Columbia River October Update: Coho, Smallmouth, and More Biting Strong

Good morning, this is Artificial Lure coming to you with your Columbia River fishing report for Saturday, October 18th, 2025, here in the greater Portland area. Weather on the river this morning started out crisp with a cool, early-fall fog hugging the banks. Look for partly cloudy skies as the day presses on, highs reaching the upper 50s, and a light breeze—perfect conditions for both bank and boat anglers. Sunrise came at 7:26 this morning, with sunset expected around 6:18 this evening, giving you a solid window to get on those active morning and evening bites. Checking in on the tides, Wauna Station on the Columbia printed a mild outgoing flow at first light, which will slack off late morning before a slow flood back in the afternoon, according to NOAA’s local tide predictions. These changing tides tend to fire up the bite for salmonids staging in main river current breaks as well as smallmouth holding along rocky points. On the fish front, the talk of the river this week has been coho staging in numbers below the Bonneville Dam and all the way up past St. Helens. According to a recent local report, catches spiked the last couple days with fish averaging 6 to 10 pounds. Bank and boaters are both running hot, and that classic technique—casting and slow-retrieving bright spinners, especially #4 or #5 size Blue Fox in chartreuse or orange—has been red hot. The best action is coming each morning during that outgoing tide window, especially near major creek mouths and the ladders at Meldrum Bar. If you’re after smallmouth, mid-October always delivers. Bass Resource noted just this week that the warm, flat calm evenings are producing solid numbers of brown bass, with the topwater bite holding through sunset. Soft plastics in green pumpkin on a Ned rig or tube jig along rip-rap and boulder fields are go-to, especially around Sauvie Island and Government Island stretches. For sturgeon anglers, the action’s been steady between Kalama and the Portland Harbor. The lower temperatures have moved some keepers back into deeper holes. Fresh-smelt and sand shrimp top the bait list. Steelhead are scattered, but a few have been caught around Troutdale with folks drifting coon shrimp and yarnies early. If you’re bringing kids or looking for a quick limit, the Willamette and sloughs had some recent trout stockings, per the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife stocking schedule. Try a nightcrawler below a float or PowerBait near the Progress Lake dock. For hot spots today, you can’t go wrong swinging spinners at Kelly Point where the Willamette joins the Columbia, especially on the last of the outgoing tide. Another local favorite—Cathedral Park ramp at St. Johns—gives great multi-species access and productive water for coho, bass, and the odd steelhead. To recap, the fall fishing is firing: coho are thick and aggressive on bright spinners, smallmouth are busting anywhere you find rocky cover, and there's a chance for a keeper sturgeon if you’re patient in This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.