pdxfisher

Best of luck tomorrow! We will be there with you in spirit

Awesome day! So cool catching all those nice fish and a double! I always feel like a double really means the fishing gods are smiling on you.

Anywhere from 4' to 24' on the same day. Some groups have moved up and others haven't. I have found bunches at both extremes on the same day. This time of year I always keep checking all depths all day long.

Wow. I don't even have days like that in my best dreams!

Your tough days are what the rest of us call awesome days!

That is an amazing number of big catfish. We're you eating chicken livers before you went out

I think the bass stay bunched up until they start to think about spawning. Since spawning activity starts in the upper 50s as the temp gets (stably) into the 50s the fish will start to spread out looking for spawning locations. I don't think it happens all at once so there is a long period where you can find some groups of later spawners still in pre-spawn while early spawners are already scattering out looking where to build nests. When the temp is in the 40s I think almost all the fish are in bunches. I do think the water has to be in the mid-50s for a reasonable period of time before most of the fish will move up. Also, measure the temp 5' deep and not just 6" below the surface - especially on a sunny day.

Thanks for that report! I have not felt well enough to get out these past few weeks and have been living vicariously through everyone else's reports. Pics were great and I really felt you on the struggle to get launched! Glad you were able to dial in your FFS.

That is amazing! Those smallmouth are just insanely fat and healthy looking. I can't imagine a day like that. I barely feel worthy to even watch the video

I usually start fishing smallmouth when water temp is around 45. They usually hit moving baits really well by that time of the year around here. Each year I think I should start earlier. Personally I think fish activity and staging has more to do with the length of the day and the angle of the sun than the water temp.

I do my best to be visible. My kayak is bright yellow-green, I wear bright clothes and have a flag. I also have a whistle on my pdf right in front that I can grab and blow in about 2 seconds. I have been fortunate to not have had any accidental close calls but I keep my head on a swivel. I am not sure what else I can do.

Wow awesome day and video! The fish you catch are the fattest smallmouth. Just amazing. Thanks for sharing.

A guy I was fishing with was actually hit by a guy trolling. We were anchored up fishing for sturgeon. The boat that hit him was a tiller drive drift boat. They have a super high bow. My friend was yelling and screaming and the two old guys in the drift boat never changed course and hit him fairly hard. Fortunately they were trolling slowly and he was not hurt and his kayak was not damaged. The morons in the drift boat just slowly ran him over. It was surreal. If you saw it in a movie you would scoff that no one could be that stupid in real life. Iam still flabbergasted by thar incident.

That fish has never seen a minnow it didn't like Great report and congrats on that piggy! What were you trolling with?

That is even better. I might have to consult you in the future

I love a story of perseverance! I think that is one of the most important qualities of a good fisherman.

