The heavy rainfall on my roof reminds me of an old saying that goes something like this, “Even the worst day on the river is better than being anywhere else.”
I’m pretty sure that the saying originated from some angler sitting out in the freezing rain on some western Oregon stream, either late fall salmon or winter steelhead fishing.
Personally I’ve endured everything from driving snow to pounding rain, and a couple of really scary dry summer thunderstorms. As the storm passed overhead, it brought a strong gusty wind that blew a couple of drift boats over and booming thunder that vibrated through my body. Dry as a bone, the freak storm rained down only bolts of lightning with several hitting the ground close to where we were fishing and far too close for comfort.
Surprisingly the whole event lasted only a few minutes but felt much longer and came up unexpectedly on the last afternoon of a four-day river camp trip. I recall that the fishing had been fair, but I had never seen lightning hitting the ground before and those are my strongest memories of those outings. It all reminds me of another saying, “It’s not the fishing, but the adventure.”
Lightning is impossible to prepare for but avoidable – and other challenging but less dangerous conditions can be mitigated with preparation. This season a La Niña is building over the Pacific Ocean and a wetter-than-normal weather pattern is beginning to build. That adds a significant factor to a pretty long list of other variables.
This would be the third wet year in a row following a decade of extremely dry, drought-producing years. And that’s aside from the poor Willamette River spring chinook run and the lingering effects of the Holiday Farm Fire. Fishing for salmon, steelhead, and trout the past couple of years reminds some of us of the “good old days.”
The upturn began a couple of years ago, when ocean “conditions” for salmon and steelhead improved. In general, “ocean conditions” refer to a number of factors and chief among those are the availability of feed. We have been and hopefully will remain in an atmospheric-driven environment that benefits all the links in the ocean’s food chain.
This is all good news for fish but presents a challenge to anglers facing serious weather and challenging winter fishing. There are plenty of places to fish in the winter but timing and planning are essential.
Check the regulations, but many natural lakes and all the reservoirs in western Lane County remain open year round. Most have planted trout, some have planted kokanee, and others have naturally occurring populations of wild trout, bass, and crappie.
Fall salmon are still plentiful, but have shifted to south coast streams (Elk, Sixess, Chetco) and winter steelhead historically begin the winter migration around Thanksgiving.
Without planning your chances of being successful are greatly diminished but here are internet resources.
First is the Noah River Levels page that has real time levels for rivers all over the state and is updated throughout the day (nwrfc.noaa.gov/rfc/).
The site also includes a “prediction” based on current conditions that extends out for a couple of days. This is truly the most important site when planning any wintertime fishing trip.
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