Outdoor Report 1/18

Most rivers were in great shape through the majority of last week locally and on the north coast. However, we are in for another wet weekend. This next bout of rain will bring the rivers up and blow some of them out. Deploying high water techniques will be necessary once again. For those headed to the coast, watch your river graphs closely as a lot of the smaller rivers and creeks will drop into shape quickly. Mad River pink worms, BnR Scampi tails or bobber and eggs are all great selections for those that want to float fish. If you would rather drift fish there are a multitude of options that will work for you. Yarn, eggs, large cheaters, sand shrimp and pink worms are all good offerings for high water steelhead. Bobberdoggin’ is a great alternative for those that are going to be towing a drift boat to the river. You may need to bump up your weight system to slow your presentation down. This will give the fish more time to see your offering. One thing that doesn’t get much attention when targeting winter steelhead is hardware. Hardware has a large flashy profile, spinners and spoons are both killer choices to entice high water steelhead into biting. Blue Fox, Mepps and Rooster Tails are great spinner options, while Little Cleo’s, P-Line Pro Steel and Gibbs Tackle are all great spoon options. Catch and release sturgeon fishing has been great lately, with a nice grade of fish being caught. The lower Willamette in the downtown area has been a hot spot for sturgeon fishing recently. As the flows slow down a little bit and the water gets cold the sturgeon like to stack up in that area. Smelt, herring, squid and sand shrimp have all been great bait options.