February North Coast Steelhead

    What an amazing month February turned out to be!  Today is just the second of March and March is my favorite time to fish the North Coast!  I just finished 12 days in the Tillamook area.  Unfortunately I was unable to get internet access at the place that I stay so here is a report for the entire trip. 

     I was fortunate to have many fantastic people fish with me during this trip and catch fish they did!

We found some large fish

We found several large chrome fish

Several of my guests landed their first steelhead!

Most fish were absolutely chrome and really hot upon getting a fly stuck in their face.  Some fish were simply unlandable as they went deep into the backing on their first run and found debris near the shore.  One particular fish must have jumped at least 2 feet out of the water 7 times during the fight.  Many of the trips resulted in double digit hook ups in just 6 hours of fishing!

     I will be posting a few more pictures and some more details from this past two weeks tomorrow evening.  At this time I will be announcing another special for the month of March with the dates I still have available.
Tight lines,

Gil Muhleman
The Tug Is The Drug

Oregon Winter Steelhead Fishing

Winter Steelhead fishing has been excellent in the month of February on the North Coast streams in Oregon that Water Time Outfitter guides have been working.  We have had excellent results on the Wilson, Trask, Kilches and North Fork Nehalem Rivers.  Both wild and hatchery fish have been present in excellent numbers. 

This year North Fork of the Nehalem is having a record year for hatchery steelhead.  So far they have collected over 3800 fish in the hatchery trap.   That is almost double an average year!

Here's a couple recent fish.  Come join us!  www.watertimeoutfitters.com

The TUG is the Drug!

Winter Steelhead Workshops

Want to catch steelhead on the Trask, Wilson, Clackamas, NF Nehalem, Neccanicum River or Eagle Creek?

These workshops are designed to get walk in fly anglers comfortable with a variety of spots and techniques that will put them into fish on the Oregon's best coastal rivers.

Here is how it works. We start at the crack of 9:00 am at a designated location near the water with coffee and donuts. We’ll review maps that will give you at least a dozen productive steelhead runs that you can drive and walk to often these are spots we personally fish. With coffee in hand we’ll discuss the maps in detail.

Then when we’ve reached proper caffeine level we’ll grab a bunch of gear and head out to fish a few spots. At this time we cover: fishing techniques, fishing strategy, fly selection and more. This is also time to talk about lines, rods and rigging. We’ll have plenty of spey rods and nearly 20 fly lines for you to try out and get a feel for different systems. We will have ½ dozen spey rods and switch rods for you to try out and different lines to try on your own rod. If you need some basic spey casting lessons there is usually time for that as well.

If we actually catch a fish it will be by accident. The purpose of this workshop is to give you the tools you need to find, read, and properly fish good steelhead water the actual fishing will be secondary.

Around 1pm we’ll break for a hungry man’s lunch and then head on to some more spots with steelhead water you’ll want to drool on!

Classes offered:

Dec 17th - Clackamas and Eagle creek - meeting site Royal Treatment Fly Shop

Jan 6th -NF Nehalem River and Neccanicum R- meets at our river cabin

Jan 28 - Trask, Wilson and Kilches River class - meeting site to be determined

Need flies?  Royal Treatment Fly shop has a special package of winter steelhead flies for you:
Click here to see a recommeded selection of flies
Workshop cost is $100 including meals and is limited to 8 anglers. Call 503-704-6449 to reserve your spot.