The Nestucca River flows nearly 50 miles from its headwaters in the Coast Range to its mouth at Nestucca Bay. Its origin has been impounded to form McGuire Reservoir, the primary water source for the city of McMinnville. However, ODFW has completed a status review of coastal coho and has recommended that they not be listed. The state will include the Nestucca River winter steelhead in a conservation plan for coastal steelhead under the Native Fish Policy.
The threats to the native salmonids of the Nestucca are a litany of abuses common on the Oregon Coast including unsustainable logging and agriculture, over-harvest, massive hatchery releases, water quality problems, and barriers to fish migration.