Sphynx

Never really fished it, but it probably holds bucketmouth and panfish at the very least, it's a much less current heavy river, and is an arm of the Columbia, I'd be willing to bet dollars to donuts you'd find a bunch of trout in there too if you were so inclined, holdover hatchery fish at least, but also probably a bunch of browns and brookies, be sure to check your regulations if you want to fish for that kind of stuff though, pretty sure oregon does not permit brown/brook trout to be released, also if you fish tributaries of the Columbia don't forget to get your Columbia River basin endorsement in addition to any other licenses you get.

Now that I think about it, if you want a sizeable detour, Crane Prairie reservoir in Central Oregon, and the Klamath Falls area is supposed to have some really solid largemouth and crappie fishing

Let me know how you get on, I am always interested in fishing reports from the river, helps me help the kids out here where I work get on them and learn how to have fun without video games all the time

About 65 or so miles north of Salem, Don't let the size throw you off, it's an enormous river but the smallies hang out shallow in the rocks mostly, if you find the backwater lakes/Eddie's you can find all sorts of Largemouth, crappie, and panfish of various sorts as well, walleye, salmon, steelhead, catfish, sturgeon and tiger musky are plentiful in the main river as well, if you can't find something you enjoy fishing for in the Columbia, you probably need a new hobby.

There is a really good chance those people have discovered the magic of jigs and or tubes, unless there is a reason to believe that the fish are exclusively keyed in to chasing baitfish, my best bass of any species have always come on jigs or tubes...I couldn't begin to tell you why that is, only that it is, if I were to fish a tournament tomorrow in your position, I'd put together my best 5 fish bag the first couple of hours then switch over to big fish baits like jigs and start focusing on kicker fish and quality upgrades, if you aren't great with jigs, it might take you a while, but really worth the investment of time and effort, same thing with a tube.

Bass aren't scavenger fish, they are predators, which leads me to believe that if it isn't moving, he'll never be interested, as for not eating the tadpoles, he may be having trouble swallowing them so he spits them back out, I'd be surprised if he is anywhere near as picky at 12in, probably won't be anything living in that tank he won't eat at that point.

Get up by the Columbia, find you a nice rocky bit of shoreline about 2.5 hours before sunset, and bring a bunch of swimbaits (soft plastic keitech style) and a bunch of Tylenol, you'll need it the next morning after the river smallies get finished with you, picked up 15 out of 17 (including a new PB smallmouth) hooked in 90 minutes tonight, have also had a bunch of success this week on squarebills/lipless in reflective and solid shad/sexy shad type colors, and ned rigs and shakey heads.

I do this sometimes, and when I do I do it REALLY simple, either a medium or medium heavy fast action baitcaster, usually a 7 speed reel, 30lb braid, 12 or 15lb mono leader, a bag of lead sinkers, usually in 1/8 to 1/4 but sometimes different depending on the water I'm fishing, a few extra hooks, and 2 bags of senko's, a natural (usually watermelon red flake or green pumpkin black flake) and a bold (usually black or junebug of some sort) and off we go, everything pretty much fits in one back pocket, or in one hand, I have caught an awful lot of fish this way...would I make this an all the time thing? Not on your life, I love having all of my options, and choices, but it does make for a fun diversion or challenge on occasion, especially with friends or younger family members who do not have bass head quantities and quality of gear, 60 minutes down at the local pond with a senko set up, $0.25 for the firstest, $0.25 for the biggest, and $0.25 for the mostest...some really great memories having little competitions with nieces, nephews, younger cousins and friends.

I don't normally involve myself in dock talk, this report came from my brother I was staying with for the week, and from his dad, both anglers I learned from for years and both of whom are straight shooters...but things like your comment are why I usually avoid boat ramp reporting, just go fish the conditions and improve your skills, not worth the risk that the guy is shining you on and wasting your time, besides, even if the guy puts you on fish it's not like you understand the movements and earned the knowledge in such a way that it will be a building block for your own ability to read water and fish movements.

Yep, took about 9 days off in Alabama over the last couple of weeks and the day I get down there was a huge system shift, went from being nice, 70+ during the day, nice westward wind, dry, little or no wind, every day I was there it was a damned eastern wind, cold, 10+ mph winds, cold, and everything in that lake had lockjaw, I went anyway, already had taken the time off and got down there, but it happens that way sometimes, I fished pretty hard all week and came up with maybe 2-3 fish per day, even the panfish and catfish weren't interested, just not our week...but "You should have been here last week, we were doing 30+ fish mornings on these same points." Lol.

Nope, your doing it right and there is plenty of room out here for respectful, enthusiastic anglers, Googan branded stuff is expensive, but it's effective too, I can think of lots of brands that could apply to, if you can afford it and like their stuff, do you man.

I don't see the problem with more people involving themselves in outdoor activities, including fishing, two or three years ago the threads most places were along the lines of anglers being a dying breed, and the future of our sport being uncertain...sure, the trashy behavior is a problem, one that can and will be addressed, but if someone wants to weigh a two pound fish then toss it back after calling it a nice fish is a problem? Anybody here ever start out wracking double digit fish and knowing exactly what a fish weighed? Come on, these folks are new to the game, and just like learning anything new they will take a few years to learn and respect the rules and environment they are in, give them a chance whenever it's possible to do so, somebody did exactly that for you once upon a time too...as to "overfishing" in the sense of making it harder to catch fish, apply your knowledge, good anglers catch fish in even heavily pressured water, we as a group have had it relatively easy for years with finding easy to get to spots and plenty of fish that haven't been caught enough times to wise up, things might get a bit tougher, you may have to work a little harder, but the net positive of the influx of new interest, and new money for our sport is very likely to outweigh the negative, if we welcome the ones who aren't flat out jerks and trying to be illegal this could help prevent nonsense legal changes and drive gear innovation in a way we haven't seen for years.

