I hit the Columbia River out of Stevenson, WA on Friday the 10th. I had not been out in 2 weeks so I was curious how long it would take me to find the bass since fall smallmouth are notoriously mobile. Last trip I did not have a sniff on the first point closest to the ramp. It was starting to seem that way again this week since I blanked on several lures before giving the drop shot a try.

 

First cast with the drop shot and I hooked a good fish! I fought it up close to the kayak when the hook pulled out. Aargh! A cast or two later though I once again felt some weight as I lifted my drop shot off the bottom and I set the hook into another decent fish. This one at least had the courtesy of letting me unhook it. It was a nice 2lb 3lz smallie - a great way to start the day.

 

I figured I was going to be laying the smack down on that point but after those two quick bites I could not buy a third. The next spot I hit produced a decent fish on the drop shot. At the next spot I caught a decent one right away, then a handful of dinks, and then another 2+lb fish. Then that bite shut off.

 

The fourth spot was a gold mine in terms of numbers of fish. I am not sure how many I caught of that spot but it was more than 10 bass. At one point I had 5 bass on consecutive casts. Many of these fish were dinks but there were some nice ones mixed in. The funny thing is that I fished the drop shot on that spot without a bite, wobblehead without a bite and then just slayed them on the Ned rig. With the wind being nothing more than a gentle breeze I was able to fish the Ned effectively and it was just what they wanted.

 

The rest of the day went about the same. A spot would produce one of none or a boatload. I fished quite a few spots that I thought would be good without a sniff only to move a short distance away and start to wail on them. After the initial calm of the morning the wind picked up a bit and I mostly kept the drop shot in my hand. I felt like I really had to talk them into biting it. I often had to jiggle it around a fair bit in a spot before getting a bite.

 

I did have one other spot during the day where I caught 5 consecutive bass. It really seemed like they were grouping up into bigger schools and so that meant more empty water but when you found them the bite was on fire. 

 

The wind was funny on the day. It started out nice and calm, then it spiked up to about 18mph for about an hour, then it went back to being calm, then it spiked up to 26mph for about an hour, then it calmed down to about 12-15mph for the rest of the day.  When the wind had picked up to around 26mph I almost packed it in. That was around noon and I had over 20 bass at that point.  I am glad I decided to tough it out though as once that big wind passed (I caught nothing during that time) I was able to get back to catching them pretty good.

 

I ended the day with 43 bass - which included a lot of dinks - but I did have 9 bass over 2lbs and my best was a 3lb 2oz. Not fantastic on size but not too bad.  My best 5 weighed 12lb 4oz which was not too bad. Plus I had a lot of fish around a pound and three quarter. The interesting thing is that some of those bass were so fat and strong and fought like demons. Then on the next cast I would catch a super skinny one that could not fight all that hard. I think that lends credence to my thinking that different schools of fish were combining in to bigger schools and some of the schools that were combining ate much better over the summer than others.

 

I did try to fish shallow off and on during the day but I never had a sniff in less than about 18' of water. I don't understand why there aren't fish up shallow on a cloudy day with a water temp of 66F. At least I was not too stupidly stubborn about trying to get them to eat a moving bait up shallow. Maybe with all the shad smolt outmigrating (you can see clouds of them on the sonar) the fish are happy to sit in deeper water and just suck in the dead and dying.I also did not catch a fish on the wobblehead which is really surprising. I think I had one bite but on it but that was it. They really only wanted small plastics all day long

 

Anyway, here are a few pics from the day and the video:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You catch such dark and beautiful bass! It's been a long time since I've caught 43 bass and a 26 mph wind would overwhelm me!

Nicely Done ~

Love the "Action Shots" too.

Congrats

A-Jay

Thanks @Swamp Girl and @A-Jay! 

 

I agree that yhose bass are pretty and that the action stills from the videos make for cool pictures. 

Excellent 

Those were some good ones for sure