pdxfisher

Not a boring day, just disappointing to not catch a couple of big ones. At least they weren't all dinks!

I thought I was being so clever taking off Friday to fish the Columbia. Turns out there are a lot of clever people in the PNW There were 3 or 4 other kayakers and a bunch of bass boats fishing in the MY area, the nerve of some people In addition, the nets were out which ends up blocking quite a few spots (or making them awkward to fish properly). Anyway the day started out OK. It was glassy calm for a bit and I picked up a nice little chunk pretty quickly on topwater. Unfortunately that was my only bite from the first spot. I was racing against the sun to try to maximize the topwater bite so sped to a second spot (pedaling my butt off). Unfortunately the nets were blocking where I wanted to fish but since I had limited time before the sun got above the few clouds that were there I decided to fish it anyway. I picked up 2 or 3 of that spot including one decent one on topwater and a small one on the spy bait. After that I put the pedal to the metal (well actually the plastic) and raced to a third spot. On my way there I saw a bassy looking splash. I tossed the topwater and blam, I had another one! I fished that area for a few minutes but could not find another fish that wanted my topwater so I continued to my intended destination. This spot is a small patch of clean, rocky bottom in the middle of a bunch of weeds. I started out with the topwater and had a couple of hits but did not connect so I put that down and picked up a wacky-rigged Senko. That got me a decent fish and a dink. The next spot I was going to hit was taken so I went way downstream to one of my favorite spots - a huge hump that is rocky on the upstream half and weedy on the downstream half. I was pretty confident I was going to wreck them on that spot! It just felt like a moving bait would tear them up so I fished it pretty thoroughly with a spybait. Apparently the spybait was too good of a spy because the bass did not recognize it as something to eat. Well, on that spot if they are not on top or out front of the hump they are usually on the side in deeper water. That turned out to be the case on Friday. I picked up 2 or 3 on the drop shot but it was tough fishing since the wind had come up fairly strong by that point. I decided that I would go to my favorite windy day deep water presentation - the 1/2oz wobblehead with a creature bait. Within a couple of casts I hooked a smallish bass that flipped off as I was lifting it from the water. A couple of casts later I hooked a better fish. I worked to the kayak but it jumped about 5' from the yak and sent my wobblehead flying. Just plain rude if you ask me! After that I switched up to the Ned and caught a nice one but it was luck as to whether I was near the bottom between the current and the wind (and waves). So, even though it produced a nice fish I just felt like I was not fishing effectively and put it away for the day. I was going to leave that spot but when I looked around every other spot that was nearby had either a bass boat or a kayak on it. I just decided to keep fishing where I was for a while longer. I think I picked up one more dink doing that. Finally, the next spot I wanted to fish opened up so I raced over to it. Even though there had been a kayak and a bassboat fishing it I figured maybe my presentations would be different enough to tempt some fish that they missed. I started fishing my spybait around a big rock that sticks up out of the edge of a big flat. I was on one side of the rock and through as far as I could across the face of the rock. A couple of turns of the handle and thump, but I missed the fish, two more cranks of the handle and thump its game on. When I set the hook I could tell it was a monster because the rod tip did not move on the hookset, I just bent the rod. I could feel that fish surging hard but the current was pushing me downstream on the wrong side (non-fish side) of the rock. I leaned hard to try to turn that fish but that was pointless with this beast. I tried to turn my kayak upstream to loop around the rock and get in good position to fight that fish but the wind and current were making it impossible. I leaned on that fish hard once again to try and turn it. I could feel my line scraping on rock and the POP! That stinking fish stole my favorite spybait. I was sop mad, let's just say I had to mute the audio for a minute when processing that portion of the video After that I tied on a different spybait and eventually caught pound something bass but nothing to make up for the loss of that big one. After that I made a pitstop on shore and then decided to go back to the first hump and retry the spybait since it seemed like they were biting it now. Unfortunately I did not have my camera turned on for about an hour and half while the bite was on. In that time I picked up 6 nice bass of that first hump with the best ones going over 2lbs. I finally noticed as I was holding up the 7th fish to the camera (which was not even that nice of a one) and realized it was off. Oh well, I missed some good footage. I love when the chew the spybait. After that I was heading to another hump when I saw a big rock in 25' of water that I had never found before. I fished that with the drop shot and picked up one decent fish and a couple of dinks. Defiinitely marked that one! I then headed further downstream to where I had caught a bunch at the end of my trip last week. I pretty quickly picked up 2 dinks but it just felt like I was only going to get dinks there so I abandoned that spot and decided to fish some nearby islands. The wind was really ripping now. It was hard to fish. I mostly had to face downstream into the wind and cast back upstream over my shoulder. I was using the trusty old wobblehead since you can actually fish it reasonably effectively in those conditions. I was sitting in 25' of water and tossing to the upstream point of the island into 14-18' of water. I then slowly worked the bait back to me with the current. I felt like I had a couple of bites but I was not sure. Then I made another cast and felt that tapping again and slammed the hook into a 2+lb bass. A few casts later I did it again into another 2+lber. "Oh its on", I thought. Unfortunately I snagged up on the next cast. By the time I retied I had drifted a few hundred yards away. I pedaled back up and tried to make the same cast I had been making but snagged up again. At that point I decided I was too tired to go through that again and so I decided to call it a day. I had a long pedal back to the ramp I was tired of fighting the wind. I ended the day with 28 bass but a lot of them were dinks. I had 7 bass of 2lbs or more but my best 5 only weight 10lb 13oz. If I had landed the big one on the spy bait that would have made the day feel a lot better but thats fishing. Here are a few pics from the day and the video. BTW I am trying a new software this week Davinci Resolve (free version). I am still getting the hang of it but so far I like it quite a bit. The learning curve is not too bad.

