2025 Siltcoos/Tahk Lake Coho Thread

Nov.13  2pm:  Tahk water level up a little more, it is ready to pop!  Rain forcast has eased back through the weekend but it should get open soon...

Monday Nov.17-  Tahk level up again, fished the Mallard arm with low expectations, 10min out from remote launch, trolling up the channel, hooked a big coho and had it on for 30s or so...released a dark jack soon after and that was it until 5 hours later when I retained an 18" jack from the same area.  Nothing going on out in the main arm, 1 PB trolled through.  Very typical for Tahk before the dam gets opened, jacks and an occasional adult come in using the ladder.

No new reports from Siltcoos, seems like a slow year so far.

Thursday Nov.20:  Tahk dam has been opened!  There's a line of pine needles and leaves you can see above the current water level, looks like they dropped it maybe a foot, closed the dam, and the lakes come up a bit since.

No new reports from Siltcoos.

Just a reminder on these late coho in the lakes- darker hens have big eggs but pale flesh but nasty red bucks, like the 34" one Pepper and I caught last year in Tahk on Dec.6 are usually still excellent eats.

Appreciate the reports Roger! I'm going to swing down to Mallard and give it a whirl tomorrow. Been a couple years since I fished it. If I score a coho early, I'll try for some yellow perch...I watched another kayaker slay the perch the last time I was there.

Fished Mallard arm yesterday for the first time in two years. I was launching late and old hammer was heading in, we had a nice chat. He didn’t have any luck but got one at Siltcoos day before on a fly! Seemed like a pretty slow day but I was able to hook and land a nice 29 1/2 inch buck that was pretty chrome for this time of year. Really stoked to get one after three skunks at Siltcoos this year. Absolutely beautiful still day on the lake.

Nice fish Hobster!

It was very slow for me and just about everyone else at Mallard today. I saw one coho jack jump, and that was about it. Watched ten boats pound the same shorelines I fished in the morning, all for nada. I released a couple of trout while casting for coho.

Couple hours later, I came up on a big school of yellow perch in about 18 ft of water. Dropped a 1/4 oz Kastmaster into them, and it was fish after fish. Lots of little guys, but I scraped up enough 10-11 inchers for a fish fry.

Need a lot more rain to get things going. But then again, the returns to the coastal rivers seemed pretty weak compared to the last few years. We might be looking at a weak OCN coho run overall for 2025.

I did about the same at Sltcoos as Clayman did at Tahk. Lost a fish in the morning that felt solid, but not huge. Either a big jack, decent bass, or small adult coho. Caught a couple lil trout, couple drive bys that were probably also trout. Marked a few coho here n there, only saw one roll all day. Didn't see or hear about any coho caught.

well, I finished my lake coho season on Dec.2 with an absolute 'yee haw' day at Tahk, my first in a few years.  smooth water and all to myself, the action was up in the narrow Leitel creek channel above the Mallard arm, I ended up landing 5 jacks (retained a red 19" to cook up tonight), 4 adults (lost 2, released 2 big dark hens) and had another 5 solid takedowns that didn't stick...all of this trolling the very same gold/orange spinner. 

not the great river/lake coho season I was expecting after all the great ocean reports but another solid "put in the hours and get rewarded' sort of year...time to score some big December crab before the commercial guys get to them...cheers, roger