It’s been windy lately and we haven’t been able to get out to do any smallmouth bass fishing on the Columbia River. This is one of the best places in the country to fish for smallmouth bass, but it is also one of the windiest places, so that cuts down on fishing days. When it is calm, it’s time to go fishing because those good fishing days do not happen every day. We got a couple days of light wind so it was time to rig up the kayaks and head out on the Columbia to see if the fish were biting.
It was a beautiful day, a little chilly in the morning, warming up to 80°F in the afternoon. Blue skies with snow capped Mt. Hood off in the distance.
As is typical for this time of year, the water level of the Columbia River is dropping. It is not uncommon for the water level between Columbia River dams to change a foot or two in less than twenty four hours. That’s a lot of water and it shows the tremendous impact the dams have on the Columbia River and everything in it. We fished two days in a row and the water level dropped about two feet overnight. If you’re fishing, a spot that was perfect for holding smallmouth bass yesterday may only be a foot deep today. Any fish there have moved somewhere else. We pulled some nice bass from this spot on the first day, the following day the water level had dropped and the fish moved out.
Always the case with smallmouth bass fishing, finding the fish was the key. Also, swimbaits worked well this time, especially for the bigger fish. Caught a few on spinbaits. It is tough to use lead head jigs here because there is so much seaweed(technically, it’s not “seaweed” but that’s what I call it) in the river. Almost every cast is going to have seaweed on the lure as it is, no hope dragging something on the bottom. That’s where the fish live, so that’s how it goes. We did catch a bunch of smallmouth bass, most in the usual quarter to half pound size, but we did catch a few bigger ones. Smallmouth bass, no matter the size, always put up a great fight.
We did manage to catch a couple big bass, maybe getting close to 20″ but not as chunky as the big early season fish. Swimbaits worked the best for these bigger bass and caught a bunch of smaller fish too. The bigger fish were in deeper water with more current, sometimes it was a challenge to get, and stay in a good spot to make a few casts. Always nice to catch a big fish.
The wind has returned so probably no fishing for the next few days, we’ll see how it goes. Work on the latest smallmouth bass kayak fishing video will continue since we can’t go fishing. Hopefully, the video will be done by the end of the week. We’ve got pretty good material for the next summer bass fishing video so we’ll get started on that. Stay tuned.