I hit the Columbia out of Stevenson on Saturday the 13th. The East wind ended up being a bit worse than forecasted for most of the day and it was a lot of work to stay out there all day long. For most of the day I had to pedal constantly to hold my position. When I would stop I would start drifting downstream at 2mph between the wind and the current. I have to admit I was pretty jealous of all the guys out there in their bass boats with their spot lock trolling motors holding them in place while they casually fished. I am starting to think those guys might be a bit smarter than me The fishing started out great. The wind was already blowing but the very first spot I fished produce 7 bass in less than an hour. I caught the first one up shallow on a vibrating jig and I caught the rest out a bit deeper (12-15') on a Ned rig. None of the fish were big, the biggest was maybe 2lbs, but still a lot of fun. Even though there were clearly a lot of fish around as soon as I made 10 casts without a bite I left that spot. I was determined not to spend time fishing where the fish were not biting. After that I thought I would look for more shallow bass. I started just heading down the bank, chucking and winding the bladed jig. Probably my favorite early spring smallmouth lure. After a short while I picked up a bass on a little rocky point. I kept working my way along but after a half hour I only picked up one more small bass. It was clear that the shallow bite just was not happening like it had been the previous two trips. I thought, OK, I know a spot that is 12-15' deep and often holds bass in the spring. I just new I was going to slay them when I got on that spot. Well either the fish just weren't there or I could not catch them It was getting really tough to fish with waves occasionally breaking over the bow of the kayak. Hard to concentrate on your drop shot when you are making sure you don't go swimming in the balmy 50 degree water. After that disappointment I hit a variety of spots from 5-30' deep without so much as a sniff. I went about 3 hours without so much as a nibble and I was getting tired from the constant pedaling to hold myself on spots. In retrospect, I am not sure why I was working so hard to stay on fishless spots. The other issue was that there were a fair number of bass boats out on the river. There a boat on almost every spot I wanted to fish. So not only was I working hard to hold myself on top of fishless spots, they weren't even spots that I had a ton of confidence in. I was starting to think about heading home. I even did start to pedal back to the ramp, stopping to fish here and there when I looked back downriver and saw the one spot I wanted to fish was finally vacant. Well, I put the kayak in high gear and pedaled my butt off to grab that spot before someone else got there first. I was a bit winded by the time I got there but I finally had some confidence that I would be fishing around fish again. The guys who had been on the spot earlier were definitely doing pretty well while they were there. I hoped that maybe I would fish it a little differently and be able to catch some of the ones they could not. With the wind and the current about the only thing I could use was as a drop shot. I started tossing it around and on my 3rd "cast" I hooked a good fish. After over 3 hours without a sniff that fish felt so good. I put as much pressure as I could on that baby and worked it towards the kayak. When I had about 10' of line out and I was getting ready to grab the net the line just popped. I have to say that was a pretty low moment. Fortunately the wind quickly dried my tears and I was able to see well enough to re-tie On my second drop after retying I felt another thump and set the hook into what once again felt like a big fish. After a great fight of give and take I got the fish close enough to the kayak to see it and it was indeed a nice one. After just losing the previous one I was really nervous as I pulled the fish towards the net. I have to say that when the net slid under that fish and I lifted out of the water it was like a giant weight was taken off my back and the angels were singing. It was a beautiful 19.5", 4lb 1oz smallmouth. If I could have done so safely I would have jumped up and down in the kayak. The fishless hours were erased from my mind and I was really pumped. I kept working that area for quite a while and ended up with 4 more smallmouth from that area. No 4lbers but a couple of them were probably over 2lbs. I probably fished that spot for 10 minutes without a bite when I decided I would change things up. I put down the drop shot and picked up my swimbait rod. I started casting it out and letting it sink on slack line until it hit the bottom and then slowly reeling it in. After a handful of casts I had a hard strike and after a short battle I hauled in a good size pikieminnow. Usually when I start catching those it means that bass have either moved off or have become inactive. A few more casts and I decided that the spot was done, at least for a while. At that same time the wind had finally died down a bit and the sun had come out and all of a sudden I was roasting. Since the wind forecast I had seen had said that this would happen and that it would stay calm until evening I pulled up onto shore and stripped off most of my layers. Man that felt good. The plan was to fish my way back to the ramp. I have to say though, that Mother Nature is full of tricks because about 10 minutes later the wind picked back up and I was freezing. It was just perfect. Each time when I started shivering and started to look for a place to beach and put my layers back on the wind would die just a little bit and I would think. "Its going to let up like the forecasts said'. Each time I was wrong. It did not help that after leaving that previous spot I could not buy a bit again. I spent the next hour fishing some spots without a sniff. Finally, I decided to fish a spot that had at least some partial protection from the wind even though I had fished it earlier without success. I thought it was kind of a dumb idea since it is only 5-7' deep and clearly almost every fish I had caught that day were in deeper water, but I was cold and it was on the way to the ramp. I have to say sometimes dumb ideas really pay off, intelligence is way overrated I decided I was going to keep throwing the swimbait since it is easy to fish. That also turned out to be another idea that really panned out because all of a sudden I could not keep the smallmouth off my lure. The first one I caught was a respectable 2lb 4oz fish and after that I was getting bites on probably 80% of my casts. Missing some, losing some and catching some. The action was on fire. After getting about a half dozen the bite slowed a little and I decided to try some other baits. I tried a Ned rig, rattletrap and a shallow crankbait. I think I had one bite on the rattletrap and that was it. I picked the swimbait back up and caught one on the first cast. I kept fishing that spot a while longer and picked up a few more even though the bite had slowed. I only left that spot because I was getting tired and the wind had shifted directions 180 degrees and my wind protection was gone. I decided I was tired and I would only stop and fish one more spot on the way to the ramp (that I had only caught one small one on earlier). I thought that maybe the swimbait was the magic. Within a couple of cast I had a hard thump and had a good fish one. Not as big as my fatty earlier and a real nice 17" 3lber. I ended up with back to back to back fish. The bite was just wild and from a spot that had felt like a desert earlier in the day. I kept plugging away and ended up with a couple more. After a handful a empty casts I decided to call it a day. I got to the ramp but when you have a miracle going it is best not to waste so made a couple of casts to a small point near the ramp that I have not caught a fish on this year and wouldn't you know it. There was a chunky little smallmouth there just waiting to be caught by me That was finally enough. I was really tired from working so hard all day and I had a long drive home so I thanked that last fish for playing and went to the ramp for real Ended up being a fantastic day. 26 smallmouth and 1 pikieminnow. Blistering action separated by soul-sucking droughts. The key is to making through those droughts is to remember Tim Allen's catchphrase in Galaxy Quest, "Never give up, never surrender" Here is some video from the day.

