Awesome! That is a pig of a smallie!!!
I have noticed (as you did on this trip) that the cooler the water the more pikieminnows that I catch. In the summer it seems like I will catch none or one. As the weather cools I get a couple, then I start catching a bunch of them.
I have not fished the Willamette in a long time (Sept 20th). One thing I noticed this year (maybe it is true every year) is that the Columbia cools much more slowly. The Willamette around Newberg looks to be 50 as you said but the Columbia around the Dalles is 57. That 7 degrees makes a big difference in how active the fish are - I like to fish for the easy to catch fish
@Mdiscom , do you ever use a drop shot? I fish the Ned rig and a drop shot both quite a bit but tend to lean more towards the drop shot for vertical fishing in deeper water.
Great job and thanks for the report!