Sounds like you were stuck between rock and a hard to fish place this weekend! I have never fished in the ocean even though that is quite popular around here. I think I have made the right call in retrospect!

I favor fishing fast since it suits my nature. I do slow down to avoid being skunked or to scratch an extra couple of fish off a spot that has proved itself to be holding bass on a given day.

Beastly! Also getting a PB on topwater is a double bonus!

Sounds awesome! Catching a nice one on topwater is as good as it gets!

Thanks! It would be a blast to fish together and if we did I would learn a ton from you.

Wow! Those are some hogs!

Well, maybe perfect is an exaggeration but it was pretty darn close to perfect! I mean come on, look at this: I guess to be honest the day briefly started out pretty far from perfect but in the end that just made the whole day even sweeter. The night before when I was loading up my truck I noticed that I had frayed almost all the way through. When I got to the ramp and got my kayak in the water the line rudder up/down line snapped and my rudder was not fully deployed. I almost left but I guy I know (Tommy, https://www.youtube.com/@tommymilsapfishing) was there and suggested I just yank it down and that worked. I knew I was going to have trouble with the rudder hanging down when I left but I decided that was a problem for future me As you can see in the above photograph, the day started out even more beautiful than normal. The river was like glass which almost never happens in the summer on the Columbia. Even more amazing is that it stayed glassy calm until early afternoon! With that water you just know that there is going to be a topwater bite and with the partial cloud cover I was seeing you know it is going to last for a little while. I was almost vibrating with excitement as I started working my walking bait. After a handful of casts I had a couple of fish come up and swipe at it but I did not hook up. I just kept working that bait though because I knew it had to be the deal. A few casts later a decent fish sucked down my Sammy and it was game on! After a nice battle in the predawn gloam I was able to slip my net under a nice first fish, a 17" 2lb 5oz beauty. That's the way to start a perfect day! After a few more misses I saw fish swipe at the Sammy so I slowed it way down. That bass almost gingerly sucked it down. It made so little disturbance that I thought it was a dink but when I set the hook it was clear that it was another decent fish. After a brief tussle I got the net under another 2lb+ fish. I don't have an exact weight because after I freed the hooks from the net and reached for it to weigh it, that bass decided to see itself out and jumped out of the net and back into the river. I had to admire its effort The next fish was just a little guy but they still fight so hard in that 73 degree water! That was all I could tempt from that first spot. The next spot produced a couple of bites but no fish. After that I skipped a bunch of weedy areas and pedaled my way about 10 minutes upstream to another good looking spot. The first half dozen casts were fruitless but then I had a violent strike and it was game on again! That fish really fought hard, I was sure it was a 3lber while I was fighting it but it turned out to be just 2lb 4oz and 16.75". That was a stocky, muscular fish! The next fish came just a few minutes later and was about a pound and a half but it was hooked with the trebles in both jaws. I ended up breaking off one of the trebles in trying to unhook that fish. Turns out it was the last topwater fish of the day for me anyway so I guess that just worked out fine! After that I went upstream to a nice steep point. I almost skipped it because I saw a bass boat fishing it for a good while when I was downstream but I figured it was at least worth a few casts. I did not have a sniff on the topwater so I picked up my Ned rig. I figured I would just briefly give that a try. That ended up being the right call. I picked up 4 or 5 bass of that point including a 17.25" 3lb 1oz bass that made my drag sing! Oh what a beautiful sound on a still morning! The next spot produced a couple of fish but nothing major. I then made my way to one of my favorite spots. Shortly after I arrived Tommy pulled up and we chatted and fished drop shots together for a bit. Tommy caught a couple of not bad sized ones when I hooked up to a decent fish. Tommy said "That looks like a good one" and I said I think its around 2lbs. Turns out I made a pretty good guess and it was a 2lb 2oz fish Kind of proud of that!! Tommy left around then to go hit