Sturgeon bait.
Spring marks the beginning of the Trout season for many anglers. ODFW and WDFW are both busy stocking lakes, reservoirs and creeks all across the Pacific Northwest. The best way to get the most current stocking information is by going online to check both ODFW and WDFW websites. Both of the departments do a great job of showing dates, locations and amounts of fish they stock . Once we get out of this cold and surprisingly snowy weather pattern, look for Trout fishing to get better by the week. Fishing Powerbait, nightcrawlers, Pautzke Salmon eggs and even raw salad shrimp are all great bait choices when trying to catch a limit of Trout. Boat anglers will find success using several techniques like trolling small 2.5 size Maglips, or, trolling your favorite color wedding ring tipped with a nightcrawler. Most trout have a hard time passing up either one of those baits.
Kokanee fishing up at Lake Merwin has continued to be productive. Taylor Knight has been having some great success as of late trolling quite a ways behind the boat and without any extra weight. Just trolling a dodger with a small Spin-N-Glo or bright-colored hoochie has been the ticket. Look for this fishery to continue to produce throughout the rest of the spring and summer.
The last dig that was open in Long Beach was really good and WDFW just opened up another six days of Clamming. It will be starting on April 16th with an increased bag limit of 20 Clams apiece!
As we move into warmer weather a fishery that really will start to get going is Surf Perch fishing. Whether you are fishing from a dock, pier or in the surf the fish all eat the same baits the same ways. Fished off of the bottom Surf Perch love sandshrimp, clam necks and Berkley Gulp Sandworms.
