Memorial fishing trip on Memorial Day!

Went down to the Umpqua today with a buddy of mine to kayak fish around Yellow Creek

Weather was PERFECT and the fish were feeling it!

We stopped counting but in 8 hours between 2 guys, it was definitely 200+ fish.

weather was HOT with some occasional cloud cover, wind would switch up and give us a nice break.

I'm not sure what my PB smallie is, but today the biggest went 2lbs 6oz (last photo) and definitely some other 2's mixed in there. Wish I had brought my ruler as it's faster than weighing most fish

We threw everything, Ned rigs, jigs, spinnerbaits, topwaters, cranks, and jerkbaits. Only thing that didn't seem to work was a jig! I either ran out or got close to running out of most of my soft plastics. Even z-mans weren't holding up, i went through at least 3 packs of TRD's and 6 jighead's alone

Fish were exactly where you expect them to be, right behind bluffs out of the current, every so often we'd see crawfish remains coming out of them, that's gotta be their main forage?

Saw lots of bigger fish, 3-4lbs. Reminds me of looking at big seatrout on the grass flats at Florida, just need to practice targeting them. Hard to fish through the small ones to even get a chance at them

NICE!

Wow! That is an awesome day for sure. Beautiful pics. I wonder if tossing a big trout swimbait (smolt imitation) might help to isolate the bigger fish?

bass said:

Wow! That is an awesome day for sure. Beautiful pics. I wonder if tossing a big trout swimbait (smolt imitation) might help to isolate the bigger fish?

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I was thinking about that, the river2sea s-waver was trout colored but honestly a little loud for that clear of water

Also threw a Huddleston greenback shad, some chomps but never grabbed the hook.

There was definitely some shad running through, but they all were big, are there not smaller ones in the schools?

A cheap shine glide might do it, definetly the best profile, come in about 5.5"

I think all the shad running up the river are adults and weigh many pounds each. I was thinking along the lines of a Huddleston but it sounds like that did not work. I have only caught one bass on one of those big swimbaits but I don't throw them that often. I am hoping that to fish them a fair bit this summer.

That lure in the picture looks pretty nice! The color is close to the color I throw on my favorite stick bait (Sammy in American Shad).

Is it possible to access that area with a 16 ft aluminum and outboard motor? Thanks

Gulfstream said:

Is it possible to access that area with a 16 ft aluminum and outboard motor? Thanks

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You could definitely launch and yellow creek and fish that for quite awhile, make you way further west than I can in a kayak

There was a crowd and I that watched a 12' flat bottom Jon boat with a guy, wife, and infant aboard, who motored down the flow below the ramp....he made it but we definitely had our breaths held.

Right side of this photo

Thanks! Best to go up or down stream?Not familiar with that area at all

Gulfstream said:

Thanks! Best to go up or down stream?Not familiar with that area at all

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Have to go down, there's a pretty good rapid at the ramp upstream, the river narrows to maybe 20-30' and the current flows pretty good

Thanks!