pdxfisher

Wow!! Way to get them dialed in. I always feel like the day is more special when you have to figure out something a little different to really get them going. That is just some crazy good fishing. The pics are awesome and you lake is really beautiful. I think the little channels through the grass are particularly cool since there is nothing like that around me!

I hit the Columbia out of Stevenson, WA on the 4th. The day did not start out well. The day before when I loaded my kayak into my truck I decided I wanted to reorganize some things. Well I stupidly forgot to strap my kayak down into my truck while being thus distracted. I have to tell you I may not have been too awake when I pulled out of my street at 3:30 in the morning but when I had the BANG and saw my kayak on the street that definitely shocked me full awake. Let me tell you that the kayak is much heavier carrying it uphill at 3:30 in the morning than it is later in the day! I did a quick feel and it seemed OK so I decide to venture forth. When I got to the ramp I did another inspection and it passed muster again so I decided to launch and just check inside the hull every 15 minutes or so for the first hour just to make sure I was not taking on water. Good news is that the kayak is fine but my ego is a little bruised. I won't be laughing at the videos of folks dropping their boats on the ramps for a while Well, enough about my stupidity lets get to the fishing. I am really glad my kayak was OK because it ended up being an almost perfect day out on the river. The gorge is well known for its wind but on the 4th it was one of those unicorn days where it was glassy calm almost the entire day. I started out throwing topwater and on the first spot I had a massive blowup with the fish coming out of the water and it never touched the hooks. I followed up with a swimbait but I guess that fish just was done. At the next spot I missed another good blowup on the topwater. They were hitting it so violently and yet somehow doing everything except grabbing the hooks. After that I switched to a swimbait for a bit and finally was able to get my first fish of the day which turned out to be a really nice 17" bass. It took a while but that was a great fish to start the day on. I kept the swimbait in my hand for a while and picked up a few more fish. I would occasionally cycle through some other things but the swimbait was what was producing so I kept in my hand. Once the sun got a bit higher I tried a crankbait for a bit and picked up a nice 17.25" bass on that. However, that ended up being my only crankbait fish but I have to admit I did not throw it all that much. Eventually I made it out to one of my favorite humps and the magic really started to happen. I saw some bass chasing bait so I picked up my trusty spybait and went to work. As soon as I got to the front edge of the hump it was game on. I racked up 11 bass of that one spot including several really nice fish (an 18" and 19.25" 3lber). That were just smacking the bejeezus out of that thing for about an hour. When that slowed down I tried the topwater again and I had 3 or 4 nice blowups before catching my one and only topwater fish on the day. After they stopped biting the topwater I picked up my Ned rig and caught another few fish. The cool thing was watching the bass chase bait. I had one bass harrying a smolt along the surface right near my kayak. It started out about 10' in front of my and came straight at me and then they both veered off to my right. In the clear water I could see the smolt racing along the surface and the bass a few feet behind tracking its every move. I have expected to hear David Attenborough to start narrating as I watched. So cool to watch. Throughout the day I would see bass chase bait and was often able to get there in time to capitalize. That is probably the most exciting fishing that I get to experience. As the day wore on the fish were at the surface less and less and it became more of a drop shot bite in 20-25' of water. Even those bites on the drop shot were really aggressive. Some days you don't even feel the hit, there is just weight when you lift. On the 4th my line would jump like crazy when they chomped on my drop shot. I eventually even went back to the spybait. Counting it down to the bottom before beginning my retrieve. That was working well and I was picking better fish that on the drop shot until I hung up on something. Usually I can just pedal upstream and pull it off of whatever it is stuck on but not this time. After a couple of attempts I tried to remember where my lure knocker was in my tackle bag. I would pedal upstream a bit and then turn around and dig through my bag but I could not find (later I remembered that is my hull storage hatch). I have not used that thing in many years since I usually can reach a hung lure with the telescoping lure retriever. Anyway, I decided I was not going to get my spybait back so I clamped my thumb on my spool and started pedaling upstream to break off. Well in keeping with a magical day on the water the lure pulled free and was immediately walloped by a nice bass! Just unbelievable. I actually left all the footage of my going through this on the video since it was so wacky. To put the icing on the cake. The day was getting really hot (low 90s) and without a cloud in the sky I was starting to feel it and that is really bad for my condition. I decided to fish one more spot and on that last spot I caught my second 19.25" 3lb smallmouth. Then to make things even better as I started to pedal the mile and half back to ramp the wind kicked up a bit and that breeze felt like pure heaven. What a day! Here are some pics from the day and my video. I finished with 45 bass. Best 5 were 91.25" and I had 6 of 17" or more and ton in the 14-16" range. Just an incredible day! ... and smallmouth burting in air Another action shot Last fish of the day

