The wind died down yesterday so we headed out to Rowena to do some kayak fishing for smallmouth bass. River conditions are constantly changing, since we hadn’t been out for a while, we weren’t sure what the river would be like or how the fishing might be. When we got to the boat launch, it was easy to see the water level in the river was very low, about as low as it gets. We launched with a light east wind blowing and the temperature quickly heating up. Paddling out to the main river channel, we could see that the water was thick with seaweeds, basically everywhere the water was 8-10′ deep was covered with underwater plants. Due to the low water level and weak water flow, there weren’t very many strong currents.
About six miles east southeast from Rowena, there is a large forest fire burning; the 11,000 acre Government Flats fire. As the east wind picked up, it blew the smoke from the fire down the Columbia River Gorge.
With the low water level, warm water temperature and abundant seaweed, we weren’t sure how the fishing was going to be. Usually, late summer smallmouth bass fishing is a little slow, with most of the fish being on the small side. The thing about bass fishing is that you never really know exactly what it’s going to be like, so even if you think the fishing may not be that good, it’s worth it to at least go out and give it a shot.
We fished mostly in 8-15′ of water along underwater dropoffs and structure. The trusty 3″ red grub was not producing, so I switched to a 4″ watermelon worm and got a big strike right away. I could tell this was a good fish. After a few minutes of the fish heading for the bottom, I managed to get it up to the kayak.
Sure enough, it was a really nice fish, one of the biggest of the season and totally unexpected this late in the year.
I got this smallmouth bass action on video so I’ll be posting it on the WatermanAtWork.com website soon. I also got one more nice bass, also bigger than expected, before I had too much smoke for one day and headed in.
After a good day of smallmouth bass fishing, we are anxious to get out there again, but it looks like it’s going to be windy for the next couple days. Looks like the steelhead have arrived here so it might be time to get the fly fishing gear out and hit the local rivers to see how far upsteam they have come.