2024 Siltcoos/Tahk Coho thread

Typical Siltcoos day for me, no fish and people saying I should have been there yesterday.  By the way I wouldn’t recommend anyone saying that to me in the future.  Launched from Nightengales about 9:30.  Someone was catching a fish just as I was shoving off.  Had I launched five minutes earlier I would have rolled right over it.  About a dozen boats working the area and I did not see any other nets flying.  Anita there said one person who camped there had caught their five fish and pulled out.  There are fish getting into the lake it’s just that those of us who live an hour and a half away and who are not out there every day miss them. 

slow for me early Thursday on the west shoreline but I did see 2 adult coho caught about 10am by a guide boat casting spinners up the Maple Arm past Nightingales, their other 3 people kept casting right on to noon without getting another one.  all I could manage was releasing a couple SRC and a really hard whack on a plug.  seems like fish ladder coho trickling in continues to be the report.

water inflow is good, lake level is back to where it was Oct1, they should open the dam again soon, I'm going to check it Fri morning and only fish if it's been opened.   

Update: Friday 8:30am: both dams closed.  took a walk down the Siltcoos river below the dam, I saw zero coho activity, no jumps or rolls.  Going to keep checking the dam as these next storms hit, not going to fish again until something changes. 

Thanks for the reports sir!

Yes, thanks for the intel.

Siltcoos dam was opened a little, not a lot, sometime before 9am Sat.  I zipped home, loaded and launched at 11am and got the last space at the launch.  Radio chatter of some fish being caught (FYI- 12 is the commonly used PB channel at Siltcoos), not all but good number of boats got 1 or 2 adults.  Decent fishing at the lake finally, not great or hot, but decent.  4 days of rain/strong winds coming, although early Sunday might be a window for some.

Same spinner that got my first 2 jacks this year, cast near shore at the south end of the lake, 3' of water over solid weeds, this chrome jack slammed it, started a strong fight and did a death roll, winding the leader around his head like 5 times, in the net quick with the Trooper boat pulling up as I got him on the stringer and bleeding.  They were checking licenses which is great to see out there now and then.  My cleaning mat thing is 19" across, I had to check this guy carefully as they approached, using my 20" bow marks leaving him in the net, my goal would be to release anything in the low 20's, I'm looking for 25" as taggable in Siltcoos.  At 3 locations I got to targe an adult that rolled at least twice, usually hook about 1 in 5 that are this 'uncomfortable', but not today.

let's see, 3 Siltcoos jacks now, 2.5 to 3 pounds each, that adds up to like 8.5# so an average adult coho?  lol

I saw nothing at Siltcoos today, 7:30am to noon, no jumps/rolls/sonar arches/strikes.  and almost no wind until nearly noon which let me fish down the west side, across the south and up Fiddle Creek arm and the actual creek for a good bit. 

more rain and King tides the end of this week could maybe bring in a surge of coho?  who knows...maybe get Tahk dam finally opened...

Thanks for making me feel better about not driving over there to find out if the lake was kayak friendly or not.  I’ve been thinking that there must be fish in the lake.  Hoping to get out there Fri/Sat and one would speculate that a dam pop would be necessary by then?  Seems strange that we are still waiting for that first big surge of fish into the lake but maybe this all bodes well for late Nov early Dec fishing.

Thanks for making me feel better about not driving over there to find out if the lake was kayak friendly or not.  I’ve been thinking that there must be fish in the lake.  Hoping to get out there Fri/Sat and one would speculate that a dam pop would be necessary by then?  Seems strange that we are still waiting for that first big surge of fish into the lake but maybe this all bodes well for late Nov early Dec fishing.

there is a 9' high at 10am Thursday, second big high of this set of 'king' tides that are known to bring in surges of fish, so I'm going to hit the outlet marina area and the west shoreline in the afternoon on Thursday.  If there are new fish coming in, that would make Friday and Saturday good fishing days for sure, wind and heavy rain returns Sunday.  I will post a report as soon as I get done fishing Thursday.

I'm also watching for the first dam opening at Tahkenitch, looking for that to trigger the run there and give me an excuse to start fishing there.

one other thing I forgot to mention, at the top of Fiddle Creek arm where the stream comes in, there were a couple of big nutria just hanging out, laying on a big raft of reeds and watching me fish near them, I can't remember who mentioned harvesting them in the past but thought I would pass it along.

I didn't get one but there were fish moving into Siltcoos on Thursday afternoon.  not 'lots of fish coming in', at least not when the cold rain drove me home about 3:30pm, but enough for me to go back Friday thinking there might be fish in and we have a normal late-morning bite.   

Fingers crossed the "King tides are the thing" theory at Siltcoos is correct.

Both dams have had work done/upgrades this year, motors replaced, that sort of stuff.  Hoping to get good intel from Tahk soon. 

I’m shooting for a 7am (or 8?) launch from Nightingales.
Hope to see you out there.

0 for 3 this year on Siltcoos. 2 rolls and 1 hit today. Didn’t see any nets flying from the 20 some power boats out.  Great weather today but that was it.

0 for 4 for me.  King tides and dam open today.  Did not see one net fly.  Fished around mouth and west side thinking I’d nail a fresh one just entering the lake.  Hope to hear a report from someone who fished Maple arm.

I did Maple Creek arm in morning and afternoon… trestles and Fiddle creek in between … one bump!
Talked to OSP patrol at about 1pm and he had not heard of any fish being caught.
Really nice day for a boat ride.   
 

fished out of Ada back towards the ramp.  Saw a fish jump that's as exciting as it got for me.  Ran into the OSP guy too.  He was just boating around talking to people because he couldn't find a fish to check.
Seems like the conditions should have had some fish around.
I got there late morning, but public ramp was packed with people parking trailers upon the road.  If you plan to fish this weekend get there early.

at this point, I'm just too stubborn to stop fishing for these missing/late coho...

I fished both lakes Friday, Tahk is at 'full pond' and the remote launch at the top of Mallard arm has enough water above the weeds to carefully use my Mirage drive to get to the deeper water.  Really nice up there, smooth, quiet, no algae, river otters, forest just full of wet chanterelles, got a big bag of usable ones from under trees and some nice hedgehogs...but no coho jumping/rolling/biting in the 3 hours I was there.  3 PB came up and tossed spinners for like 15min each and left. 

Got to Siltcoos at 11:30am, full parking lot but the 2 boats coming in could have been good news and a parking space, both boats skunked and didn't see any caught.  So I hit the river again and trolled to past the campground, stopped by a log for a sandwich and some casting, trolled back to the lake and didn't see any coho activity at all.  picked up a chrome 15.5" SRC trolling a spinner just back into the lake and fished the west shoreline for another 2 hours without seeing anything.