Last Saturday (29th) the wind was too stiff (>20mph all day) in the gorge so I thought I would hit the upper Willamette. I was bummed to see that they had just put in the flashboards on Thursday (raises the upper river 3' for summer recreation) and when they do that the bass are a little wonky for a while before they settle down and start grouping up tighter. I met up with a buddy, @campsean, still hoping for a good day. It was really great to see Sean but the fishing was pretty mediocre. I ended up with 33 smallmouth with the emphasis on the small part My best fish was probably pound and a quarter or so. I did lose 3 nice fish over the course of the day including one I think i definitely would have had if I had remembered my net. Here is a picture moments before disaster: I had a good look at that fish and it was all of 18". Not a giant but that would have made up for the dinkfest but it was just not to be. The other two nice fish I lost both just had the hook pull out. Once on a spybait (which happens) and once on Ned rig which is just bizarre. The highlight of the day was catching a channel catfish on a Ned rig. That was a fun bycatch. As soon as it started fighting I knew I had a cat on. I usually catch a handful of channel cats on lures each summer on the upper river. I assume their numbers must be half decent in order for that to happen. Still, it was a beautiful day to be out on the water so I can't complain too much. The sky in the afternoon was so cool looking in the afternoon: Caught most of the fish on a Ned rig. After mid-morning the moving bait bite really fell off. It did pick up again as I was leaving but I was too tired to keep fishing. Here is some video of me reeling in a bunch of small bass if you are really bored

Great story, lesson and pics!

I have been in your situation more than once. When they won't bite a topwater I usually try a jerkbait fished fast. Sometimes I think the fleeing, erratic bait is what triggers the strike. There are times when it seems like a jerkbait is the only way I can trigger a strike. Sometimes a swimbait works in those situations but the jerkbait for me is the one that is almost guaranteed to at least generate some (vicious) bites. Maybe because I am stealthy in the kayak it is different but I have had a lot of 3+lb smallmouth blast my topwater with less than a yard of line out. Maybe largemouth are different in that behavior. I never threw topwater much for largemouth (other than a frog over matted weeds).

Great report and really fun to read! Of course now I can't get one fish two fish red fish blue fish out of my head Glad to see you had a killer day with so many quality fish!

Thanks for letting me know that. That makes sense. If the spybaits weren't so effective I would not fish them but man the smallies just won't lay off them. Probably my most productive lure throughout the summer.

I am fishing 12lb mono on a slow action (very forgiving) crankbait rod. I am not sure if it is my torqueing on the lure or if it is the jaws of the fish twisting the lure in its mouth.

Great report. It is really interesting to see the different spots that you are fishing. Those fish all look nice and healthy. I think the sunset is my favorite picture. That is just really beautiful! So glad you had a great trip in such pretty conditions.

Fair comment but I fish a pretty soft rod and I don't fish a tight drag. I think @Dwight Hottle experienced what i did. Just a mangling of the split ring. Just really weird to have it happen 2 weks in a row. I think you are right and that it is just an old fashioned mangling. The split rings are small on the spy baits so maybe they are extra vulnerable to being being damaged. Just happy to see someone else in the same boat (or maybe I should say the same kayak).

I have had the the eye ripped out of a few lures (spy bait a few times and a spook once) in the past but the split ring being removed was just bizarre. Maybe there is one really smart smallmouth who has figured out how to use a pair of split ring pliers

You win the comment of the week with that one my Maine friend on the forum

Man, that is way more brutal than my day. Sorry for your losses!

For the second week in a row I have had a bass take the belly treble and split ring off of my spy bait. The eye on the lure is fine and fully closed. I assume that perhaps the bass are able to torque the lure during the fight and open the split ring enough to get it sliding off the lure's eye. Anyone have this happen to them? I have never had it happen before 2 weeks ago and now it has happened in back to back trips.

The bass fishing out here is pretty outstanding g for numbers, pretty good for size and relatively very lightly pressured compared to most of the country. Most folks out here hate bass as an invasive species And would rather golf than have to fish for bass. The numbers I get out here dwarf what I would catch in PA or NC. Satisfaction is all relative to one's expectations.

Your "bad" days are what must folks would consider pretty awesome days. I have to say I don't miss the East coast thunderstorms and sharp cold front lines. My worst experience with that when I lived in PA was fishing a mountain lake in November. It went from me being in a tee shirt fishing to trying to find my way back to the ramp in my little homemade boat in a whiteout blizzard. Temp dropped a good 30-40 degrees in about 15 minutes. Your story reminded me how East coast and Midwest weather is just so crazy and how much they influenced fishing and safety during fishing. Thunderstorms are so rare out here that folks excitedly talk about when the get to actually see lightning.

I think a good strategy in fishing is to take all your bad luck and pile it onto a single bad day so that all your other days good luck days. I guess it was my time to pay the piper on Friday. Nothing too horrendous just quite a few lost fish, missed bites and forgetting to turn my camera on after lunch. After my previous fantastic trip it just resulted in a big let down on what I was anticipating to be an epic day. Now, it was not a horrible day by far. I ended up with 19 bass with 5 being over 17" but it could have been so much better. I started off the day throwing a topwater towards a small rocky point that had two deer standing on it. The sun was brightening the sky in the backdrop and the water was like glass. There was a lady on the shore photographing the beautiful morning sky so I told her that there were deer on the point. I was talking to her as I was reeling in my first cast of the morning when my whopper plopper was destroyed by a really nice bass. I set the hook but was a bit distracted in talking to the lady on the shore and maybe I did not get as good of a hookset as I should have. Anyway that fish came up and made a beautiful, head shaking leap that sent my whopper plopper a good 10' through the air. Really quite impressive. I know folks say catching a fish on the first cast is bad luck, but I have to tell you that losing a nice one is even worse I then caught a small bass or two when I had another good fish on that once again tossed my plopper on a beautiful jump. So here I am on a gorgeous morning and I have already lost two nice bass. The rest of the morning I had a lot of bites but my conversion rate was not very good. It was frustrating to say the least. I am not sure if the issue was that I was using a larger 110 size (instead of my normal 90 size) plopper or if it just wasn't my day. After the sun came up a bit the topwater bite eventually died and I hit a long lull where I had a hard time finding a bite. I picked up one fish on the spy bait off of spot that is usually good for a handful. I went to another money spot and did not get a sniff. It was just a weird and frustrating day. Eventually as the morning went on I found a spot that was holding some decent fish and I was able to start to catch some nice fish in the 17-18.25" range. However compared to the previous week the bite was much slower. I was typically making quite a few casts between fish instead of getting bit on almost every cast (which is common when they are schooled up and chasing bait). Here are few action shots: They were biting pretty good on this spot until the wind died around 10am. I decided that I was hungry and so I decided to take my pills and eat my lunch. I turned off my camera while I ate lunch like I always do but I forgot to turn it back it back on after lunch. So I spent the next few hours catching bass and holding the up to the camera that was off like an idiot I did not realize I had forgotten to turn the camera back on until I went to turn off the camera much later in the day. With the bright sun and glare I could not see that the camera was off. So I did miss recording a handful of fish including my biggest of the day (18.5", 2lb 14oz). The interesting thing is the wind started out calm and I was getting bit pretty good first thing. Then the wind picked up out of the East and I found a spot where they were biting pretty decently. That spot died when it got calm. After lunch while it was calm I found another spot where I did pretty well but then the wind shifted out of the West around noon or so I did not get a bite for the last two hours. The strange thing is that the normal wind is out of the West (when I fish that area) so I did the worst under what I would consider my favorite condition. All in all it was just a day that felt off. So while the day was far from a bust it was littered with way too many lost fish, way to many missed bites, this sense that I could never get comfortable and the cherry on top was some stupidity on my part. However, I take solace in the hope that this was my bad luck purge trip and I will be running on all cylinders next trip out! Here are some pics and video from before lunch

Yes I am launching from Stevenson. I sometimes go upstream and sometimes downstream. Both ways have tons if great spots. I usually pick the direction so that I have the wind at my back on the way back to the ramp: )

Awesome report! So cool that you were able to get the kid onto some big fish! Great pictures again. Interesting that the fish were further offshore. I always think it is more rewarding when you have to work a little to figure them first.

Thanks! I have been starting to feel a lot better. Days like this are the medicine I need. I wonder if I can get my nephrologist to write a prescription. "Sorry bass you have to bite, doctor's orders"

I had a fantastic day on the Columbia on Sunday the 16th (Fantastic for me not for @ol'crickety or @A-Jay). The day was forecast to be be mostly cloudy with some wind in the afternoon. Just perfect conditions for aggressive bass. I could hardly sleep the night before and I was up before my alarm went off. There was excitement in the air. I got to the water and was fishing by 5:45am. I started out throwing a stick bait but after 3 misses on that lure I switched over to a plopper style (Berkely Choppo) and that ended up being a good call. On my second cast with the Choppo (90 size) I had reeled the lure in almost all the way to the kayak, maybe 2' of line out, when KABOOM! A violent strike right at the kayak just as the sun was peaking over the hills. It was like a scene from a movie where you say to yourself, "that is kind of stupid, it is too perfect". After a nice tussle I had my first fish of the day. A clearly skinny, post-spawn, 17.75" 2lb 12oz smallmouth. Now that's how you start a day!! I would occasionally switch lures for a few casts, especially after a miss on the Choppo but for the most part I kept that Choppo in my hand for the next few hours. A short while later I made a long cast and after just a turn or two of the handle my Choppo was once against destroyed by an incredibly violent strike. After another fun battle I had an 18.25" 2lb 13oz smallmouth in the kayak! I just kept tossing that Choppo and those bass were blasting it like it was making fun of their mothers!! Some of the fish would just suck it down but so many of the strikes I was getting were just filled with hatred and anger. After a handful of smaller fish I was reeling the lure in when once again just a few feet from the kayak I had a huge strike where the bass came completely out of the water - but missed the hookup. I made a quick short cast and when I got the Choppo beside the kayak I could see the bass tracking it but not biting. I set down the Choppo and dropped a Ned rig right beside the boat and let it drop to the bottom (in 5' of water). When I lifted the rod I felt weight and set the hook. Another nice bass to the kayak. This one just shy of 17". After that the day was blur of action. Just fish after fish wanting to destroy my Choppo. I missed quite a few and lost more than I should have. The heartbreak of the day was when I saw some fish chasing bait about 100 yards away. I pedaled over just as fast as I could. By the time I got there the fish had gone down but I fan cast the area and on my third cast my Choppo was destroyed by a huge fish. I fought that fish hard and got him to the net. I went to scoop and the fish tried to jump as I scooped and it bounced off the rim of the net, shook its head and my lure went flying. That one really hurt. I am pretty sure that fish was well over 20". After a taking a few moments to berate myself I went back to fishing. The topwater bite continued until almost 11am but then the wind picked up and I stopped getting bit. I know in the past I have done well with a spybait in those conditions so I finally put down the Choppo and picked up my spybait rod. That turned out to be a fantastic call on my part. I just started slaying them even faster than I had been on the Choppo. I picked up 11 bass in the next hour and a half including a ton of beauties including my best of the day. A 19.25" 3lb bass that like all the others was skinny as a rail: There were so many nice fish on the day. I just hammered them with that spybait for quite a while. When I made a few casts with no hits I switched to a wobblehead jig and scraped up a few more nice ones off the bottom. Eventually I stopped getting bit completely on that spot. I spent the rest of the day moving from spot to spot and tossing the spybait. By the early afternoon the wind had picked up to the point of waves breaking over the side of my kayak so I called it a day. What a day it was. I had caught 35 bass with at least 10 of the them being over 17". I think I had a few others that probably went 17 that I did not even bother to measure. I did have some dinks for sure but by and large I am probably caught 20-some quality fish. My best five went 93" but only weighed 14lbs. Those fish are so skinny right now. In a few months that bag would be pushing 18lbs. lHere are some of the other 17+" fish on the day:

Great report! Those fish are amazing and those pictures of the sunset are just beautiful!! The shallows of the Columbia are weeding up a bit and I usually just throw a swimbait on a jighead but maybe for the summer I should give those weedless underspins a whirl.

Probably 80 to 90% but the ones I lose haunt my dreams. I think that fishing open water like I do lends itself to a higher landing ratio than fishing in heavy cover.

I always bring a lot to drink and sip constantly all day long. Worst consolations I gave fished was out trolling for walleye all day long when it got to 105.

I guess having a fully rigged boat reduces the need for a list. With the kayak, each trip out I am starting from scratch.