Your Comprehensive Guide to Fall Fishing in Oregon

Changing Seasons Means Changing Tactics

Autumn is in the air, and I don’t know about you, but I always find this season to be a bit overwhelming as an angler in the Pacific Northwest. It’s easy to suffer from choice paralysis, with so many of our favorite local fisheries firing at the same time.

Judging by the early results, this is going to be a particularly special fall here in Western Oregon. The Willamette Valley and coastal streams are already packed with impressive returns of summer steelhead, coho salmon, and searun cutthroat. Trout fishing is picking up in Central Oregon and on our local lakes as temperatures drop and nights lengthen. October caddis have already started arriving, a favorite food source for searun steelhead and resident rainbows.

With so many different fisheries and waterbodies hitting their peak all at once, how do you make sure you take advantage before the clock runs out on October?

I find there are two ways to approach this magical season — try to experience a little of everything, or pick one fishery and buckle down. I’ve attempted the middle ground, and let me assure you, it doesn’t work. You’re left with a foot in each camp, wondering where the time went and how you managed to squander it!

The Tasting Menu

Let’s start with the do-it-all approach and set some expectations. If you’re the kind of angler who is out there on the water for pure enjoyment of experience — which is a wonderful kind of angler to be, I might add — the tasting menu is for you.

You can be in the high desert one day, swinging a trout spey for big native redsides, and out stripping streamers for searun cutthroat within earshot of the ocean the next. You can kick around in a float tube on a beautiful alpine lake with Mount Hood’s dramatic peak rising in the background, then spend the following weekend skating big October caddis for summer steelhead right in our backyard on the Lower Clackamas.

You won’t find the maximum number of fish. Heck, you probably won’t even catch every species you chase. That’s okay — this approach to autumn is all about variety, and time well spent. It’s not about numbers, achievements, or setting a personal best. Instead, you’ll get to enjoy a little bit of everything Oregon’s waterways have to offer this time of year. The key, of course, is timing.

Those of us looking to cast a wide net face a serious time crunch. There are only so many hours in a day, and days in a month. Head to the coast too early and all you’ll find are small fish and high water temps. Wait too long, and the rivers might blow out. Delay your trip to the alpine lakes, and snow might beat you there. Fail to set aside a weekday to chase local steelhead, and you’ll be rubbing elbows with a dozen other anglers on the weekend. Plus, there’s the added complication of trout closures on a number of streams at the end of October.

This autumn, with El Niño on its way, experts expect a warm, fairly dry season in our corner of the Pacific Northwest. That means we’ve probably got some time before snow blocks access to our favorite alpine lakes, and that it might be a while before trout fishing really gets good in hotter, sunnier locations like Central Oregon. But anadromous fish returns in the Willamette Valley are strong, right here and now. The trout, salmon, and steelhead in our coastal rivers are enjoying ideal water temperatures. If you’re looking for a place to start, look no further.

Next, I’d prioritize an alpine lake or two. With strange weather patterns predicted, it’s hard to know when heavy snow will arrive or when our local waters will begin to ice over. Shorter days and cooler overnight temperatures mean fish that had escaped to deeper water during the heat of summer should now be active around the shallows, inlets, and littoral zones.

When ODFW’s October 31st deadline closes the majority of Willamette Valley trout streams, it’s time to visit Central Oregon. Early November on the Lower Deschutes and Crooked offers some of the best fishing, scenery, and solitude you’ll experience all year long. Or, if snow hasn’t blocked the roads, head on back up to the lakes. They’re open to trout fishing year-round, provided you can get there.

Going Deep

Now, let’s look at the opposite approach — fully commit to one fishery. I would argue there’s as much variety in a single area of focus as in trying to do it all, depending on your mindset. Some like to go wide. Others, deep.

There’s something incredibly special and difficult to articulate about the experience of visiting the same waters or chasing the same fish as nature changes drastically around you. Take summer steelhead, for example. I’ve chased them in August, wet wading in shorts and a t-shirt on the Middle Fork Willamette, skating a big dry fly on a single-hander. I’ve pursued them in November, bundled in five layers to combat 35-degree morning temperatures, swinging a heavy sink tip and streamer on a spey rod. I’ve also fished the same piece of water every week for three straight months, changing nothing but my presentation. You might not see as many different things, but you’ll learn infinitely more.

And it’s not just steelhead this time of year, either. Maybe this is the year you want to catch a chum salmon on the Miami River, or a trophy sea run out of the Trask estuary. Perhaps you want to target pre-spawn brook trout at Lake Timothy, or see if you can find your personal best brown trout at Lake Harriet. Those types of goals require repetition. Autumn is a narrow and ever-changing window. The only way to adjust quickly enough is to build intimate knowledge through dedicated and intentional time on the water.

Whether you’re an intrepid explorer or a dedicated achiever, there’s no better time to embrace your angling personality than fall. Be whichever you want to be, go wherever you want to go. Just don’t wait.