Oregon Coast Fishing Techniques

Different techniques and tips for fishing our coastal rivers:


Our fall season produces chinook weighing up to 70 lbs, chrome bright and ready to give you a good fight.

Jetty fishing and Bubble….

If you are fishing our jetty area, fall chinook will be entering in route to our river systems. Chinook start coming into the Tillamook system starting the first week of September. The chinook's food of choice will be herring either plugged or whole. We have found plugged herring works best making nice wide roles as the bait turns. Depending on the current and winds, your lead can range from 24 oz to 8 oz. outside the Bubble (cross the bar). For the Jetty area, your weight will be about 6 oz with about 11 pulls. Fish will come up closer to the surface to feed and you will want your bait there waiting for them.


Bay….Heading from the jetty

The chinook will move into the bay and here you will need to switch gear to spinners. Blade styles of Colorado Deep Cup and Willow leaf are the most popular shapes. Best colors are chartreuse with green dot, green rainbow, red/pearlescent white. Change your weight to about 1 ½ oz when using spinners.

Tidewater area

Just before our rains come, fall chinook enter into our water system known as tidewater and they will wait until there is enough water to allow them to freely move up into the Wilson and Trask Rivers. But the tidewater area is tricky to fish but due to the close proximity to the ocean, this is a great place to target fall chinook. Here, learning to bobber fish and having quality bait is a must.

The tidewater area as mentioned is tricky. The tides move in and out 4 times per day changing the direction it flows and the water is slow moving with poor visibility. But since Chinook has a very keen sense of smell presenting a high quality of eggs that milk down is killer bait. The best cured egg that will milk and produce this scent comes from an egg that has been cured with a wet cure. The fish will smell your bait and know it's there long before they see it. If it smells right, they will search for it and aggressively strike it. This is a good place to use your bigger, less firm eggs since there is little current and not a lot of casting to tear them apart.

When you have a slack tide, Chinook is on the move to get oxygen. When the tides starts coming in, they need to get their bearing and will seek out logs and other obstacles to get oriented. As fish gather on or around these things, you need to target these holes. Same is true on the low tide. As fish will bite anytime, you need to continue presenting bait across times low, slack and high tide.


Bobber Fishing

A very important tip is to make sure your bobber is upright. If its not, you aren't fishing. You will want to fish just off the bottom. Cannon balls or tear drops work great for your weight and weights can vary from ½ oz to 3 oz. You will have to adjust the weight depending on the current.

Tidewater using Kwikfish

Another very effective technique that works well in the tidewater area. Begin with a well-tuned plug wrapped with a sardine around its belly. If you are using the Kwikfish to dive down on its own, use both treble hooks one for the belly and the other at the tail. Use about 3 oz of lead and let the plug work for you. You can also use a diver with your plug but would remove the belly hook and let the salmon really swallow the plug. Always make sure your plugs are cleaned using mild detergent and tuned before using.

Fishing chinook and steelhead on the Wilson and Trask Rivers

Several techniques are used in the river systems. Again, the best technique for chinook is with eggs and sand shrimp. The chinook has a keen sense of smell and presenting them with quality eggs that milk down will increase your fish quota. For our rivers, the most popular combination is called the shrimp cocktail. This is a golf ball size of cured eggs with a sand shrimp above it. Make sure the sand shrimp's head is facing downward towards the hook. First take your egg loop tied hook and line and push the hook through the shrimp's tail and out its head. After pushing the shrimp up the line, wrap the egg loop around your egg cluster and drop the shrimp over the cluster. Add a bobber and bobber stop and you're fishing.

Fishing Tip:
One of our readers sent a fishing tip when fish are rolling but not biting. They suggested adding tuna balls to your line or dipping your bait in tuna oil to give off more scent. This technique can be very effective.

Back Bouncing

Effective on the rivers. The lighter the weight, the more delicate the presentation. Your objective is to get your plug or bait just off the bottom. If the weight is resting on the bottom the rod tip stops wiggling and slack will eventually form in the line. If the weight is too far off bottom, the rod will wiggle rapidly and eventually load and bend much more than usual. Work the holes keeping your line in the riffles. Salmon need oxygen and the faster moving water is supplying them with it. Remember as they move they will stop and regain placement which will be by logs and other structures.

Plug Fishing

Plug fishing the rivers with hotshots is very effective. Sizes 25, 30, 35, 40 are your best bet for our coastal rivers. Size 40 works best for steelhead and trout. The best colors that we have found is white/black, gold, metallic green, and flame. Hot shots are self-planing, diving lure. The faster you pull this plug, the deeper the plug will dive. Generally no additional weights are needed. The big advantage of using a non-weighted plus is that the lure will naturally follow the river currents, guiding it around snags and rocks while still maintaining a position near the bottom, home of most game fish.

Steelhead fishing

Both winter and summer steelhead, jigs with bobbers are very effective. Popular colors for the coast are pink/white; black/red; red/white. The most important tip is that you must fish the jig one to three feet above the steelhead at an absolute dead drift. The key is estimating water depth. As water visibility increases, steelhead will be able to see you and get spooked. Use smaller, lighter gear and don't let your shadow cast over the fish.

Drifting with sand shrimp with hardware or eggs has always been a standby here at the coast. One rod in the boat should at least have shrimp on it. Popular corky colors or plugs are flame, pink/white, green, and orange.

Tuning your Hot Shot

It is imperative that a Plug be tuned correctly. It must "swim" straight and not pull to one side.

If the lure runs to the left, then with the bill facing you, turn the screw eye slightly clockwise. If the lure digs to the right, turn the screw eye slightly counter-clockwise.