The Coquille river is formed by three forks joining together near the quiet town of Myrtle Point, OR.  The North Fork Coquille is approximately 53 miles long and begins in northern Coos County flowing in a southwest direction.  The South Fork Coquille is about 63 miles long, beginning in southern Coos County just north of the Rogue Wilderness area.  It follows a northerly flow and joins with the Middle Fork Coquille southeast of Myrtle Point.  The two combined rivers then meet with the North Fork Coquille in Myrtle Point where they meander through the valley and town of Coquille and empty into the Pacific Ocean in Bandon.

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In the 1800's, when ships were trying to go in and out of port at Bandon, the mouth of the river would move depending on tides and storms in the area.  It is said that the mouth of the river could be found anywhere from as far north as a beach now called Whiskey Run or as far south as a rock formation known as Table Rock, a varying distance of several miles.  Early sailing vessels could leave port from Bandon and return to find the mouth of the river had moved several miles from where they originally entered the ocean.  To help control the mouth of the river, Captain Judah Parker built a jetty in the 1890's consisting o f bunches of cedar branches wrapped in burlap and sunken into the mud.  In the late 1890's, the government added rocks and boulders to the jetty creating a North and South Jetty to keep the mouth of the river in one place.

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Known as the Coquille River Basin, the area produces a fishery that varies from surfperch & crab near the mouth of the river, to trout, salmon and steelhead further up river.  The Coquille is known for its steelhead in the winter months of December, January and February.  Of all the southern Oregon coastal rivers, it quite possibly has the best hatchery steelhead runs.