We will start our COLUMBIA RIVER Oregon SPRING SALMON season on March 29th this year and we are going to go thru April 10th. These Columbia spring salmon are some of the best eating salmon in all of the pacific northwest due to there high oil content. These fish spend up to 6 months in fresh water before the spawn and we catch them in the first few days to a few weeks of them being in freshwater and that is what makes them such fantastic eating fish. Many of these fish are bound for Idaho and that makes them some of the highest oil content around. These fish average from 8 to 15 pounds but see ones into the 20 pound class every year. We fish our Columbia river spring salmon run in the St. Helen’s area and above. The upper Columbia river forecast for 2019 is 157,500 but if you add the Sandy and Willamette forecasts together we have almost 200,000 fish when fishing below the Willamette river which is a decent run of spring salmon and not much different then 2018 actual return which we saw some good fishing the last week or to of the season. We are looking forward to another fun and exciting spring salmon run on the Columbia river. many of these fish are bound for Idaho and that makes them some of the highest oil content around.
We will start our WILLAMETTE RIVER SPRING SALMON SEASON after the Columbia season ends which is normally some time in the second week of April. We normally fish thru the first week of May. The WILLAMETTE RIVER forecast is 40,200 for the 2019 run which is more than last years return! We fish the Multnomah Channel all the way to the Oregon City Falls; wherever the fish are is were we will fish. While fishing Oregon City we will be using eggs and shrimp with divers and back-bouncing. These techniques makes it a very fun and active fishery. While in the lower Willamette and the Channel we will be trolling. This is a much more laid back style of fishing but still very productive. These fish are very close to the same size rang as the Columbia ones but do also see ones in the 20 pound class every year.
We start our TILLAMOOK AND NESTUCCA BAY SPRING SALMON seasons the second week of May thru the end of June. ODFW doesn’t do run predictions for these runs, but this is the first year of the increased smolt release for the Tillamook bay fishery which we will now be fishing on 400 thousand smolt release instead of 250 thousand. Which should really help the fishing. These are the biggest spring salmon of the year. The average on these coastal springers are 15 to 20 pounds and we see a few over 30 every year. We also do combo bottom fishing spring salmon trips out of Tillamook when the ocean allows us to get out. The bottom fishing is very hands on and the success is very high with sea bass and ling cod every time we go out. Also if you have kids the bottom fishing is great lots of action and you never know what you mite reel in. We even see a halibut or two caught every spring. Don’t miss out on these fine eating fish we have in the spring seasons!