2023 Siltcoo/Tahk coho thread

Thank you Roger for all of your updates.  Now all I need is for the weather to cooperate with my schedule.  Unfortunately that my day is a week out.

less coho activity than expected Tuesday, lake level even higher so dam might not have been open very long.  I woke up a big coho buck at 10am casting a spinner near shore at the south end and he was not happy with me.  I'm guessing 30" and 10#, not chrome but would have kept it except I wanted to fish more, easy release...all I heard at the launch was a few jacks being caught, I left at 1pm so might have been an afternoon bite...

 

Fished from 0930 to 230.  Saw or heard only one guy with a salmon.  I lost one trout at the boat.  Fished west side near the outlet and then made the trek across the lake to the Maple Arm.  Boats seemed to be shifting around a lot which often means no one is finding fish so they keep trying new spots.

Beautiful day on the lake after about 1000

Going to give it another go tomorrow

Holy smokes there was a lot of boats on the lake today.  They were coming 5 and 6 at a time during launching.  No idea where they all parked.  All the usual spots had a cluster of boats trolling or casting.  More than a couple times I found myself lined up with a boat on either side trolling towards a couple boats heading towards us.  Always worked out, but lots of close passes.

Saw a couple fish, didn't seem super fast.  I was twice as good as yesterday with two trout.  No salmon, very sad.  I may need to stick to rockfish and smallmouth, they like me.

just 8 trailers at the launch Thursday at 8:15am but it's going to get crowded real soon.  river moving but not as much as Monday, so looks like they have set the dam to try and match water flowing into the lake, but lake is even higher than Tuesday so the next dam change would be to open it more.  main coho run should be moving in over the next week.

Tahk dam closed 8am Thursday and I don't think it has been opened yet, foot higher than Monday and lake level getting close to where they normally open the dam there.

report from Siltcoos- crowded but not combat fishing, especially if you avoided a few well known areas, we put 3 chrome hens on my PB, all about 28", they had been eating real well....lake is full of water.

Nice work Roger! Good lookin' fish!

Awesome!

Thanks again for all the updates and reports.  This is Reed, the guy in the Hobie PA14 that said hi over in the Fiddle Creek Arm towards the end of October.  I’m planning on heading down from Portland Sunday afternoon, and fishing Siltcoos Mon-Wed/Thur. 

Any thoughts on hitting Tahkenitch in the near future?

Awesome!

Thanks again for all the updates and reports.  This is Reed, the guy in the Hobie PA14 that said hi over in the Fiddle Creek Arm towards the end of October.  I’m planning on heading down from Portland Sunday afternoon, and fishing Siltcoos Mon-Wed/Thur. 

Any thoughts on hitting Tahkenitch in the near future?

yes, I saved 2 coho tag spaces for Tahk, planning to hit it on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday and maybe the week after Thanksgiving.   

Gave Siltcoos a whirl today on my buddy's boat. I've only fished it via kayak, so the ability to zip around from one place to another was a treat. We pitched spinners towards sunken timber, weed lines, etc. Hot color was silver blade/chartreuse body...for coho, anyway.

After catching a few largemouth and cutthroat on silver blade/pink body, we came upon some rolling coho in the back of a cove. I missed a coho jack right at the boat, then my buddy got a jack 10 seconds later. Couple minutes go by, and he picked up a nice adult buck coho. He switched over to a dark blue Keitech swimbait to try for bass, and hooked another coho on the swimbait! It threw the hook after a few seconds.

I released another cuttie, and my buddy was nice enough to loan me his silver blade/chartreuse spinner. A few minutes later, I'm rolling the spinner over a weed bed and hooked up on something bigger than a bass or trout. Heavy fish! A few minutes later, we slide a 32+ inch, 13.5 lb buck in the net. A little blush on him, but he cut beautifully. We were done by noon.

Everyone else we saw on the water today were trolling in the open water. We were the only ones casting towards shore. Not sure how the trollers were faring, but all the rolling fish we saw were too tight to the shore for effective trolling.

right on, nothing going on at Tahk today, lake is still low, chrome coho in December?  sounds good to me...

Hit Siltcoos today as well for my third try at a Coho this year in the kayak. It was a beautiful morning and I launched around 730 or so. Paddled over to the river outlet made one cast and realized my line was wrapped around my pole in between the eyes. I cut the line and re-rigged, and on the second cast of the day hooked into a super chrome 25” buck! My very first salmon from my Compass😀 headed back to EUG and was home by 9:30 to watch some football. Got one pic with the cell phone. Clayman I spoke to you in the parking lot as you guys were launching. Super nice fish dude!

Right on hobster, congrats again on that fish! We tried the outlet first thing this morning, but no dice. I've always wanted to hook a fish that close to the ramp. Half dozen boats trolling around the outlet when we were heading back to the ramp, so maybe it turned on there again?

Thanks man! I was supposed to hit Tahk with Roger, but decided I might have better luck at Siltcoos. Glad I went😀

As my Tahk trip was more about a guaranteed supply of chanterelles and less about coho, I might have been nudging people towards Siltcoos...in other words...