Siletz River

Siletz River and Bay and Nearby Water

The Siletz River has a strong run of both steelhead and salmon, notwithstanding many marine mammals at the mouth, at Taft. What we need here are more

This is a river of many faces. Salishan is an upscale housing community and fancy resort on the upper end of Siletz Bay, with a big golf course. The rest of the bay and river are about like they were forty-five years ago when I caught my first two salmon outside the bay, in the ocean, in a rental boat. No one goes outside the bay anymore, I hope, and a lot of people who tried, died. The boat rental place long ago folded up. It used to be that you could rent a row boat with three horse engine at the dock which now stands in sand outside Mo's windows at Taft.
People still enjoy the sands at the mouth of the Siletz and sometimes catch a crab in a ring thrown from the beach. Some people crab in the bay; just inside the mouth and seem to do well. Maybe you can still rent a crab ring nearby. Years ago, the bay also provided herring, flounder, perch and other ocean fishes. There is still a good fall salmon fishery in the river, up a ways. I have not taken part in it. I believe there is a place to launch a boat about under the Highway 101 bridge that crosses the Siletz. When it is open, I think the cost is about five dollars. This allows you to fish fall salmon upriver and is the closest launch to the lower bay, about five miles I would guess.
 

The Siletz River is in the center of Oregon's major tourist places, both north and south.
My daughter caught and released her first winter steelhead on the Siletz, just above the town of Siletz, up the river about twenty miles. You can get a map of the river showing from above the town of Siletz to the bay. It shows about six boat ramps, most of which can be used any time of the year, if you have nerve enough and a good rig. I have seen them all. The river is safe to float all these miles in a drift boat and probably a rubber raft and has a good steelhead run most of the year. I have not drifted all of this water, but have looked at all the boat ramps. Farther up, in the North Fork, you fish only with a barbless fly and keep only hatchery steelhead. I have seen these fish in the summer, but not hooked any. In winter, I hooked and released several large cutthroat trout in the main river, which may have been natives. I doubt they were searuns in winter.
I met a guide on the Deschutes River and was trying to tell him about the good run of summer steelhead on the upper Siletz. He said there used to be an excellent run, but lately there were only a few fish. He was referring to there being only a few native fish; he refused to consider the hatchery fish as part of any run and acted like they did not exist. Maybe he was right.
One summer day, I tried to drive through from Dallas in the valley, south of Salem, over the coast range on logging roads, through the abandoned town of Valsetz. I had to take a detour, but got a few miles short of Siletz, when I realized that the last part of the road was privately owned by a large lumber company and closed to public travel on weekdays. The road back was long. I got to see the South Fork of the Siletz and it was untrampled and clear. I fished the main river a bit after the two forks come together above Siletz. The river was clear and good; a father and son had just caught one steelhead and lost another. I saw a couple of summer steelhead playing in a hole in the North Fork of this river, but could not interest them in my fly. A good half-day drift is to put in at twin-bridges and float to the first take-out in Siletz. You can get a shuttle to move your rig down to Siletz for about seven There is a small lake further south out of Siletz, I think called Ollala or something like that. You take the road south, like going to Toledo, and the lake is off the the left I think. Once in a while I hear it mentioned on the Fishline as having been stocked with large trout.