We got the kayaks back on the water a week or so ago and we’ve been out a couple times since then, but, to be honest, there really has not been much to report. We did not catch any fish and only had a few half hearted nibbles. That’s not uncommon this early in the season. Until the water warms up enough for the smallmouth bass to start moving around and looking for food, you aren’t going to catch too many fish. After sitting in the house all winter, everybody is anxious to get the fishing season started, so when the weather permits, we get out there and give it a shot. You have to be careful on the Columbia River this time of year; the last time we were out, it went from dead glass to 15 mph wind with pretty severe chop in about fifteen minutes, not much fun getting back to the launch.
When fishing for smallmouth bass in the early spring, you have to move around a lot and find the fish. Only the bigger bass are moving around so you have to cover a lot of territory to try and find the active fish. It was a nice day, not much wind, so we were able to do a lot of paddling looking for fish. The shoreline of the Columbia River is about as varied of a shoreline as you can get; sandy beaches, sheer cliffs and every type of rock you can imagine make finding the hiding spots of trophy smallmouth bass a real challenge.
At the furthest point from the launch site, I caught the first smallmouth bass of 2014, so I think it was worth the long paddle.
After another hour or so of drifting and casting, I got another nice spring smallmouth bass.
Here’s a short video
As it typical for early season smallmouth bass fishing on the Columbia River, we did not catch many fish, but the ones we did catch were big. The two fish I caught today were probably in the 16-18″ range, maybe a little bigger and pretty chunky. As the water warms up a bit more and smallmouth bass spawning season kicks in, we are hoping for some big fish in the near future.