some other waters (he was in his bassboat although he often fishes out of a kayak). Not being as mobile I stayed and fished that spot for a while. It was never on fire but every 10 or 15 minutes I would catch a fish. Just often enough to keep me there. Eventually though that bite dwindled to nothing and I headed further upriver. I was heading to my favorite spot about another 1/2 mile upstream but a bass boat pulled up just as I started out. Well, with that beautiful weather it was not surprising since there were a lot of folks enjoying that glassy calm water. I was hoping they would hit it briefly and bolt but they ended up sitting on that spot for a couple of hours. I can't blame them because that was surely my plan as well So I pedaled past that spot upstream to another good spot. It is a close second to my favorite spot. Once again, I had seen a bass boat fishing that spot for a few hours while I had been fishing downstream but I figured the spot had rested long enough. I got up to the spot and started probling with a wobblehead and drop shot. The wind was starting to pick up which made the kayak control difficult but it was a hot day and I welcomed the breeze. As I was patiently probing the spot (it is a good size structure with a ton of good spots on it) I saw a fish swirl in the current. I figured that maybe I could catch something on a moving bait (all of my fish after the topwater bite had come on either drop shot, Ned or wobblehead). I tried a swimbait first but got no love. I then picked up my spy bait. Now in years past this has been my go to moving bait in the summer but this year I just have not been able to catch hardly anything on it and to be honest I had lost a lot of confidence in that bait. Usually I throw either American shad or ghost minnow but for some reason the chartreuse shad really caught my eye when I was tying on. You know how sometimes a lure just calls to you? You just know that it is the right thing to tie on. That is the feeling I had earlier when I picked that one out. On my 3rd cast (I was really bombing that thing with the wind-aided help) I had just made a couple of turns of the reel handle when the lure just stopped dead cold. I jerked back and the rod tip did not move at all. "Snagged" I thought but then it turned into the proverbial snag that started to swim. I knew I had a good one on. That was a pretty brutal battle with that fish really testing my tackle in the waves, current and wind. I just kept my cool and maintained a good steady pressure. I whooped out loud when I got that baby in the net. Now it was not a monster but it was an 18.5" 3lb 8oz, thick, muscular fish. Just a beauty! It was the spy bait redemption arc. After not really doing squat with those spy baits all summer I now had my biggest fish of the day on one! I quickly weighed, measured and released that fish and then zoomed back up to the spot. Two casts later I had another hard thump and it felt like another decent fish. It was a 17.5" 2lb 5oz bass. I was in love with the spy bait all over again I picked up a few more fish on the spy bait when I hooked a small fish (about a pound and a quarter). When I got it close to the boat I could see a GIANT smallmouth trying to take the lure out of the smaller bass' mouth. I kept that fish in the water for a few minutes but after a couple of failed attempts the big one slowly swam off. I quickly unhooked the little guy and quickly cast back out but it was not meant to be. I wish I had gotten that on video but unfortunately I had turned the camera off when I ate my cherries and had forgotten to turn it back on. Oh well. After that I picked up a few more fish on the wobblehead but nothing of particular note. Overall it was a really awesome day of summer smallmouth fishing. I ended up with 24 bass with the best 5 going a decent 13lb 7oz and 87.5". Not a monster day but a good day for August! If I had caught the monster it would have been a really awesome day but I can't complain with the numbers and quality that I was able to catch. By the time I headed back to the ramp the wind had picked up a serious amount and it was quite a slog, but the wind and spray felt great on a broiling hot day. Sort of a perfect end to a nearly perfect day! Here are some picks and the video:

Another monster day! No wonder you are tired

I through the stealthblade and usually pair it with a 3" paddle-tail swimbait or sometimes a twin tail paddle-tail like the baby goat. I carry several colors but almost always throw a white-ish color. I keep thinking I should try a more crayfish looking color but somehow always end up with a white one tied on.

