Winter trout fishing within an hour of Portland?

[Peaceful]

This obsession.

It's keeping me up at night, cross-referencing fishing regs with google maps while listening to Joe Rodder and Tom Rosenbaur podcasts and Jenson "As It Happens" fly fishing youtubes.

I'm looking for some trout water within an hour of Portland.

Here's what I've been trying... Tualatin. Went up to the headwaters of the Tualatin this week, kind of blindly. Unfortunately, too many tweakers have disrespected homeowners' private property up there -- the area is plastered with no parking, "get the hell out of here before we shoot you" signs (which I get). Caught a couple small trout on nymphs, but the whole time I was worried my car would be towed by the time I came out of the woods.

Seems like all the action is 2 hours+ out east or down south. I mistakenly thought the Molalla was open all year (I swear it was open, no?). I'm googling every little creek listed in the regs... seems like the Yamhill is open, but it looks like more people talk about warmwater species there?

Wondering what you Portland-area guys and gals do and where you go when you get the itch in the offseason. Don't need "holes" or secrets -- just hope.

 

[Peaceful]

How does Quartzville Creek compare with Breitenbush trout wise?

I really grew to love the Breitenbush this past summer, and was up there Labour Day weekend just before the fires.

Sad.

Yeah, it was super depressing to see all the loss... I feel for those communities and tried to find as many excuses as I could to buy food/supplies/stuff I didn't really have to have. It's going to take a long time for nature and the towns to recover. The hot springs/retreat center up there on the Breitenbush was one of my favorite places in the world, and it was largely destroyed, too. :/

Oh, and I haven't tried Quartzville Creek. In my plans though!

 

[Eazy-E]

quartzville creek is beautiful. fished it last sunday 1/10. didn't catch a thing but plan to go back in the spring, hopefully the fish will be more active.
a couple pics:

 

[Admin]

quartzville creek is beautiful.

amazing color

 

[normf]

Lewis and Clark River upstream from Saddle Mt. Road is open. The water was low but I caught some Cutthroat in the deeper pools. Not a lot of action but it felt good to be out with a fly rod and a dry fly.