pdxfisher

It has been a really good year for me so far!

Yep, last trip visibility was around 5'.

That's why I started using them! They work great for me out here. Definitely my go to bait in the spring.

I hit the Columbia river out of Stevenson WA on Sunday the 26th with my good friend (@MichaelJarvisFishing on youtube). Mike and I have been trying to get back out there together for a while but things just kept getting in the way. I was really excited when he said he was gong to make it out on Sunday! Water temp was ~53F, visibility was about 4' or 5'. Just perfect conditions. I ended up getting to the river quite a bit earlier than Mike. I thought it was a good chance for me to see if the patterns from the previous trip were still holding before he got there. I was so psyched when I felt a bass blast my bladed jig StealthBlade (JH SB) on my 3rd or 4th cast. I knew it was going to be a good day. I ended up catching 7 bass from that first area including a really nice 3lb 11loz chonker that set the mood for the day! After that I headed downstream a ways since I figured Mike would want to do that when he got there. I picked up a fish here and a fish there and by the time Mike got there I had 15 bass already! I pedaled back up near the ramp where I saw him fishing and told him the bite was pretty much on fire. He had just got there and had already caught a 17" bass himself!! It was going to be a good day. For most of the day we fished in 6-10' of water. The bass weren't everywhere but when you found one you usually found a bunch! Mike was trying a variety of new baits out and was slaying them on a Vision 110 jerkbait. I mostly kept the JHSB in my hand because it was working so well and is a pleasure to cast. Occasionally, I would pick up another rod and fish it for a bit to keep my other rods from getting jealous. A jealous rod will gladly make you lose a fish So over the course of the day I did pick up some fish on a 1.5 squarebill, spy bait, 3" swimbait and drop shot. I also caught a nice sized perch on a blade bait and that stupid thing milted all over me and my kayak while I was unhooking it. Pretty gross but it was worth a good laugh. By the end of the day I had 49 bass (I am not sure how many Mike had but it was a bunch) and my best 5 went 18lbs 5oz and 92" which is a pretty respectable bag of smallmouth. My heaviest fish of the day was a 4lb 2oz fatty and my longest of the day was 19". Overall it was about as good of a day with about as good company as one could have. We even got to watch an otter chomping on a salmon on the shoreline of an island. Just a magical day. When I finally left Mike was still hammering them, even as I turned to head to the ramp I looked back and saw Mike putting one on the board. Just an epic day. Anyway, here are some pics from the day and my video. A day that starts like this and this is destined to be a great day!

Those are some gorgeous bass! Looks like a great day of fishing in some cold conditions. The wind blowing across the water this time of year always cuts right through me.

That's a good day and great pictures! 9 bass that size is a happy day!

1 is infinitely more than getting skunked!

Great report and video!

Looks like some awesome fishing!

Holy Cow! That is an absolute monster anywhere but unbelievable for Ohio. Congrats!

That's not my biggest this year. Let me get one over 5lbs then I will enter it. Thanks! I am not 100% sure what that structure was built for. It may just be marking the edge of the shallow water there. Now the ospreys nest on it.

