Due to life circumstances, I recently found myself suddenly plucked from the sunny, sweaty, soggy climes of central Florida to the Oregon/Washington border on the Columbia River, where I spent my youth. It seems the majority of the local bass fishing opportunities here will be for smallmouth in big, deep, rocky river water. I have little experience with deep rocky water outside of a few trips to Dale Hollow and Sturgeon Bay. An unexpected and welcome change, especially considering I grew up, and now live, on the banks of a world-class smallmouth fishery and never even knew it.

Although SE Washington is where I grew up, I did not begin my bass fishing journey until a few years after leaving the state. Virtually all of my experience has been in natural lakes in the midwest, mostly in Illinois and Wisconsin, with my last three years in Florida.

All of that to ask... what advice would you offer as I learn to fish what is, for me, a relatively foreign style of bass fishing? I’ve found a local club that accepts co-anglers, which I plan to join at some point, as I have no boat and shore fishing options seem very limited. Since I’ll likely be tournament fishing as a co-angler most of the time, I won’t have much say in where or how we fish. For that reason, I’d prefer to focus primarily on gear and tackle; key techniques, lures, and recommended rod, reel, and line setups [monkey tries to hide grin 🙊]. Any and all advice or shared experiences is appreciated!

A few topics of particular interest to me:

Football jigs

Hair jigs

Swingheads

Deep jerkbaiting

Deep cranking

Deep-water finesse approaches

Underspins

Have a look at @pdxfisher 's trip reports as he's fishing the same area you're in and doing well with it.

You can read through all my old reports and see what I did throughout the year. I am sure there are plenty of other techniques that will work but at least it will give you an idea of some things that can work. My choice of technique is largely influenced by the fact that I fish out of a glorified piece of Tupperware

Can you be a little more specific on the area you are in? Are you in the metro area? East side? Gorge?

@Rockhopper I'm in the mid-Columbia, Tri-Cities area.

@pdxfisher Thanks, I'll check them out.

The first thing that came to my mind after reading your post was a paddle tail swim bait. With a few different weight jighead and hooks you can cover the whole water column with a swimbait.

Swimbaits are in regular rotation anywhere I go, been looking for an excuse to try out the rapala mayors.

The section of the Columbia in the Kennewick Pasco area is somewhat unique in comparison the the lower section PDX is fishing and different to the steeper George pools like the Dallas are up to Banks lake.

You have two rivers that enter, Yakima and Snake and some significant off channel areas where current is minimal. Finally you have numerous islands and shoals. Get on goodie earth and you’ll see the layout. You’ll have the whole gamut of lures at your disposal.

Check out Nixon’s Marine in Pasco and ask for Willie. He knows the river like the back of his hand and can point you in the right direction.

Lure selection will include:

Super Spook

Fluke

Soft Swimbaits

Jig and Minnow

Drop Shot

Ned

Tube

Wacky-Neko

Jerkbait

Crankbaits

spinnerbait

bladed jig

Beware of the wind. You have an awesome fishery in your front yard!

I second talking with Willie at Nixon’s Marine

1st, become intimately familiar with river maps. There's a lot of "gotcha's" in that area, and not all of them are well-marked. Get on your trolling motor when venturing out of the channel until you've waypointed your routes.

Next, watch this video. Oh, and guess where it was shot? :)

Blade baits baby !

Neko rigged Craw

The drop shot is your friend.