Over the past few years, summer steelhead fishing on the North Santiam River has been so bad that longtime guide Mike Ferris decided to stay home and buy a lottery ticket.
“I figured that I had the same chance of winning the jackpot as catching a steelhead,” he said with a laugh.
This year, that might change.
The number of fish that have returned to the Upper Willamette Basin and North Santiam River are the highest they’ve been since the early 2010s. Fish biologists said summer steelhead fishing could be good in the Santiam, McKenzie and Middle Fork Willamette rivers.
That’s raised the attention of anglers such as Ferris, who’d almost given up on chartering trips that target the sea-run rainbow trout.
“Call me cautiously optimistic,” Ferris said. “People love to be out on the river but if you can also catch a nice big fish, that’s big fun. I'm skeptical, but maybe we'll have a chance this year.”
Summer steelhead are hatchery-raised and open for harvest, which makes them popular with anglers. That’s in contrast to wild winter steelhead, which are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act and must be released. You can tell the difference between the two fish because the summer steelhead are missing an adipose fin on their back.
Better ocean conditions have led to some of the best fish runs in years across Oregon over the past year, including in the Upper Willamette Basin. Coho salmon smashed records for the number of fish returning this year while winter steelhead saw their best returns since 2004 .
Now, that same trend appears to be boosting summer steelhead runs.
Fish biologists Elise Kelley and Jeff Ziller, with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said this could end up being the best year for fishing in almost a decade.
“Given the strong early season returns, it is probable that this year’s summer steelhead run will be one of the best runs we’ve seen since 2016,” the two ODFW biologists said in an email.
By the numbers
As of May 2, a total of 2,990 summer steelhead had passed counters at Willamette Falls. That’s the most on that date since 2013. In the North Santiam, over 200 summer steelhead were counted passing above Bennett Dams as of April 30, the most at any point in April since count data is available going back to 2014.
The last big year for summer steelhead in the Upper Willamette was when 21,732 fish returned in 2016. Over the last five years, the average return has been just 5,571 fish.
Golden age of steelhead
Fishing for steelhead was once a massive tourism and business draw on the North Santiam. In the 1980s, it wasn’t unusual to see 40,000 to 60,000 winter and summer steelhead migrating above Willamette Falls.
On summer mornings in the 1970s and '80s, anglers would line up outside shops in Mill City to purchase bait, food and a fishing license. Local kids would hawk homemade lures below Jefferson Bridge as convoys of boat trailers rolled up and down Highway 22, local anglers recalled.
Deep dive Who killed steelhead fishing on the North Santiam River, and can it be saved?
The decline came fast in the 1990s, and by 1999 winter steelhead were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
Longtime fishing guide Bob Spencer, owner of Spencer Outfitters, said the fishing for salmon and steelhead has been so bad for so long he stopped targeting them.
“I would love to see it come back — the North Santiam Mehama to Stayton used to be one of my favorite runs, but it just went to hell,” he said. “I just don’t have any confidence in the way the fish are managed and I am not planning any trips targeting salmon or steelhead this year.”
Battle over whether to stock hatchery summer steelhead
Summer steelhead are not native to the Upper Willamette Basin, but they’ve been stocked for decades as a way to make up for the loss of wild fish after habitat was cut off by dams.
The battle over whether to continue stocking the hatchery fish has been fierce and taken place across decades. Lawsuits from wild fish conservation groups attempted to stop the practice of stocking the hatchery fish in the Santiam in the 2010s, saying they competed with the native steelhead for nutrients and spawning ground.
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ODFW stepped in to continue funding the program, however, and summer steelhead continued to be stocked in the North and South Santiam rivers, as well as the McKenzie and Middle Fork Willamette rivers upstream.
Steelhead that don't get caught 'recycled' to Turner Lake, Junction City Pond
Ferris has a bone to pick with ODFW’s management of summer steelhead in the North Santiam. When the summer steelhead arrive in the river, they shoot up to the Minto Fish Facility above Packsaddle Park where they had been released. In past years, wildlife officials would “recycle” the fish by bringing them back down to Mehama and releasing them, to give anglers another shot at them.
They stopped that practice in 2019. Federal officials said no longer recycling the fish reduces the potential for summer and winter steelhead to interbreed, according to the Hatchery Biological Opinion issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Instead, the fish that return are sometimes killed and taken to food banks. This year, however, some of the summer steelhead that come into the Minto facility will be released into Turner Lake and Junction City Pond "to give anglers another chance at them," Kelley said in an email.
Tips on steelhead fishing
Ferris says that when fishing for summer steelhead, he likes to use plugs, such as a Brad's Wiggler Blue Pirate, a bobber and jig or casting spinners and spoons, such as a Blue Fox or a Little Cleo. Ferris said steelhead on the North Santiam tend to like blue colored lures, while ones on the South Santiam seem to like green colored lures.
"Don't ask me why," Ferris said.
ODFW also has a detailed page online on steelhead fishing .
Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 16 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast . Urness is the author of “ Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon ” and “ Hiking Southern Oregon .” He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on X at @ZachsORoutdoors.
This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Good fishin': Summer steelhead numbers best in years for Santiam, Upper Willamette Basin
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