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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13 hours ago, pdxfisher said:

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.

 

So exciting, but what a tough situation. Sorry you lost it.

 

Still, 28 bass is a busy boat and the bass in your pics are beautiful.

2 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

 

So exciting, but what a tough situation. Sorry you lost it.

 

Still, 28 bass is a busy boat and the bass in your pics are beautiful.

 

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

1 minute ago, pdxfisher said:

 

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

 

Any sense of the size of the one that broke your line?

6 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

 

Any sense of the size of the one that broke your line?

 

Probably at least 4lbs based on the fact that I could not budge that fish. I try not to guess on how big the ones I lose could be - that is the road to despair

1 hour ago, pdxfisher said:

 

Probably at least 4lbs based on the fact that I could not budge that fish. I try not to guess on how big the ones I lose could be - that is the road to despair

 

I was thinking at least four pounds too. Those heavy fish like to hug the bottom...and have the muscle to do so.