Glad you are back out there! I am sure the bass appreciated the break though Great report and pics! You return trip was a pretty awesome one!

I think bass have a pretty simple sorting algorithm. Things that I can eat, things that can eat me and things I don't care about. All we try to do as fisherman is keep our lures in the things I can eat group and away from the don't care group. If a bass saw a mouse swimming in the water for the first time would they eat it? I think the answer is yes even though they don't know what it is. It would be completely alien but it is small and wiggly and therefore should provide nutrients. Eat it. I do think that when there is a lot of a given prey available that bass will narrow their definitions a bit (harder to get into the things I can eat group) but I don't think that we are ever perfectly mimicking a particular creature. We just have to be close enough on a given day. Now maybe the more realistic we present a lure or the more realistic a lure inherently is helps the bass sort better in our favor but for the most part I just want to present an easy meal to the fish.

That sounds like an awesome day!

I think you have it right @Swamp Girl!!

Thanks Glen! I feel a bit better about my day! Well maybe I don't stink as bad as I thought if you and @Glenn were not stacking weight then at least I am in good company! @Swamp Girl I am not sure how that happens so often on tough days. Switch baits and bam, one fish then nothing. Switch spots and bam fish on the first cast and then nothing. It is like they are intentionally trying to mislead us

I hit the Columbia on Saturday the 16th. I was totally stoked because I just knew I was going to have a monster day. When I got to the ramp I was a little dismayed by the amount of wind. Usually the day at least starts off calm but the wind was whipping it was spitting rain. I was not too unhappy though because I knew that rain would have the smallmouth chomping big time. I started the day off tossing a whopper plopper and within a few casts missed what looked to be a good fish. That really had me thinking that it was going to be a day where I had to knock off early because my arms were so tired from fighting big smallmouth. I was really tense on my next cast, but, huh, I did not get a bite. Nor on the next cast or the one after that. After about 15 minutes of peppering this point with casts I had not had another bite. That's OK, some days they just don't want to hit topwater and maybe that makes sense with the wind and the rain. That's OK, I love a good bladed jig stealthblade bite. As I made my first cast a fish swirled chasing something about 10' in front of me and right in the line of retrieve. This is going to be an epic bite I thought as I reeled my lure towards and through the spot where the fish had swirled, but no bite! I figured maybe the fish had moved a little left or right but a thorough fan-casting yielded only the occasional weed. I thought to myself that maybe they want something else. So I picked up my swimbait rod. Second cast with the swimbait and WHAM! I hooked a nice smallmouth that immediately started tail-walking across the surface. It jumped a total of 5 times before I was able to get in my net. It was a nice, but skinny, 18" 2lb 5oz bass. I was now fired up since I was sure I had figured out what they wanted. However, cast after cast laid bare the truth that I had in fact not figured out anything. After tiring of tossing the swimbait I tried a Ned rig, then the wobblehead, then the drop shot but it was like I had caught the only bass in the river. Man, I hate that feeling. I decided to move spots and worked towards one of my favorite shallow shelfs. As soon as I caught past the small weedbed on that shelf I had another bass smack the swimbait. This spot is usually loaded if they are there so I was ready to just start wailing on them but all I could manage was one more fish off of that spot. I decided to move to another spot, then another spot, then a surefire spot that all turned out to be duds. Eventually I made my way pretty far downstream to one of my favorite humps and fished it fruitlessly with a full complement of moving baits. At that point I was pretty frustrated!! I thought the bass have to be somewhere so I started fishing in the deeper water beside the hump. I finally found a small group of fish and managed a few between the Ned and the drop shot. I felt like that was a pretty good clue so I moved to another spot and tried to fish a similar deeper flat that is close to shore. First cast I felt a pop on the drop shot and landed another fish. All right, I know what to do now. Of course, I did not get another sniff off of that spot. However, I at least felt that fishing deep and painfully slow would at least get me some bites. I went back out to the hump and picked up another fish or two and then decided that since I had figured them out I would hit another spot that is just ideal for this type of fishing. The only thing that spot was lacking was fish. Finally out of frustration I thought maybe they are suspended around this beautiful structure so I picked up the stealthblade and on the first cast, POW! I had a violent strike and landed a 1lb 13oz bass (which felt pretty good after the string of smaller bass). OK, I have got them now! Of course that was just another liar fish. I tossed that stealthblade for quite a while but only had one other hit so then it was back to trying to scrape them off the bottom. The next hump I fished yielded two bass, the one after that zero bass. Finally, it had been 7 hours on the water and I had I think 14 bass at that point. I decided to try one last spot and that turned out pretty well. I ended up catching 7 or 8 bass off that last spot in 45 minutes before deciding to call it a day. The reason I packed it in was that once again most of those bass were dinks with the "big" ones going a pound and a half or so. On the day I ended up with 21 bass but they were mostly dinks. I am still not sure why the fishing was so tough. A cold front did pass through in the early morning so maybe that was it. The shad smolt are starting their out-migration to the ocean so maybe that was it. Or the most likely explanation is that I just sucked Oh well, it is good to get humbled every now and again. Anyway, here a couple of pics and a video (more fishing and less catching in this one!).

