Fishing forecast for Portland, OR

Portland sits where the Willamette meets the Columbia, and the water here still rises and falls with the Pacific tide: NOAA lists its gauge at the Morrison Street Bridge downtown as a tidal station, with predicted high and low waters every day. Salmon and steelhead pass through Portland on their runs, and white sturgeon, smallmouth bass and walleye are fished in the same rivers.

Best fishing times in Portland this week

Majors run an hour either side of the moon crossing the meridian over Portland, OR; minors, half an hour either side of moonrise and moonset. Where those widths come from: best fishing times and how we compute these times.

When these windows are not the right tool

Solunar theory is John Alden Knight's 1926 prediction; the ±60 and ±30 minute widths are convention, not calculation. The times are computed astronomy, the claim that fish feed inside them is not. The day rating follows moon phase — identical nationwide, so every city shows it the same. A moving front beats the moon: apps that read pressure.

Where to fish in Portland

This page is built around Columbia River, with Willamette in reach — both salt and fresh water, about 10 minutes from the middle of Portland.

Tidal influence on the Columbia does not stop at Portland: Washington's water code defines its upstream extent as Bonneville Dam, at river mile 146.1, and NOAA lists the Vancouver gauge across the river from the city as a tidal station.

Smallmouth bass and walleye are non-native in the Columbia, and WDFW lists them as possibly one of several factors affecting salmon and steelhead recovery in the basin. They are also sport fish: ODFW says the best walleye fishing in Oregon is in the Columbia near Portland and in The Dalles and John Day pools.

The Willamette runs through the middle of the city with public docks and a seawall, and the Columbia is twenty minutes north. Two major rivers with distinct fisheries inside one metro boundary.

The nearest grids we publish are Seattle, WA (234 km, Puget Sound) and Boise, ID (555 km, Boise River). Different water, and different minutes.

What you can catch in Portland

State listings put these 5 fish in the water around Portland. Plan around the peak, not the open season.

ODFW gives the spawning season of spring Chinook as August to early November and of fall Chinook as October to early March, so the two Chinook runs on this river spawn in different parts of the year.

Steelhead reach Portland's rivers in two runs: ODFW says winter-run fish return to fresh water between November and April and summer-run fish between May and October. On the Clackamas River, Portland General Electric reports that wild winter steelhead begin to enter in November and spawn from late March to mid-June.

American shad are not native to the Columbia: they were planted in the Sacramento River in 1871 and were being caught in the Columbia five years later. The Northwest Power and Conservation Council says counts at Bonneville Dam reach 4 to 5 million in some years, 5.3 million in 2004, and that the run peaks in June.

Tackle sits outside a forecast page: start with how to catch trout.

Water temperature and season in Portland

Air here swings 29.0 °F across the year, from 41.6 °F in December to 70.6 °F in August. Water is measured separately, and it is not the same number: against these air normals the gauge reads 3.5 °F warmer in December and 0.8 °F colder in March.

Monthly climate for Portland, OR. The air line is the NOAA NCEI climate normal for 1991–2020 — the thirty-year average of a calendar month, not the weather of any one year — measured at PORTLAND INTL AP, OR US (USW00024229), 10 km from the middle of town, with 27–29 of the thirty years behind each month. The water line is neither a normal nor the air: daily means at USGS gauge WILLAMETTE RIVER AT PORTLAND, OR (14211720), 0.9 km out, averaged by calendar month over 2015–2025 — 11–11 complete years per month. It is the surface at the gauge, not the water on any particular spot, and it lags the air by weeks, so the two lines are not interchangeable. Read into this site on 2026-09-22.

The four NOAA tide gauges within 25 km of downtown report no water temperature, so the table is average air, and the same airport's normals show the local year more plainly in precipitation. November through January each average above 5 inches, July and August about half an inch, a roughly tenfold drop. That split, not the air, separates the Willamette's high, colored water of the wet months from its low, clear summer flow.

Sunrise, sunset and daylight in Portland

The moon window moves daily; the sun does not. Plan a season against this block.

The longest day of 2026 is June 20, 15h 41m; the shortest, December 21, 8h 42m. The meridian passing drifts about 50 minutes later daily: a dawn window this week is an afternoon window in a fortnight.

White sturgeon are the largest freshwater fish species found in North America, according to ODFW, which says they may live well over 100 years and may not mature until they are 25 years old. The agency names the Columbia and Willamette as holding the largest sturgeon populations.

The Pacific Northwest winter is dark and wet rather than frozen. Fishing continues year round, but the December fishing day at this latitude is under nine hours, and cloud takes more out of it.

Portland gets most of its rain between November and April: the airport's 1991–2020 normals give 26.79 of the year's 36.92 inches in those six months, more than 5 inches in each of November, December and January, and about half an inch in each of July and August.

License and seasons in Oregon

Rules for Oregon come from Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife, and the calculation behind the table is set out in how we compute these times.

Boat ramps and fishing access in Portland

Public registries put 64 access points within reach of Portland, 37 of them trailer ramps. The nearest is Poet's Beach, about 0.9 mi out in a straight line.

64 access points within 25 km of Portland, OR, from the agency registry and OpenStreetMap — the same records the table below lists. Each dot is a record its source publishes, not a place we have visited; click one for what that source says. The dashed ring is that 25 km circle, centred on the point every distance is measured from — click that centre for its coordinates, even when a cluster sits on it. Zoom in to split a cluster.