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Coho - Willamette - 2025

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5.2K views 46 replies 26 participants last post by  oregonmuley  
#1 ·
Any Coho reports from folks fishing above the falls on the Willamette? I know the counts have been low, but I'm curious what folks are seeing.
 
#2 ·
How far up the Willamette do coho go?
 
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#4 ·
That is so cool.
 
#16 · (Edited)
Blue boat guy here; at least I was there in my blue boat Monday. Surface temp water was reading 66.5F on my electronics. Slow fishing, bite still needs to improvement.

Interesting, it looks like I'm “Registered Canadian” on IFish now. Don't know how that happened, eh. Thank you whoever changed me back to American. 🇺🇸
 
#17 ·
Slow fishing, bite still needs to improvement.
I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but we will have slow fishing until some coho actually get over the falls. Otherwise all there is to catch is smallmouth and pikeminnow. Last year may have been a real fluke with the big numbers. Hopefully not but we had a lot of fish above the falls by this date last year.
 
#24 ·
Went out of West Linn from 10-5 today with my buddies. We gave up salmon fishing and switched to bass after trying a few different spots between the launch and the Molalla River.

Last year on this date, there were over 22k Coho over the falls + we had already been a week or more into 1,500-2,000+ fish over the falls per day. I hope to see another year like that, but I don't think this will be it. I think it will come in just above the ten year ( I hope im wrong!) and far below last year ( Also hope im wrong!!). Still better than a great day working.
 
#32 ·
Ifish’ed above the falls trolling Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings. Friday was like what I heard a TV host recently describe as a fish desert. Very few fish marked and I witnessed no action. Saturday a completely different story. A good bite was on between 8am and 9am, I saw at least 8 fish netted and lots of fish marking. Sunday I netted one early, about 7am and witnessed two other first light fish on. Didn’t see any other action after 7:30 Sunday and didn’t mark many either.
It’s hit and miss up there, Saturday seemed the best day for the growing fishing fleet from what I observed.
 
#35 ·
Because the depth changes a good bit up there and coho biters are inclined to come up (or down for that matter) to inspect your offering, I find that about 20 or so pulls or fishing 14ft down strikes a good balance. I have a livescope and see plenty of people fishing 8-10 feet deep, and that works fine too and helps avoid snags.

The key isn't getting coho in the upper Willy to come look, it's getting them to bite. I regularly see swarms of 5-10 coho at a time mob my offering, which produces the best likelihood of a bite (are they competing?), but even that's only 50/50 and depends on offering what they're biting. On any given day, what they're biting seems to be different.
 
#43 · (Edited)
found one today. Throwing a #4 blue fox. What I learned today was, if it feels like your bass fishing (throwing into cover) you’re probably doing it right. Tried pulling maglips for a bit but no dice.


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Nice. Might go to a #3, pink body nickel blade for the daily win. Straight up nickel-nickel and copper-copper have their time and place also.
 
#45 ·
Last Saturday I dragged my boys with me at 6am and we struck out. Nobody wanted to go with me today so I slept in and got there at 8:30 and ended up with two 6ish pounders, a hen and a buck. Caught both on pro-troll/spinner setup, 6oz lead with 25' on the line counter, going about 2.25mph. the first one was fun, it jumped right behind the boat and then immediately smashed the spinner.
I felt fortunate, didn't see much action for all the boats out there. These are the only pictures I took since I was by myself. Had to show my wife I'm not totally useless.

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Image
 
#47 ·
Last Saturday I dragged my boys with me at 6am and we struck out. Nobody wanted to go with me today so I slept in and got there at 8:30 and ended up with two 6ish pounders, a hen and a buck. Caught both on pro-troll/spinner setup, 6oz lead with 25' on the line counter, going about 2.25mph. the first one was fun, it jumped right behind the boat and then immediately smashed the spinner.
I felt fortunate, didn't see much action for all the boats out there. These are the only pictures I took since I was by myself. Had to show my wife I'm not totally useless.

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I think we run the same exact boat other that the color (y) Congrats on the fish.