I keep track by using a click counter on the water, making a video and writing up a report that I post here. I can then go back and check my reports and videos from previous years before venturing out.

I hit the Columbia for the first time in 7 weeks on Sunday (August 10th). The recorded high in Stevenson was 102.8F but at least there was a nice brisk east wind to make it not horrible. The wind was of course a blessing and a curse. It made it more comfortable to be out and make it much harder to fish out of the kayak. Well, enough whining. The good news is that I was able to scratch out a decent day! I ended up with 22 smallmouth with the biggest being a 3lb 5oz, 18.5" chunky girl. My best 5 only went 12lb 9oz but I was happy to get 5 bass over 2lbs in the conditions and the fact that I was starting from scratch since it had been 7 weeks since getting out on the big C. The day started out nice and dead calm and the topwater bite was good for the first 45 minutes or so that I was on the water. As soon as the sun hit the water though the topwater bite shut off. I only caught 3 bass on topwater while they were biting but I missed a handful of others including one pig that came clear out of the water as it tried to annihilate my Choppo. That was a really fun start to the day! After that my day turned into a one of trying to carefully probe 15-25' of water in the current, wind and waves. The wind and waves were not too bad for the first hour or so of my deep water fishing but they both built up as the day wore on and by the end of the day I was bouncing up and down pretty good. The bass were on rocky humps and points. I never found a boatload anywhere but I was able to scratch out a few fish from each good looking spot. I did have two or three occasions of back-to-back bass (when I start to think it is going to be on) but then it would be crickets. I definitely worked hard for all the fish I caught on Sunday. On deep presentations I caught fish on a Ned rig, drop shot and wobblehead. In the wind and waves the wobblehead was the star. That heavy 1/2oz jighead made it possible to keep contact with the bottom while I was being churned around. The drop shot was second best and accounted for my biggest fish. The Ned was briefly useful but once I was bobbing up and down and being spun around by the wind it was pretty useless. The funny thing is that 2 or 3 of the bass that I caught on the wobblehead came while I was picking out backlashes from my reel. Casting into the wind while being tossed around is a bit challenging, at least for me. On those lucky casts though when I tightened the line back up there was a bass on! I think they just felt sorry for me but I will take it!! The other cool thing is that at the end of the day I was getting ready to head back to the ramp and was just sitting there when a small sturgeon (probably a 3 footer or so) came up and most of the way out the water a short distance downstream from me! Really topped off a pretty good day for me. Of course, just to taunt me a bit the wind did start to lay down as I pedaled back to the ramp but by that time I was too worn out to even think of fishing anymore. That's OK though, because of the wind (and maybe the heat) I had the river mostly to myself all day. I never had to skip a spot because someone else was on it. That's a good day in my book! Here are some pics and video from the day: And the sturgeon:

Wow, 4.23lbs at only 18" is crazy fat for a summer smallmouth! Out here a chunky 18" smallmouth weighs about 3lbs in the summer. That is really cool! The shape of that fish looks like a prespawn fish out here. What a tank!

When my right shoulder pain gets too bad on a given day I will extend the day with some poorly executed left hand casts. When I do I am constantly terrified I am going to end up throwing my rod in the water: )

Great report and video! Those bass were tanks! The A-rig was a bait and switch though

Looks like a great year so far!

Fishing a bladed jig and getting slack knocked in your line by a big bass!

Those poor bass did not realize that up till now you were fishing with one hand tied behind your back - they are in deep trouble