Shad and Salmon Fishing on the Willamette River, Oregon

After a fun day climbing on Saturday, I dedicated much of Sunday to fishing for shad (great crab bait) on the Willamette River with a couple of friends. We took my boat, launching from Meldrum Bar around 6:30 AM. The weather was calm with mostly cloudy skies and a temperature in the low 50's F. The river was extremely high, making launching the boat more challenging than usual. The upper part of the ramp was covered in water, making the dock inaccessible. After waiting for a couple boats ahead of us, we managed to launch my boat by driving it off the trailer while the truck was in about 18 inches of water. One positive of the high water is we were able to run the boat over the bar, which was covered by eight feet of water. The water was fairly warm at about 57°F.

We anchored up in Oregon City just downriver from the I-205 bridge in about 28 feet of water. There were many boats upstream and downstream from us, but relatively few in our near vicinity. We put our three rods out and Matt caught the first shad within about 30 minutes. It was pretty slow, but that was to be expected with the season just starting. The shad only started going over Bonneville dam a week ago. Matt was using a green jig head with a chartreuse grub. I started off with a red jig head with chartreuse grub, while John tried a Dick Nite spoon. After switching to a pink jig head with chartreuse grub, John landed three more shad.

   

Later in the morning, John hooked into yet another fish (on his recently broken fishing rod held together with duct tape). This time it turned out to be a hatchery jack salmon. It was a pleasant surprise, especially since it was caught on a jig head (we have caught them on Dick Nite Spoons before, but never jigs).

I barbecued some chicken thighs for lunch in the bow of the boat. I always love the smell of barbecue out on the river. It was delicious paired with a cold beer. After lunch I finally managed to catch a shad. In all, we ended up with only five shad and one salmon. Slow, but not skunked. We talked to a boat shad fishing next to us who had caught 21 shad the day before while salmon fishing in the same area. We only saw them catch one, so it was generally a slow day for everyone.

   

The salmon weren't biting, so we saw a few boats switch over to sturgeon fishing. We witnessed several over-sized fish caught and released. We stayed out for about eight hours and only saw one salmon caught besides the jack we landed. Hopefully as the water goes down and the sun comes out things will pick up.