It seemed the smallmouth bass fishing may have been over for the summer, but today was one of those days that goes to show that it’s almost always worth giving it a try. The weather forecast called for calm winds so we headed up to Lake Celilo at Horsethief Lake first thing in the morning. The Columbia River was calm, although not dead glass, all the way to The Dalles Dam. The weather conditions in the Columbia River Gorge can change by the mile and that’s what happened this morning; calm winds below the dam, 15-20mph wind above the dam, so no kayak fishing there. Back across the dam and west towards Hood River. The river around The Dalles was almost glassy, but we’d never done any fishing there, so we kept heading west hoping the wind would still be light. We launched at Rowena and paddled over to where we found the fish last time.
Good news is that the bass were there, they were biting and they were the biggest bass of the season. Caught this guy early in the morning on the trusty swimbait.
Caught a couple more small bass, then headed into one of the river beaches to take an early morning break.
The cool thing about this beach is that it had blackberries growing on it. They were plump and sweet; a nice breakfast treat.
Back out for a little more fishing when a chunky smallmouth slammed a green/orange spinnerbait. This was the biggest smallmouth of the season so far.
After catching the two biggest smallmouth bass of the year on the same day, with calm wind forecast for tomorrow, we are out there again for sure.