Ha ha, I assume 4/10 is the date

Nice mixed bag! I know lots of bass fishermen don't like bowfin but I always thought they were a cool side catch.

I hit the Columbia out of Stevenson on Sunday. Water temp was 49-50F and the clarity was pretty good, a couple of feet. The day started off pretty great. The wind was calm and the birds were chirping. My first two bass came off the second spot that I fished and weighed 3lbs 2oz (18.5") and 3lbs even (18.25"). I thought I was going to be landing nice ones all day but that was not the case. I did hook one big one on a squarebill later that broke me off on a stump (I think there must be a nail pounded in it or something because the line just cut) but otherwise the rest of the day produced 8 more bass in the 1.25 to 2lb range and a big pikieminnow that weight 3lbs 2oz. All the bass I caught were in 6-10' of water and all the bass came on either a Jack Hammer stealthblade or a KVD 1.5 squarebill. I did not catch a fish on soft plastics, but I did not spend much time throwing them. I did try fishing in 12-15' where I had success a few weeks back but I did not have any luck in that spot nor mark anything that looked like a fish. Overall it was a typical Oregon spring day of calm, then wind, sun and then rain. It was fun watching the storms come up the gorge, then get rained on, then watch them continue East up the gorge. Those isolated showers are kind of fun. Can't complain about a day on the water like that. I caught enough fish to not get bored and the weather was fun and interesting. A couple of pigs would have really rounded out the day but maybe I am just getting greedy Anyway, here are pics of the two decent ones and some video from the day.

Thanks. I did a good job of not getting too locked in. I hate when I look back on a day and realize I wasted way too much time doing something unproductive. That happens too often Thanks for the kind words!

