Guide David Johnson and angler Derek Pinkerton hold a big Tillamook Bay fall chinook salmon caught with plug-cut herring. Photo by Andy Martin.

Each fall, top fishing guides from throughout the Northwest tow their boats to Oregon's Tillamook Bay, where five of the world's most fertile salmon rivers empty into the ocean.

Thousands of big, chrome-bright fall chinook stack up in the bay and stage until the major autumn rains draw them into the Wilson, Trask, Tillamook, Kilchis and Miami rivers to spawn. New fish continue to arrive in the bay for four months.

The top guides constantly return to the Garibaldi, Memaloose and Fifth Street boat ramps with limits of tasty fall kings, but many other anglers struggle in Tillamook. The massive bay is nearly 12 miles long and nearly as wide. It can be intimidating to fishermen unfamiliar with the area, uncertain what to use in each part of the bay and when to target the upper, middle and lower sections.

Yet a look at the tide book, plus advice from a few local pros can make all the difference.

Aside from the abundant fall chinook runs located just two hours from Portland, the size of the fish make Tillamook Bay one of the Northwest's most popular salmon fisheries.

"We have a reputation of producing large fish," said Keith Braun, biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

"We will occasionally get some in the 60-pound range. But most of the time, you are getting a pretty good-size fish if you get one in the mid-40s," said the biologist who is based in Tillamook.

Tillamook salmon average more than 20 pounds. The total spawner escapement of the Tillamook Bay rivers is estimated to be around 20,000 to 25,000 fall chinook. About 85 percent of the fall kings are wild. Anglers are allowed to keep wild fall chinook in Tillamook.

TARGETING TIDES
Every experienced Tillamook angler would agree that tides are the key to finding and catching the bay's fall chinook. Tides also indicate when the first big push of fish will show up.

"The second high-tide sequence of September is when it starts," said Buzz Ramsey, the legendary lure designer for Luhr Jensen who now works for Berkley and Abu Garcia.

"If you are marking off a calendar and telling your wife these are the days you are going to be fishing, you should plan them on those high-tide sequences."

Fishing generally picks up in mid-September in Tillamook and continues through October and into November and December, or until heavy rains flood the rivers and draw all the salmon upstream.

When Ramsey decides to head to his cabin along the Wilson River to spend a week fishing Tillamook Bay, he waits for a series of the highest high tides of the month, which will bring salmon holding offshore into the bay. In timing the tides, Ramsey -- and many successful guides -- will fish the lower bay during small tide exchanges and the upper bay during large changes between high and low tide.

"If it's a large tide fluctuation, go to the upper bay and be prepared to fish on those salmon when they are concentrated at low tide," Ramsey says. "High tide isn't necessarily the best time to fish. When the tide goes out, and there is a lot of fish stacked in the channel, that can be some of the best fishing of the year."

As an example, there is a 7.6-foot high tide around midnight on Sept. 26, and at dawn, the tide is 0.1 feet.

That 7 1/2-foot swing in tides should produce good fishing in the upper bay.

The hotspot during a big tide swing is Memaloose Point, located near where the Tillamook, Trask and Wilson rivers all join the bay.

"Where you have those three systems coming in, when that tide goes out, the salmon are going to be concentrated in the channel," Braun said.

Anglers will arrive early in the morning to launch at Memaloose, a county boat ramp, but it can get crowded. The Fifth Street launch in Tillamook is about a mile away, but anglers willing to boat down the Trask River tidewater to Memaloose often don't have to worry about finding a parking spot.

In the upper bay, the last two hours of the outgoing tide, low slack and then the first hour of the incoming tide often produce the best fishing.

While salmon have plenty of room to move about in the lower bay, the upper bay funnels salmon in the channel as the bay narrows.

During small exchanges -- such as days when the high tide is less than 6 feet and the low tide is around 3 1/2 feet -- guides like Val Perry of Perry's Fishing Adventures will be working the lower bay.