Willamette River, Oregon
See also McKenzie River



About two hundred years ago, Lewis and Clark finally entered the Willamette River, on April 2, 1806. While mid summer is the most common time frame for fishing this river, March and April can still be a good time to start exploring this relatively obscure fishery for wild rainbow and cutthroat. These descendants of fish from pre-statehood days live out their mundane lives sipping aquatic insects and negotiating gentle riffles for their daily meals as they await the occasional visitor with fly rod in hand.

Come late summer and fall, this is a true steelhead fishery with thousands of steelhead returning to it each year, yet read around and you will find very little written of the unbelievable numbers of anadromous fish that find their way here. In many years, well over 10,000!

Drifting this under utilized section of the Willamette River will have your downstream progress overseen by bald eagles, osprey, herons and river otters, but little else. The splashing leaps and reel churning runs of wild trout accompanied by exhortations of joy from the rod holder will drift off in the gentle breeze and be heard by maybe a lonely farm animal or two, but seldom other humans. The mid-Willamette tumbles its way through generational farm lands that escort this famous waterway on its gentle passage. Combine some excellent fly angling with a gourmet shore lunch for an unforgettable day immersed in the world of water, or better yet take two days, river camp, dine well with friends, and fish hard in one of the more memorable settings you can find that exists mostly undiscovered and undisturbed between major population areas.

Clothing and equipment checklist -- Summer
Spey Line Specifications

Pricing: