Buoy 10 Salmon Fishing

Buoy 10 Salmon Fishing Guides in Astoria Oregon

R&T Guide Service provides top of the line “Buoy 10” fishing trips with two USCG certified husband and wife Captains, see About Us. Yes, that’s right two captains on the same boat working together to help you be successful on the water! Having two Captains enables us to give you more of a one on one experience.

The “Buoy 10” season for Chinook usually starts the first week in August and runs through mid to late August. We then transition to Coho or Silver Salmon fishing through September in the Astoria area.

Buoy 10 attracts some of the best fishing guides in the Pacific Northwest, book a trip now to reserve a seat!!

 

Buoy 10 Salmon fishing with R&T

It all starts by contacting us. We will help you understand all aspects of your Buoy 10 fishing trip from Hotel and Restaurant recommendations, what to bring onboard, to things to do in the Astoria area. We accept groups up to 6, but can also accommodate groups larger than 6.

Where to meet: In Astoria, we depart from the West Mooring basin located just west of the Astoria-Megler Bridge.

Our Boat: You will be fishing out of a 26ft 2020 Willie Nemesis powered by a 250HP Mercury main and 15HP Mercury kicker. Our Nemesis is outfitted with Garmin electronics including Reactor 40 autopilot. It has suspension seats for a comfortable ride, tiller power steering to give the fisherman the most room possible to fight fish. It has 34” high sides to enable leaning against the rail for stability when fighting fish in rougher water. We utilize Fisheng rod extensions to customize rod placement, which in our opinion has increased our fish hook up ratio.

Buoy 10 Chinook Salmon Fishing

Techniques:

Trolling Bait - We primarily troll for salmon using fresh bait.  Trolling for Chinook and Coho is a well proven method of take in the Astoria area by many buoy 10 fishing guides.  Herring and anchovy are our bait of choice during the buoy 10 salmon run August through October. 
Bait prep when fishing Buoy 10 - Herring can be used whole or as cut plug herring. Cut plug herring can be cut to spin slow or fast depending what species of salmon you are targeting. Chinook seem to prefer a slower roll for the most part and Coho bites are usually triggered by a fast action/spin. Every day the salmon bite may be triggered by different action. Some days the bite will be on fast spinning bait and some days it will be on slow spinning bait. We try both first thing in the morning to what the salmon are wanting that particular day.

A few additional things to keep in mind when fishing with bait for salmon in the Astoria Buoy 10 area:

  • Use fresh bait! Fresh bait can be sourced from several local bait shops in the Astoria, Hammond and Warrenton area. Make sure to contact a bait shop the day before go fishing to get your fresh bait ordered. You can always ask the bait shop what the fish have been biting on as well.

  • Just add salt? Salt can be used as a brine to toughen up bait. Mix a cup rock salt with three cups of water. We use water from the river system we are fishing so no strange out of place scents/chemicals are introduced into the bait. Place your anchovy or herring in the salt water as you head out on the water for the day.

  • Keep your bait on ice! It’s very important to keep your bait cold possible. Bait will get soft and will go bad very quickly.

Buoy 10 Coho Salmon Fishing

Trolling Set up:

  • Buoy 10 Flashers - We use inline and 360 flashers to attract and trigger Chinook and Coho salmon to bite the bait that is trailing.  We will use a variety of colors until we identify what color and pattern the fish want that particular day.  Under certain circumstances we won’t use a flasher at all.  Based on river current we will also make changes to flasher types and leader lengths. 

  • Buoy 10 Leaders - We run 40# leader for our salmon mooching rigs.  During the fall Chinook / buoy 10 season you can end up catching a Chinook of a lifetime, so having a high quality strong leader is critical.  Salmon don't seem to be leader shy in the lower Columbia river in the fall so you can get away with the heavy leader material. Ensure you have plenty of leaders tied up so you are fishing every minute possible instead of tying leaders.