Located in Astoria, Oregon, Buoy 10 is well known to be one of the best places to catch Columbia Chinook Salmon. The mouth of the Columbia River is known for the famous Buoy 10 fishery that lasts the entire month of August. Fish will enter and exit into the mouth of the Columbia River from the Pacific Ocean on tidal exchanges when staging for their final push upriver. When this happens, there are hundreds of thousands of Fall Chinook and Coho salmon feeding on baitfish while getting ready for their long migration up the Columbia River.
The massive concentration of all these fish, makes this one of the hottest salmon fisheries in the world! If you’re looking for easy limits of Fall Chinook and Coho, this is the place to be! There is also a plethora of wildlife to view in between catches at Buoy 10 as well. Seabirds of all types, sealions and seals along with whales are a daily sight while fishing for Fall Salmon!
A lot of times, seeing these seals and sea lion isn’t too cool. Somedays we are battling seals to keep our catches on our line while they try to steal them. You haven’t lived until you win a battle with a seal and get your hard-earned catch to the boat. There are deterrent methods we use to persuade the seals to let go of our fish and success rate of getting our fish back is growing by using them.
There is nearly 40 square miles to fish at Buoy 10 and some days it feels like we fish all 40. On the other hand, some days we only need to do a short run and smash out our limits in time to get back for lunch. Having the proper boat is paramount to being able to travel in sometimes choppy conditions and chase these fish down. Knowing where the fish will be on certain tides and where they will be going next is the key to the whole fishery. And learning all that takes years to master.
Columbia River fishing Guides are commonly booked solid during this time of year. To ensure seat availability, we frequently fish both morning and afternoon tides during the months of August and September due to long days and super hot fishing! When the fish are in it doesn’t take much time to fill the boats limit. Double and even triple hookups are common, which makes the action fast and furious.
NW Columbia Fishing Adventures
Columbia River fishing guide, Oregon fishing guide and Washington fishing guide, specializes in 1 to 6 man fishing trips on the Northwest’s best rivers. We target spring, summer and fall salmon, Sturgeon, Winter Steelhead, Summer Steelhead, Kokanee, Walleye, Shad and Bass. Book a trip soon for the best dates available.
