When the daily temperature in the Arizona Desert starts hitting 100° on a regular basis, we have to pack up the watermanatwork.com expedition vehicles and head north to our home in the Pacific Northwest.
We’ve had some good fishing days and caught some big largemouth bass. It seems like there were more windy days than usual and there was a spell of cold river water that put a chill on the fishing. The days when the water temperature was above 60°, you could usually catch fish. Some days are better than others, for sure, but on average, the fishing is usually pretty good.
We headed out into the desert to wait out a few days of wind and get everything ready for one last all out kayak fishing assault, throw the gear in the truck and head back to the Columbia River Gorge.
The desert in the Colorado River watershed is a bit cooler than the surrounding desert, but there are also a lot of mosquitoes. Between sunrise and sunset, you must be inside mosquito netting, use repellent, or get eaten alive. Out in the real desert, most of the bugs are flies and they disappear around sunset. No bugs and just about perfect weather is very nice.
The conditions were not ideal for the last few days of kayak fishing on the Colorado River. It was hot, near or at 100° and the wind would pick up suddenly in the early afternoon and quickly increase into double digit wind speed. We got an early start to try and beat the afternoon wind and heat. As is usually the case, the fishing early in the morning is pretty good.
We caught a lot of fish in the last few fishing days. Not any really big bass like we were catching a few weeks ago, but a lot of one to three pound fish with a few bigger ones here and there. Overall, there was a lot of kayak fishing action.
One afternoon, we were chased off the river by a storm cell rolling across the desert. It went from a beautiful 95° sunny day to thunder, rain and 30 mph wind.
After a wild and windy night, by 4:30AM the wind had died down and we headed out on the dark Colorado River for our last day of desert kayak fishing. The passing storm did not bother the largemouth bass and the fishing action started early.
Just like the previous day, there was plenty of kayak fishing action. Mostly one to three pounders, some bigger, lots of great largemouth bass fishing. Even caught a few big crappie and a couple big, aggressive bluegill.
I had to shave off my beard for the last day of fishing because I spent a little too much time wrangling largemouth bass out of the bushes and a bug, probably a spider, took a bite out of my face. Probably died instantly, but I had to lose the facial hair to administer first aid to the bite.
It’s always sad when a fishing trip comes to an end and the fish are still biting but that always makes us want to return to this great kayak fishing spot. The miracle “biggest fish on the last cast of the trip” didn’t happen, but we “left them biting” for sure.
The wind picked up before noon on the last day of fishing so we packed up the truck, grimaced in financial pain at the latest price of gas and headed north. A couple days later we arrived at the “Kayak Gateway to the Pacific Northwest”, otherwise known as the State of Oregon Invasive Species watercraft checkpoint. All boats and personal watercraft, like kayaks, are required to stop and be inspected for invasive species.
We are back home in the PacNW where our bodies are adjusting to the much cooler temperatures. The Columbia River is still a little cold for smallmouth bass fishing, but we will give it a try the first chance we get. Spring is a windy time in a very windy place so we’ll be looking to get out there in the next few days.