I took my first bass fishing trip of the year on Saturday the 23rd of March. I hit the Columbia river since it was a the perfect alignment of not too much wind, decent clarity and no family obligations. That is a rare trifecta in the spring in Oregon I started fishing a little after daybreak with no idea whether the fish would be in 5 or 50 feet of water. I figured I would fish shallow first and work deeper until I figured something out. I started out throwing one of my favorite springtime lures. A 1/2oz white-ish Jackhammer stealthblade. The smallmouth around here love that thing in the spring! I fished a first small point with nothing to show for it. I moved to a second longer point that is usually good for at least a few bites. I fished shallow with the jackhammer with no bites so I kept changing lures and moving deeper and deeper. I went all the way out to the end without a sniff. I was starting to not feel too good about the day at that point. I was getting ready to leave when I decided to dust off the shallows of the point one last time with the jackhammer. On my 2nd or 3rd cast with it I felt soft hit and struck back. Fish on! I played that little guy with all the care you give a trophy fish. I needed to get that skunk off! Fortunately, he agreed and I landed my first fish of 2024. Just a little guy but I was really pumped. I fished that spot for a while longer but that fish was the only one dumb enough to bite my lure. I figured I would cover some more shallow water (fish was in about 6') and try to figure out if that fish was telling me something useful or was just a liar fish I moved to another spot that seems to hold fish pretty consistently in the early spring. It is not very different from the surrounding water (just a 6-8' deep flat) but the bass seem to like it in the spring. On my second cast I hooked a fish and lost. Next cast I had two hits and missed both. I was both excited to have found them and frustrated to not be hooking up. On my next cast I had another solid thump on the jackhammer and landed fish number two. A decent 2lb 9oz fish. A couple more casts with the jackhammer and picked up another 2+lb fish fish. It was on baby! (Narrator's voice, "it was not on"). Well after a half dozen casts without a hit I switched to a rattletrap and on the first cast I hooked up again and land a nice little guy. A few casts later I picked up number 5 on the rattletrap. Once again the bite died. So after a half dozen casts I went back to the jackhammer and hooked up almost right away but lost it on the way in. That was my last bite from that spot but I was really pumped. I was not expecting much on this first trip and it was already better than I had hoped for. After that flurry I hit a pretty long lull while fishing similar spots to the that flat that was holding them. I could not buy a bite on the next handful of spots I tried so I figured that maybe I just ran into one errant school and that most of the fish were still holding a bit deeper. The day had started calm but now there was a decent amount of wind out of the East. I went to a spot that my one friend loves in the spring. It is a small ridge in 12-15'of water that barely sticks up but the bass seem to like it in the sprint. I tossed the drop shot around and missed a few fish (it is a little difficult to fish a drop shot in the wind and current in the kayak) but I was encouraged by once again knowing that I was around fish. I kept at it and was able to finally get the hook to stick in a nice 2lb 10oz bass (my biggest of the day up to that point). I kept at it with the drop shot, missing some bites, when I finally struck paydirt again. Right away I could tell that this was a better fish. I kept good pressure on the fish and let it pull drag when it wanted to. After not too long of a fight in the the 46F degree water I was able to slide my net under a beautiful 4lb 3oz bass!!! The day was just getting better and better. I was really stoked. I went back to the drop shot but after missing another fish I thought I would try a Ned rig to see if they would eat that better. That turned out to be the right call because on my first cast with the Ned rig I caught a nice 3lb 2oz smallmouth! A short while later I caught another 2+lb bass on the Ned but then the wind shifted directions on me and between having difficulty holding the kayak in place and perhaps the fish changing how they were set up I could not get another bite. I figured I would move to another spot and maybe revisit this spot again later. So I decided at that point that since I had caught fish in ~6' of water and in 12-15' of water the different groups were in different stages of moving up. I went to another spot that has a nice little flat in the 6' range and some nice 10-20' water right next to it. I figured one of the two spots should have some fish. I started out tossing the jackhammer on the flat and picked up two more nice smallmouth in pretty short order. However, I could not coax a 3rd bass of the flat and I could not find any in the deeper adjacent water. By then it was getting late in the day so I figured I would head back to the ramp and only stop at the 6' flat where I had caught 4 bass in the morning. The wind was 180 degrees from where it was in the morning and I was pretty tired and not expecting much as I tossed the jackhamer around when I was surprised by a hard hit and some good weight. I was really stoked when I was able to slip my net under a 3lb 5oz beauty! That was my last fish of the day. I ended up with 13 bass, over half of them were over 2lbs and the best 5 went 15lb 13oz. A respectable bag - especially given that my only goal was to not get skunked Here is some video from what turned out to be a pretty good day!