I took Friday off to hit the Columbia in hopes of some big bass. The day was a grind but it did pay off! The main plan was to fish a backwater off of the main river but I started the day just quickly checking a few spots in the main river. The bite was not on fire in the main river, I felt like I had to make a lot of casts per fish, but I did pick up 3 bass including an 18.5" 3lb 11oz fatty. It was a pretty good start! Then I headed to the backwater. I was expecting to just breeze back there and get to fishing. When I got to the mouth of the backwater though I was amazed to see it was only about 4' wide and a riffle flowing out. I struggled to basically pole my kayak up through the short riffle into the backwater. When I finally got back in there I was surprised, and a little disappointed, to see a handful of other kayakers already fishing in the backwater. I picked up one fish right away which made a couple of big jumps, the first real jumps of the year. I looked at the water temp and it made sense. The water temp in backwater was anywhere from 57.5-59.5 but the main river was only 52.5F. They definitely had more energy in that backwater! I was excited by the quick success, but I could not get a second bite off of the first spot. With a small crowd fishing the backwater I decided to pick an area that no one else was in so I could have a little spot to myself. That ended up working out pretty well! I picked up 2lb 4oz pretty quickly and then shortly after that I hooked my best fish of the day. A 20", 4lb 9oz smallie put up a great fight and I was really happy when I was able to slip my net, with my new net bag, under her and corral her in. All these first fish came on a whitish jack hammer stealthblade with a smoky shad Minnowz trailer. My plan was to quickly rotate baits to try to keep the bite going in the small area I was fishing. I picked up an regular bladed jig in fire tiger (orange) with an orange trailer to show them something different. That quickly resulted in 2 more bass, but the next dozen casts did not produce. I did get to see (and catch on video) an osprey snagging itself a snack I then rotated through a Magdraft, flat-sided crankbait, and a jerkbait without a bite. I was thinking of leaving when I went back to the white JH stealthblade and was able to catch a couple more. After some casts without a bite I cycled through my presentations without a sniff so I decided to try and expand my area a bit. The first pass in doing so did not yield anything. I was thinking of leaving and heading back to the main river when I thought I should at least give the Ned rig a chance. It was clear that these fish were pretty heavily pressured (it was crowded on a Friday) and sometimes the Ned can coax those fish to bite. That turned out to be a good move. Pretty quickly I hooked a fish. It did not feel that big at first but I guess it was just getting limbered up. Once it took off in earnest I knew I had another good one! This one turned out to be a 19" 3lb 9oz beauty. It felt extra special since I had felt that the bite was already over. That was my last big fish out of the backwater. I did one more on the Ned rig but it was not a big one. At that point I decided it was time to head back to the main river and finish the day out there. I pedaled over to the where I had come in I was looking forward to zipping through the tiny little riffle. Wouldn't you know. The river must have come up while I was fishing and now the water was flowing into the backwater. It was the proverbial walking to school up hill both ways our grandparents told us about This time it was shallow I had to drag my kayak through it. I will say I got a good workout getting in and out of that backwater but it was worth to to catch the 2 bigger bass, and the others. By this time I had a total of 12 bass. My plan at this point was to start hitting the points that had produced non-stop action last week. Of course, the bass were just not on those spots. I fished a handful of spots where I had success last week but could not get a sniff. By this time it had been several hours since I had caught a fish. I had that feeling like there just weren't any bass in the river to be caught. I was even considering throwing in the towel and heading home. Then I said to myself "Are you really going to wimp out after taking the day off work!!". I decided that if the bass were not on the points like last trip that maybe they would be in the protected areas between the points. I would not even call them a shallow cove, more just an slight indentation between the points. By this time the wind was dead calm and the sun was beating down. Tough conditions to be fishing for shallow water bass. I started cycling through the JH stealthblade, shallow crank and jerkbait for about an hour through a handful of spots without a sniff. By this time I was really feeling desparate. One lure that has always shone in these tough conditions is a 3" swim bait. I always have one tied on year round. I am not sure why I waited so long to pick up that rod. Now, I usually use white but I thought with the reasoanalby clear water (about 4' of visibility) and the calm conditions that I would go more subtle. I went with a Smoky Shad MinnowZ (same as my JH stealthblade trailer). Now I am not sure if they would not have bit a white one just as well but they ate that Smoky Shad pretty well for the last two hours. I caught 9 bass over the last two hours. Nothing huge but a few over 2lbs including a 2lb 9oz and a 2lb 13oz. The bite was fairly steady in this one area. I once again tried to expand and fish a similar area upstream a ways but did not get a bite. When I went back to my initial area I was able to catch my last few fish of the day. So it was definitelhy never on fire and I had some long lulls but I was able to scrape together a decent 17lb 3oz (91.25") bag of smallmouth. I never had the wicked fast action like i have run across in previous weeks but by keeping my nose to the grindstone I was able to eke out 21 bass for the day. After catching 83 bass just 6 days early that bite felt painfully slow but in reality it was not too bad. All the fish I caugh came out of 8' of water or less. I did briefly try fishing deeper but only spent about 15 minutes trying that. So I would say it was a good day, but did not quite live up to my expections. I was really hoping for a 20lb bag but I guess I will have to do that on the next trip Here is my video from the day including my struggles getting into and out of the backwater. All the fish up to this point

Way to keep getting out there and spanking them!!

