After finding success in the Trask’s tidewater reaches last week, I decided to spend this week further upstream on another coastal river. While the Tillamook Bay tributaries are all still extremely low, the Nehalem River is flowing at about the same rate it was this time last year — and the fishing was fantastic. It was expected to be a cloudy day, so I wasn’t worried about getting out early and left my house mid-morning. By 11:30 I was driving alongside the river, slowing to inspect familiar runs and stopping at the occasional turnout. About ten miles downstream from Highway 26, I pulled off and donned my waders next to a little goat trail that would give me access to about a quarter mile of good water — four or five separate pools that looked likely to hold fish.
The water was moving slowly and was as clear as I’ve ever seen it on the Nehalem. The early afternoon sun was trying its best to peek out from behind the clouds, so I rigged up a light sink tip and went to work casting and stripping a variety of my favorite subsurface sea run patterns. Typically this time of year, I like to look for sea runs in the most obviously “trouty” water — plunge pools, riffles adjacent to drop-offs, pockets, and, if fish are actively rising, tailouts. I made my way through a few prime-looking runs that absolutely should have held fish, with not so much as a sniff from a resident trout. It wasn’t until about 90 minutes into my day that I finally made contact with a fish, a little resident that couldn’t have measured more than six or seven inches.
After a few fairly unproductive hours, I hopped back in the car and headed downstream in search of completely different looking water. A few miles upstream of Nehalem Falls, I found myself next to a long stretch of river that offered a little bit of everything — short stretches of fast-moving water separated by long, slow, deep pools. I worked quickly through the faster water, ditching the streamer rig for a skated October caddis. This presentation immediately started bringing fish to the surface, all residents, but fish nonetheless. I began hiking downstream to a long, slow flat that often holds rising fish this time of year. But the current was moving just a little too lazily to get a believable presentation. I switched back to the streamer rig and connected with a few more small residents, but by 3 pm I still hadn’t found the sea runs I was looking for.
Mid-afternoon approached, and I began to see a few larger fish rise across the river, just out of reach of my casts. Within a few minutes, the far bank was boiling, but with private property directly above there was no way to easily access the water. Slowly and carefully, I waded out into the slow current as far as I could without floating away and made an ugly but effective cast that nearly hit the far bank. Two strips in, I felt the line go tight and a solid sea run on the other end. A few casts later, a smaller but still feisty sea run hit the same pattern and presentation. With flows still quite low, it appeared most of the larger cutthroat were lurking in deep, still pools while the faster water was occupied primarily by small resident fish.
I did find one exception to the rule as the day wound down, skating a bushy caddis pattern behind a soft pocket adjacent to some more turbulent water. A good-sized sea run came up and ate the fly, and was hooked for a solid 10-15 seconds before it spat the hook and refused to come back for seconds.
While the fishing certainly wasn’t bad, it’s clear that this year’s sea run fishery hasn’t come close to its peak yet. With significant steelhead and salmon returns getting all of the press this year, equally impressive returns of sea run cutthroat have gone somewhat overlooked. Sea runs have been reported in significant numbers everywhere you’d expect them to be, but it’s the reports of sea runs in more far-flung streams — Columbia Gorge creeks, the Clackamas, McKenzie, Middle Fork Willamette, and other rivers — that point to an unusually good year for the fishery.
People have certainly been catching fish well upstream in most coastal systems for over a month now. Early September rains were enough to allow a good number of fish passage, but since then we haven’t had consecutive days of heavy rain. When that finally does happen — and it seems likely to this week — the floodgates will open and the last two weeks of trout season should be an absolute blast.
Joseph Beare (@pdxflycollective)
Wordsmith, Wanderer, and Wadered Up