I have lower standards

I have been chomping at the bit to get out on the water and so when Sunday looked decent I thought I would hit the Willamette out of Swan Island for a day of sturgeon fishing. I got on the water around 8:30am and started looking around in the harbor for signs of fish. All I could find were scads of small fish. Not sure if they are carp or something else but after stopping to fish around a few schools of those things I was sure they were not sturgeon. I chatted with another guy in a kayak and he had also been blanked so far. No big deal I thought. I will just keep moving and hunting. I made it all the way to the dry docks without finding anything I thought was a sturgeon. I did see tons of schools of little fish but nothing that looked big enough to be a sturgeon. As I pedaled past one of the dry docks I was shocked as a duck popped up out of the water right beside my kayak and took off. It was one of those diving ducks and I guess they can stay down pretty long because I did not know it was there until it popped up right beside me. I fished in that area for a short while but without likely looking marks I did not want to waste too much time. No biggie I thought, they must be out in the current. I prefer that to fishing in the harbor anyways so I was excited to go drop anchor out in the current and catch some fish. The one issue though is that the tide was coming in and heading towards slack. There was still a slight outgoing current, but not much. Well to make a long story short (if that is possible at this point) I ended up dropping anchor, fishing and pulling anchor about a half dozen times. I also fished a few spots off anchor by holding my position with my paddle. In the 7 hours I was out there fishing all I managed to land was one bullhead. However, that was a welcome fish since it kept me from getting skunked. That is better that the sea lions were doing I saw at least 4 different ones (probably there were more but I know there were at least 4 for sure since I them all at once). I never saw them get a fish. For the most part they kept there distance but one did make a bit of false charge at me but when I screamed it skedaddled. So, not a very fishy day. I just never found the fish but it was still a great day out on the water. I had not been out in quite a while and sometimes I start to forget how much I just miss being out there. Here is a short video that shows the mystery duck, my one little fish, and me dropping and pulling anchor a few times.

I hit Hagg on Sunday the 26th for what I had hoped would be a multi-species outing but that plan did not quite work out. I started out a little late because it was really cold (temp was 27F when I got there). The drive around the lake was actually even a little treacherous due to numerous ice patches but I arrived at ramp C and was out on the water around 8:15AM. It was cold but just gorgeous out and it just stayed beautiful all day long. Hard to believe I was fishing in Oregon in November I tried fishing for bass for about an hour but did not get a sniff. That was a little disappointing but I was planning on spending most of the day trolling so I just shrugged off the initial failure and decided to focus on trout. I rigged up my two trolling rods, one with my usual favorite (1/24oz roostertail with 1/2 nighcrawler) and a small plug on the other. I put 1/8oz on the droppers (just to stop line twist) and set them back 60'. After about 45 mintues with no bites I switched to 80' and that seemed to be the ticket. I missed a few bites when I finally got my first fish on my faithful roostertail. Shortly thereafter I switched both rods to the roostertails since they are my confidence bait. After a couple more misses I caught my second fish, a nice 12" fish, and then decided to spend the rest of the day running an experiment. I added a dodger to one of the rods to have a showdown with my normal no-dodger approach. I started trolling along, watching the rhythmic thumping of the dodger rod and just enjoying the day. I was pretty far back in the no-wake zone when the dodger rod went off and I felt the pull of a good fish. After a nice fight I got a 13.75" trout in the net. Just as soon as I got that fish in the net my other rod had a vicious strike. I picked up that rod and new it was also a really nice fish. So, I kept the first fish in the net dipped in the water while I fought the second fish close. When I got it to the kayak I scooped it up with the first fish still in the net. I had a double! That second fish was even a bit bigger at 15" and ended up being my best of the day. So it was 1 to 1 in the dodger vs no-dodger battle. Here is the 15 incher: I went back to trolling and kept getting bites and ended up catching a couple more so that it was now 2 to 2 in the battle. After making one loop without getting a bite I decided to leave the area I had been getting all my bites and fish and troll closer to the no wake boundary since that is traditionally a good area this time of year for me. That turned out to be a bust so then I decided to head up the lake around ramp A. I did that to both check out the fishing for myself of course but also to see what the shore bite looked like since my son had said he might want to take his girlfriend fishing when she flies in from Texas in December. Well that ended up being a waste of time on both fronts. I did not see anyone catch anything on the shore and I had no bites. At that point, I decided to head back to where I had my earlier success. I trolled through that area without a sniff so then I expanded my search a bit and ran into them again. The bite was even better than in the morning but the number of missed bites and lost fish was horrendous for some reason. In between all the missed fish I did manage to land two more nice trout, one on the no-dodger and one on the dodger. So, I ended the battle with 3 on the no-dodger rod and 3 on the rod with the dodger once I started the experiment (those plus the two earlier fish gave me 8 on the day). I will have to try the experiment again next time out and run it all day long. Here is some video from the day: