Cutthroat in columbia...?

mattsavage

mattsavage

Steelhead
Has anyone ever fished the shorelines and beaches along the lower Columbia for cutthroat? Its technically open for hatchery cutthroat until dec31 in oregon and i know washington releases some hatchery cutts in certain tribs of the columbia, so i figured maybe they would work their way down.

I was wondering if fishing it like they do in the Puget Sound for sea runs would work down here in the river, stripping streamers in the shallows... Just a thought, now that the regular trout season is pretty much done around the portland area, need something to do to kill a few hours here and there...
 
If I were to do this I’d start looking around the mouths of smaller tributaries; Big and Gnat Creeks come to mind.
 
Robert Engleheart said:
If I were to do this I’d start looking around the mouths of smaller tributaries; Big and Gnat Creeks come to mind.
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Thats not a bad option. Beaver, scappoose, all those small creeks would be good with a few extra hours.


I often take my dogs out for long runs on the beaches around kelly point, sauvie island etc, since they're totally empty this time of year. It would be easy to kill a couple hours tossing a sculpin while they chase rabbits behind me. Seems like it could be fishy with all the old pilings and wing dams out there. worse case scenario, maybe theres smallmouth.
 
mattsavage said:
maybe theres smallmouth.
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Honestly this is your best bet. I haven't fish Kelly Pt. but I have Cathedral Park (different river, same zone). And never did I expect that I could catch a cutt there. TBH, I'd probably prefer the smallie, especially if it was a hatchery cutt 🤷‍♂️
 
Somewhere on youtube, there is a video of a kid fishing around beacon rock, and he catches a nice cutthroat as bycatch. I think it's a needle in a haystack proposition. I've thought about fishing way down in the lower river, around astoria and the wildlife refuge, but I'm too intimidated on the size of the water, and don't have a boat. I'm sure that's where Columbia trib sea runs go though, down in the estuary, it's probably where the cowlitz cutthroat go. They should be there, just lots and lots of water to cover. Mouth of lower tribs, or all the structure around Astoria might be a good place to start. It's definitely an unknown fishery. At this point, you might catch an early winter steelhead!

There is more unknown than known about migratory cutthroat, they were never a commercial species, so they didn't get the research that steelhead and salmon did. I think once sea-runs stopped being stocked as much as they were, the angler interest and information dried up.
 
If the hatchery at Big Creek is still operating you could call them. I’ve found hatchery personnel often very helpful.
 
mcswny said:
Honestly this is your best bet. I haven't fish Kelly Pt. but I have Cathedral Park (different river, same zone). And never did I expect that I could catch a cutt there. TBH, I'd probably prefer the smallie, especially if it was a hatchery cutt 🤷‍♂️
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Kelley Point is a good, or I should say was a good SM spot. I haven't fished it in maybe 10 years but the row of pilings on the actual point used to hold fish. Lots of current there so you'll need a boat with a good trolling motor..

As for lower Columbia cutties I'd focus on the tributary estuaries. The Elochoman, grays and all the creeks all have searuns. I think however this is something you'll have to put a fair amount of time into, it's a huge area with an unknown quantity of fish. I think it would be best as a canoeing/ exploring/ fishing trip rather than a hard core fishing thing.
 
Only area I can think of in the Columbia proper that'd be intriguing to explore would be the marshy braided area just east of Tongue Point. It'd take a sled/shallow water watercraft, but I think that's where the cutties would hang out.
 
Evan B said:
Only area I can think of in the Columbia proper that'd be intriguing to explore would be the marshy braided area just east of Tongue Point. It'd take a sled/shallow water watercraft, but I think that's where the cutties would hang out.
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I drove Hwy 30 to the coast and back a bunch this summer, and remember wondering about that myself. There's no shortage of slow, cutty-looking creeks dumping into that part of the estuary.
 
Every time I read the title of this post it makes me think of two West Slope cutthroat I've seen that were caught near Kennewick in the Columbia!

I'm not sure I'd recommend making trip there to try for them but it was pretty amazing.
 
Caught a west coast cutthroat on the Columbia about two miles north of the Entiat river. Awfully surprising to me.
 
You might want to call up Josh at spawn fly-fish or stop in to the shop, I think he's been doing a lot of local angling around SW Washington.
 
Another idea is to get a boat and troll flies at different depths to cover as much water as possible until you find fish, or if you just want to go purely fact-finding, use whatever trolling rigs they used to use, ford fenders with worms, I think.
 
DerekWhipple said:
Another idea is to get a boat and troll flies at different depths to cover as much water as possible until you find fish, or if you just want to go purely fact-finding, use whatever trolling rigs they used to use, ford fenders with worms, I think.
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Nah, just looking to kill time while i'm out with the dogs close to home, thinking about tossing streamers around around the rocks, pilings, wing dams, etc.

i'll report back if i find anything...
 
mattsavage said:
Nah, just looking to kill time while i'm out with the dogs close to home, thinking about tossing streamers around around the rocks, pilings, wing dams, etc.

i'll report back if i find anything...
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This is a great plan.
Toss white ;) A LOT of shad fry fly by there.
 
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