Its really awesome that you get out there and volunteer like that! Seeing your boat corralled by the sheriff was certainly a jarring start to the day! Glad it was not any trouble.

Sounds like a good day. I too have made many a cast to a spawning carp :)

I also hate it when people catch MY bass :)

Nice! Happy that you are finally able to get back out there and start smashing them!

Nice! Glad to see you are back on them. I missed your write-ups and pics all winter long!

Great way to kick off your year!

I imagine Ayers is on fire right now. Fish are feeding crazy hard.

I hit the Columbia on Saturday the 11th. I was torn between going to Hagg and hitting the big C. The wind forecast was quite variable. Some looked good and some looked bad. In the end I decided to roll the dice and hit the big C and man am I ever glad that I did! I definitely set a personal record for total weight of bass caught in a day. I ended up with 83 smallmouth and 3 pikieminnows. I would guess that my average size bass was between 1.5 and 1.75lbs and that my total weight for the day was between 120 and 140lbs of bass. I wish I could claim some skill was involved but it was pretty much impossible not to catch bass constantly all day long. The first spot I hit I caught 4 bass on consecutive casts, lost one on the 5th cast, switched lures and caught one on the 6th cast. I had action like that all day long. The only confusing thing was the lack of big ones. My best 5 only went 15lb 6oz and my biggest bass were a pair of 3lb 5oz fish. Not terrible but I can't believe I could catch 83 bass (with only a couple that were below a pound) and not run into a 4 or 5 pounder. Well, I have to say I was hoping for a 4+lber all day long and I did get one but it was a giant 4lb 4oz slob of a pikieminnow. Still by the end of the day my thumbs were a bloody mess and I could barely lift the fish up to the camera for my video. I get the feeling that if I had fallen overboard that the smallmouth would have stripped me to the bone in under a minute - like a school of piranha Also it was not just the bass that were biting A little clam actually was clamped down on the hook of my blade bait. It was just that kind of day. The amazing thing was that I caught a lot of bass at every depth. I caught more fish shallow (under 10') than deep (over 20') but that because that's how I spent my time. I caught most of my shallow water bass, and the most bass, on my trusty Jack Hammer Stealth Blade with Zman MinnowZ trailer. I love the way they knock the snot out of that thing. That feeling when slack is knocked in your line is magical. In deeper water I caught most of the fish on either a Ned rig with Smelt TRD or my trusty blade bait. Both produced fish after fish. I went back and forth between shallow water and deep water in search of a big one. Pretty much all my bass came off of main lake points. I would fish them shallow and then deep figuring the big bass had to be on there somewhere. However, they were better at hiding than I was a seeking so I just had to content myself with a zillion 2+lb fish. The water temp is now up to 51F and the water color was much better than last week (about 3' instead of 6"). The other thing is that up until this week most of the bass I have been catching have been tight to the bottom or behind a current break. These bass were out in the current, set up like summer bass like to sit. In front of and to the side of the current breaks but nothing behind them. It was like a switch had flipped from my previous trip. The bass just seemed so thick on just about every good point. I think what perfectly captures the day is that I was tossing a little swimbait at the end of the day across a churning current seam. I was getting bit on pretty much every cast. On one cast I hooked a bass and lost it about half way back. A couple turns of the reel handle and another one grabbed it. Just a crazy day, my hands are still tired as I type this two days later. Definitely a day I won't forget! Here are a couple of pics of the 3lb 5oz fish, the pikieminnow and my video. What a blast catching fish on moving baits all day long! I have been looking forward to this all winter long and now its here.

Nice!

I always have a ratchet clamp tied to a short section of paracord on my kayak. I use it to anchor to things and tie off at the dock.I either clamp directly or loop it over and catch the line back in the clamp if what I am trying to clamp off to is too thick. Takes up zero useful space in the kayak.

@Swamp Girl thanks for giving me an A grade on a B fishing trip on the big C :)

Thanks @A-Jay ! I still have no idea why the water was so muddy. We have not had much rain. I definitely need to get better at periodically checking my line for nicks. I am sure I got what I deserved. Hopefully the lesson lasts for a while :)