We got a little break in what has been a windy week so we headed out on the Columbia River to look for those smallmouth bass that have been a little hard to find this year. We caught a lot of small to medium sized bass up at the John Day River last weekend, but we hadn’t caught any close to the 20″ mark, which I think is a fair size to call a “trophy” bass. By this time last year, I probably had four or five twenty inch fish, so I’m starting to wonder what the heck is going on. We have to find out where those bigger bass are hanging out.
The weather remains mainly hot and dry. It feels like late August. We got out early in the cool morning and loaded up the kayaks.
The river level was up a couple feet from the last time we were here. The dams on the Columbia River completely control the river levels and flow, conditions change on how much water comes through the upstream dam. My fishfinder is dying a slow death so it was no help when I needed it. Not so much to look for fish, but find underwater ledges and structure. Today, I have to find the fish without any electronic assistance. Some of the fish we caught were out in 10-15′ of water on an underwater ledge, some were caught in 6′ of water, right on the rocks.
I would describe the fishing conditions as “challenging”. The changing wind direction, faster than normal river flow and elusive fish made for a perfect kayak fishing trip. Because the fishfinder was dead, I had to read the river conditions and cast where I thought the fish were. Had to look in every nook and cranny. The two biggest bass of the day were hooked up literally inches from the rocky shore. The kayak allows you to silently move about and put the fisherman in the perfect spot to find the smallmouth bass. A kayak can maneuver in very close quarters that a boat can’t get too. I got one bass that was pretty close to 20″, another about 19″. Just eyeballing, I don’t use a tape measure or scale, just a camera!
Might be windy for the next few days so if we can’t go fishing, we are going to do some hull repair and probably an updated version of installing a fishfinder because my finder croaked today. Can’t complain, have had three fishfinder “heads”(the part with the screen and buttons), but only one transducer. That’s pretty good mileage for an inexpensive fishfinder. I think the replacement will be a low cost model as well.
The fish are always there, you just have to find them…