I hit the Columbia on Sunday the 22nd with a friend of mine (Michael Jarvis), and as it turns out with another half dozen kayak bass anglers. The day started out slow. I really wanted to make the shallow water bite happen and hooked about a 2lber within my first dozen casts. Unfortunately, that was a liar fish and the next half hour did not produce so much as a sniff.

After that I headed out to my usual winter spot and promptly caught a 1lber but could not generate a second bite. The river was up about 3' and running pretty fast which made it hard to fish that normal winter spot. After that I touched base with my friend and he had not had any luck yet. We hopscotched each other at a few spots without a bite.

At that point I saw a kayak angler on the next spot I had wanted to fish. I pedaled over and asked him how he was doing and he said the spot was loaded and he was hammering them and that I should join him! It turns out that it was BrandonHua.Fishing who is pretty much a legend amongst the kayak bass tournament anglers and is just a super nice guy as well.

I quickly caught a decent bass on a Ned rig and my friend who I came out with quickly joined us (he knew Brandon well), as did several other kayak anglers. We were all fishing within 50 yards of each other and we were all hammering the bass pretty good.

The fellow who was on the spot to begin with had caught a 4+lber earlier but all the fish we were hammering as a group were 1 and 2lbers, maybe some 3's thrown in for some. I was cycling between a Ned rig, Carolina rig, drop shot and wobblehead. Most folks just stayed with a drop shot - and were probably catching more than I was since I was wasting time switching presentations

Eventually I had snagged and broke off both my CR and wobblehead so I pulled in close to shore behind an island to retie. The current was moving pretty good and even each time we caught a bass by the time we landed them and unhooked them we would be 100 yards downstream. If I had stopped to retie in the middle of the river I would have been all the way down to Bonneville dam by the time I retied

After retying I headed back out with the group and one of the anglers. When I got back one of the anglers (Geoff_does_kayak_fishing) pulled up and just put on a clinic with a blade bait. He caught a bass on 8 consecutive casts. Fortunately I am not a proud man so I went digging for one of my blade baits

I got it tied on and started fishing a spot I had just fished through with the CR and had missed a couple of bites. On my first cast I landed a nice bass with that blade bait. I told my friend that I guess 6 hooks are better than one   I have to say that blade bait bite - which I totally stole from Geoffrey - was just on fire for me for the rest of the day. I am not sure how many I caught on consecutive casts or even how many I caught on the day (I just kept forgetting to click my fish counter since we were all having such a good time talking and laughing and catching bass). I think I caught close to 40 bass. I think everyone else was having similar counts as well.

My highlight of the day was when I reared back on a bite and my rod tip just did not budge. I had been catching lots of bass between 2lb and 2lb 15oz (just had not been able to break 3lbs) but I knew this one was different. I would pull it up a bit and it would just rip my drag out and head back down. Eventually though patience and pressure took its toll and I was able to slip my net under a 19.25" 4lb 11oz beauty!

It was the heaviest bass caught by anyone in our group (Brandon's earlier fish was a 19.5" so he had the longest for the day). What a thrill to catch that bass with such a wonderful crowd around me. Just an awesome experience. I told my friend I think they bass just felt bad because I am so old so they let me catch the big one

Eventually the bite slowed to where I was not getting bit on every cast. Pretty soon it was every couple of casts and then every 10 casts. At that point I decided I did not need to squeeze another bass out of the river and pedaled back to the ramp with a big smile on my face. Definitely one of the most fun days I have ever had fishing.

Here are a couple more picks and a way too long video. The video would have been even longer but I had forgotten to turn my camera back on for about an hour after taking a break and that was during some of the hottest action. Just a crazy day! Almost forgot, my best 5 went 15lbs 13oz which is a decent total but far from an epic day in terms of best bag. It was just the number of nice sized bass that made the day amazing.

One more thing, I had snagged up a couple of my blade baits so I went to bass pro shops yesterday and their XPS brand blade baits (which is what I was using) were on sale for $3.98 each!! That a pretty amazing deal. Just in case anyone was thinking about adding them to their arsenal.

I love this trip report! Love the title too, natch. And that's nearly a five-pound RIVER smallmouth. Wow!

I probably have over 100 blade baits. For me they are all SteelShad. Got hooked on them when a buddy suggested blades for our winter largemouth trips. I then used them on Lake St Clair for Walleyes. I’ll be packing some this Sunday for a largemouth lake trip!