It was no surprise when last week the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife shut down spring Chinook fishing on the McKenzie River for the remainder of the season. The number of returning hatchery salmon, as expected, had been pitifully low and meeting the production quotas for next year’s run were in jeopardy of not being met. The shutdown also preserves wild salmon that were being disproportionately caught by anglers but had to be released. That allowed the wild salmon to escape the sport fishing zone below Leaburg Dam, increasing the probability that they will successfully reach their historical spawning grounds far up river and the probability that the fish also will successfully spawn.
The low numbers of salmon were a frustration to most sport fishermen and to a lot of top McKenzie salmon guides this season. Some are questioning why it took the ODFW so long to act. It is not like the shortage was a surprise; the department knew since 2020 that ’24 was going to be an extremely low return. If for no other reason than to preserve the wild salmon that are also in low numbers this year, the ODFW should have acted much sooner.
Willamette remains open
The Middle Fork of the Willamette remains open although the Chinook migration over the Willamette Falls has dropped off dramatically and a lot of the salmon in the system are now aging – getting close to spawning where they often become less desirable as table fare. But the chances of finding a fairly bright fish in the Middle Willamette are still pretty fair, usually until the end of July. Overall the run looks like it will soon top out at about 22,000 salmon and will be one of the lowest Willamette Basin spring Chinook returns in recent history.
Steelhead continue to shine
The steelhead migration also slowed way down last week, and the blazing hot weather is the likely cause. The main Willamette can warm to 75 degrees or more in the summer – not ideal for steelhead migration. And in those conditions, steelhead will seek out “cool water refuges” and often hold in these hidden places until rivers begin to cool down again in the fall when we often see a second push of late-running summer steelhead. Nowhere near the size of the early summer run, but in a good year we could add to the already impressive numbers, presently at 18,000 steelhead, growing by another 1,500 to 3,000 fish. In which case the chances of catching one will be fair to good through the end of the year – or at least until the first heavy winter rainstorm.
On both the McKenzie and the Middle Fork Willamette, the spinner bite has been great this season. Steelheaders casting their hardware a “quarter down stream,” in 2-4 feet of water, moving at a walking speed consistently have found success when starting at the top of a run, in a cast-and-step approach and working the run from top to bottom. On the McKenzie, good numbers of steelhead have now passed above Leaburg Dam to about Eagle Rock Rapid at river mile 35.
Still plenty of trout out there
The recent hot weather was also pretty tough on most of the Willamette Valley. The ODFW plants hatchery trout in other lakes nestled in the lower Cascade foothills. The warming water contains much less dissolved oxygen and really slows down trout, putting them into a preservation mode and making them difficult to catch.
Fishing early in the morning or late in the afternoon is best. Casting into shadows on the water and along the bank or fishing deeper in the water column are all strategies that could help in the “dog days of summer.”
Good news: The McKenzie recently received several thousand more hatchery trout in the upper and lower river segments as did Alton Baker Canal, where a few hundred were recently planted.
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Avoid Poaching
Nationally, only a small portion of wildlife crimes are detected, with estimates ranging from 0.67 to 3.33 percent (Boone and Crockett, 2021). OSP Fish and Wildlife Troopers recover about 250 deer, 150 elk, 17 bears, and 60 or more sturgeon killed illegally each year. This is only a fraction of the total number of cases.
Sturgeon caviar sells for up to $200 an ounce. A large sturgeon could bring hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In 2020, The Oregon Hunters Association granted $20,600 in rewards to people who reported poaching.
Poaching is the illegal taking of birds, wildlife, and fish. It also covers habitat destruction.
– dfw.state.or.us/
