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I have not been fishing in a month due to not feeling my best but last Sunday I finally felt good enough to head out. The wind forecast in the gorge was not looking too favorable and sine my drive broke on my last trip I as not eager to test the repair on the mighty Columbia in high wind conditions. So I fished the Willamette for the first time this year.
The Willamette used to be my mainstay. It is 1/4 to 1/2 the travel time of going to the gorge (depending on where I launch) and there are plenty of bass and places to launch. The only downside is the size of the bass. Once I started fishing the Columbia it was hard to go back to fishing the Willamette - especially in the summer after the flash boards are in at the falls. Once those flash boards go in it seems like the bigger fish abandon the places that I fish. They are somewhere but I just don't know where
Anyway, I knew what I was in for when I headed out and had my expectation set appropriately. I was ready for a dink-fest and I am sorry to say that the Willamette held true to form. I tried fishing depths from 5' to 35' and what I found was that there were dinks at every depth. It amazes me that there are so many smallmouth at so many depths at the same time and all biting.
I ended the day with 52 bass but only two of 2lbs or more with the "big one" coming in at 2lb 2oz. I do have to say that the Willamette did trick me a little bit. The 2lb 2oz bass was my 2nd fish of the day so it got my hopes up for a while but then it was dink city for most of the day. Now it is still a lot of fun catching tons of fish, even if they are mostly small, but all day long I was missing the Columbia.
The other trick the Willamette threw at me was that my 50th bass of the day was a 2lber. Kind of like golf where you are having a terrible round but then on the last hole you get a birdie. You were ready to quit but then it sucks you right back in
I did try to spend a lot of the day trying to catch bigger fish. I threw a wobblehead with a creature bait a lot during the day since I find that it is generally larger fish selective but I did not catch anything on it. I did have one good bite on it that bit both the tails off my Zoom Zcraw. I was thinking that perhaps it was a walleye. I tried some bigger crankbaits and the JH stealthblade but neither one produced anything beyond a few pecks.
I did catch fish on most of what I threw (swimbait, jerkbait, spybait, Baby bull shad,...) but the best producers were small plastics: drop shot and Ned rig. Those two accounted for the majority of my fish. That's sort of especially OK since my Ned rig rod is a light action rod so even the small fish are fun to fight.
For anyone caring the water temp was 77-78F. I think the smolt are done out-migrating and most of the fish I caught were either throwing up or pooping out crayfish.
So it was good to be back on the water but a little disappointing to catch so many dinks. At least I did not have false expectations when I headed out. Here are some pics of a few of the better fish and the usual video.
The Willamette used to be my mainstay. It is 1/4 to 1/2 the travel time of going to the gorge (depending on where I launch) and there are plenty of bass and places to launch. The only downside is the size of the bass. Once I started fishing the Columbia it was hard to go back to fishing the Willamette - especially in the summer after the flash boards are in at the falls. Once those flash boards go in it seems like the bigger fish abandon the places that I fish. They are somewhere but I just don't know where
Anyway, I knew what I was in for when I headed out and had my expectation set appropriately. I was ready for a dink-fest and I am sorry to say that the Willamette held true to form. I tried fishing depths from 5' to 35' and what I found was that there were dinks at every depth. It amazes me that there are so many smallmouth at so many depths at the same time and all biting.
I ended the day with 52 bass but only two of 2lbs or more with the "big one" coming in at 2lb 2oz. I do have to say that the Willamette did trick me a little bit. The 2lb 2oz bass was my 2nd fish of the day so it got my hopes up for a while but then it was dink city for most of the day. Now it is still a lot of fun catching tons of fish, even if they are mostly small, but all day long I was missing the Columbia.
The other trick the Willamette threw at me was that my 50th bass of the day was a 2lber. Kind of like golf where you are having a terrible round but then on the last hole you get a birdie. You were ready to quit but then it sucks you right back in
I did try to spend a lot of the day trying to catch bigger fish. I threw a wobblehead with a creature bait a lot during the day since I find that it is generally larger fish selective but I did not catch anything on it. I did have one good bite on it that bit both the tails off my Zoom Zcraw. I was thinking that perhaps it was a walleye. I tried some bigger crankbaits and the JH stealthblade but neither one produced anything beyond a few pecks.
I did catch fish on most of what I threw (swimbait, jerkbait, spybait, Baby bull shad,...) but the best producers were small plastics: drop shot and Ned rig. Those two accounted for the majority of my fish. That's sort of especially OK since my Ned rig rod is a light action rod so even the small fish are fun to fight.
For anyone caring the water temp was 77-78F. I think the smolt are done out-migrating and most of the fish I caught were either throwing up or pooping out crayfish.
So it was good to be back on the water but a little disappointing to catch so many dinks. At least I did not have false expectations when I headed out. Here are some pics of a few of the better fish and the usual video.