January fishing preview for the pacific northwest
Historically speaking, January is one of the tougher months for fishing in the Pacific Northwest, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to hang up the rods! If you’re willing to put in a little work, you could be rewarded with a trophy fish! Steelhead are beginning to show up in the local rivers—the Sandy tends to get fish a little earlier than the Clackamas, and I’ve heard of a few fish getting caught. January tends to be the first month of the winter season where there’s a decent chance of running into a fish. With each bit of rain moving through, we should expect to see more fish move into the rivers and the fishing gets better and better. On a related note, one bit of advice I was given years ago, is to pick a large river and a smaller river and really focus on those two. Normally, a large river takes more rain to get out of shape, but remains out of shape for longer, smaller rivers get blown out quickly, but will get back into shape similarly fast. Learning about two very different rivers can really maximize the days you can get on the water!
If you’re looking for an easy day on the water, walleye is the ticket. The walleye bite on the Columbia River has seriously improved from the sluggish bite we had in November and is shaping up to be pretty good through at least the end of February. In addition to the numbers of walleye caught, the average size of the fish is better than in years past, still try to release all the big female walleye to help support this population long term.
Lastly, we have the one truly year-round fishery in the Pacific Northwest, sturgeon. Unquestionably, the strongest fish you can catch from a kayak without first getting on a plane. For the month of January, there is a sturgeon retention season open on the Columbia River. Please consult the regulations prior to heading out, the season is very tightly controlled, and regulation updates happen quickly. But all indications are showing this to be a very good season, a few of us have picked up surgeon while walleye fishing this year. Sturgeon fishing in the Columbia generally happens in deeper water with a fair amount of current, but if you’re fine with those, you could end up with a sturgeon dinner!
One last update for the upcoming month, it’s easy to forget, but winter is prime time for crabbing on the Oregon coast. Commercial crabbing was closed for the month of December and so there’s plenty of good-sized crabs around! Virtually all the bays will have crabs, with the three closest, Netarts, Tillamook, and Nehalem, all having good populations. If you decide to check them out from a kayak, do be aware these bays can have very strong currents and it’s important to watch the tides. A good rule of thumb is the incoming tide to a little after the high tide is best, but that’s not a hard and fast rule.
Trip report
A few days ago, a few friends and I headed out looking for steelhead doing the standard Oxbow to Dabney float on the Sandy River. This section is the most reliably mellow section of water that has good water for swinging flies for steelhead—all our preferred technique. Personally speaking, I am well aware this is not the most effective way of catching fish, but when it works out, it’s a top five rush in fishing. The conditions for our trip were nearly ideal, aside from the time of year. It had rained fairly consistently the week prior, and the river hit the peak level the afternoon before we went out. The clarity was exactly what I was hoping for, about 3 feet, the river was moving along at a decent rate (I’ll gladly take a little too much flow over too little), and we were the second or third boat on the water. The one thing we were missing was numbers of fish. The first real storm in December will likely bring in some fish, but with most fish returning between January and March, we knew we were on the early side.
Someone had taken the first good run on the river and we were fortunate enough to grab the second—the other boats ahead of us pushed past all of Oxbow to get the first crack on some of the downriver runs. We fished the run as effectively as we could, Cole, the manager at the Next Adventure Grand Store, fished relatively high in the water column, Matt, a former Next Adventure employee and current guide, fished a little lower in the water using a slightly heavier sink tip, and I brought up the rear, trying to find the bottom of the river by whatever methods I could use—tungsten flies, heavy sink tips, sinking heads, casting angles, etc. With these three methods, we could be relatively sure there was nothing in the run, and there wasn’t as far as we could tell. We loaded back into Matt’s new NRS Slipstream 120 and headed downriver. Given that it wasn’t much of a secret this would be the first day of the season with a reasonable chance of finding a fish, we weren’t the only ones looking. Each of us having independently fished this section of river a ton, we had a list of less obvious spots that could produce, and we tried them all. On the second or third run of the day I felt something that might’ve been a steelhead, but I’ll never know. Matt did catch a sucker, so it wasn’t a complete skunk—just as close to one as you could get. Each run seemed to look better than the last, with each of us saying “and here’s the fish” each time our flies swung over a particularly good section of water, but nothing happened.
We timed it right to get the last run on this section of river, a massive section by western Oregon steelhead run standards, aptly named “Last Chance,” and we fished this run hard. Each of us passed through the entire thing at least twice, using a series of different combinations of fly, sink tip, and shooting head, to try to fish it as perfectly as we could, but no luck. They can’t all be winners.
Even though none of us hooked any fish, we all left with the drive to keep fishing. The season is only getting started, and it’s looking like it’ll be a good one.
Pre-Sales
We have some exciting new products coming our way over the next couple of months! First off, there’s the NRS Approach series of rafts, a narrow, lightweight raft, designed to be transported in the bed of a truck or the top of an SUV—no trailer required! It comes in two sizes, a 10-foot version and a 12-foot model, with the 10-foot coming in at under 100 pounds with the frame and anchor system. It’ll be tough to find any raft setup that’s easier to transport!
We have Aire! We are excited to announce we are now an Aire dealer. Aire makes some of the finest rafts, catarafts, kayaks, and river couches on the market. They’re all made in Idaho, and they come with a 10-year warranty. You can turn these boats into incredible fishing machines for the Pacific Northwest!
Lastly, we are getting in some of the Old Town Bigwater ePDL+’s! This is certainly one of the most innovative kayaks on the market today. It combines the pedal power you’ve become used to with most of the fishing kayaks, with an electric motor assist. It will undoubtedly make salmon fishing in our area a whole lot easier and more comfortable. I had the opportunity to do a video review for the ePDL+ on our YouTube channel, check it out! It comes as a complete package, battery and wiring included, ready to hit the water the same day!
If you’re interested in learning more about any of these products, feel free to give the Next Adventure Paddle Sports Center (503)233-0706, a call anytime!