The Caddis Fly: Oregon Fly Fishing Blog

Salmon “home” right? They find their way back home to the river, tributary and maybe even the gravel bar where they were spawned. In the case of hatchery fish, they home to their release location, right?

Well, yes and no. Homing by Pacific Salmon is crucial to the ability of these fish to develop [...]

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Sea Lice are a parasitic copepod, and when we see these on our salmon, steelhead or cutthroat we consider these an indication that they have not been in the river (out of the ocean) very long.
Funny thing, though, I really didn’t know much about how long these critters could hang onto a fish, so I [...]

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October 28, 2008 — Ed and I were fishing the River Styx. A slow day, as far as fishing goes. Only a few Chinook were showing, no grabs, and now the tide had turned in, sweeping leaves, twigs, logs, lawn-clippings, plastic water bottles, Styrofoam bait tubs, strings of kelp, and all sorts of [...]

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November 23, 2009 — It is barely light enough to see, and I am sitting in my drift boat anchored at the Hatchery launch site. I’m sitting here because I’m nervous about running the drop immediately below the tailout of the pool.

I watched several boats go over the drop yesterday afternoon, and, well, they just [...]

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Elk River, 2009
Saturday morning. Down the beach we went at daybreak - Bob, Ryan, and me. Paul and Jeff had abandoned us at the motel in the dark, sneaking away without even knocking on our door to see if we were awake.
Fellow salmon fishers, most carrying white plastic shopping bags, were [...]

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According to Tom Murtagh, ODFW distric District Fish Biologist: A significant proportion of the Willamette coho run has entered the Tualatin and is currently spawning throughout the basin, mostly above Hillsboro. Coho counts at the falls is just above 25,000 adults, a record. Interestingly, about 94-96% are naturally produced, that is produced by [...]

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I don’t know why I bother to set a 2 A.M. alarm when I have never been able to sleep the night before a south coast salmon fishing trip. After a late afternoon phone call from Greg Roberts confirming the river conditions, a plan was formulated to round up my troops and get down there [...]

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