Well, it's been a serious grind down here, but my buddy and I hopped down to the pond for about an hour last night for a friendly competition, managed to keep out a win on the account of a 3-2 score, he was fishing a lizard that comes from Culprit, I was tossing a finesse worm, he definitely got the biggest one, but we were going for numbers lol, absolute blast hanging out with friend that you'll never find without some pretty serious experiences...can't wait to do it again, I think we will be dragging a third brother in next time though, should be even more fun!

You can catch bass any time there is open water, unfortunately we are going to need a bit more information to give you anything terrifically specific, but my general advice for someone looking to catch their first bass is to go with a weightless senko, if you have water you can't see through, use a black one with flakes in it, I like black and blue but you can pretty much use anything, black, junebug, anything along those lines, if it's clear, use green pumpkin or a watermelon color, rig a 5 inch senko on an offset round bend worm hook in size 3/0 or 4/0 and rig it weedless, just YouTube how to rig a bait weedless, I like 12 or 15lb maxima ultragreen, toss it at sticks, grass or weed edges you see, anything it looks like a fish could hide in or behind and catch a prey item unaware, you feel something tap on it like Morse code, let it rip, you got a fish.

Well...he wasn't big, but I got one on the fly rod yesterday with a popper, nothing I know that you can do with your trousers on rates as that much fun as far as I'm concerned.

I personally advocate a pretty limited bag of tricks for most new anglers, I may let them try many different baits in a day, but sooner or later they always get a certain look in the eye that tells me they are enjoying the way this presentation works, or they display a natural affinity for properly fishing it, I like them to start there, they are having fun, and learning when fish bite whenever it is they are drawn to, from there it's a pretty straight line to "Hey man, I never manage to get any bites in December on this frog I like throwing so much, is there another thing that works better?" And suddenly we are moving through because the new guy identified a situation he wasn't prepared for, that's a big deal that they worked out WHY, rather than just following my instructions blindly, and once the light bulb goes off, the inevitable acquisition of all the toys we all enjoy so much looks after itself basically, and from there they can go as far down the rabbit hole as they feel is appropriate.

The basic idea with hooks is going to be whatever presentation your including on it, if you take an offset round bend and try to rig a vilebug, there's a greater chance of the plastic not collapsing and giving you enough of a gap to get the point in his mouth, conversely, all things being equal if you can get your hook gap right your hookup ratio on hooks that have a less pronounced offset between the hook eye and the hookpoint will be higher, so if the gap is right, I prefer to use a round bend if I can get away with it, there are plenty of exceptions to this, but it's a major source of frustration for a lot of new anglers I have dealt with not sure which hooks do what, so keeping some basic philosophy about hooks can be helpful, don't worry about all the crazy hook styles out there, learn worm hooks and then move on from there, circle hooks, siwash, o'shaughnessy etc can come into play later, but a sound foundation and developing a couple of presentations your confident in tying and using is crucial in the early days, so try to keep things reasonably limited and it will pay dividends later as you add things to your arsenal, you'll start to see WHY this lure/rig is more suitable than another, and exactly where a thing fits into your tackle selection.

I'd start with a senko, there are about unlimited ways to fish it and it's probably accounted for more fish than any other lure since it came to the market, lots of affordable alternatives if the Yamamoto versions are too proud for your budget, I would probably start weightless, or if that's not doing it a Texas rig is an essential skill in bass fishing, so pick up some 1/4 and 3/8oz bullet sinkers, and some 4/0 worm hooks, I'd keep it pretty simple for color too, bag of green pumpkin or watermelon, and a bag of black and blue, or just black really, by sticking with just one presentation you'll take some skunks, but it'll give you an idea of when/where it works which is very helpful longterm.

I believe that it absolutely depends on water temperature, it just isn't a magic number in every lake, for example it isn't as though the spawning trigger temp in your lake is the same as mine, but there is a range that all lakes experience pretty much every year, and based on those numbers I am certain there is a correlation between whatever your winter Temps are, and a certain point on the temperature rise into spring that will factor heavily into when the fish begin to spawn

Hit them this afternoon on worms, lizards, lipless and squarebill, stuck a nice 2.5lb fish, couple other dinks before the solenoid in the trolling motor decided it didn't want to play anymore and we called it quits, mostly catching them off points either 2-5 feet deep or else 10-20, got a few missed fish coming right off the grass edges leading to drop offs too...can't wait to go hit them again tomorrow morning

Heading out in about an hour to get my first whack at spots here in Alabama, I feel like a kid on Christmas eve that just can't wait to get into his gifts the next morning, are we there yet?! Lol

Mine other half wore glitter once, and 6 months after that I was still cleaning it up, there have been no glitter incidents since lol

I think a lot of times regional pressure plays a part too, if the lake is invaded by every angler in 500 miles all throwing one bait in the same 2 or 3 colors I expect that bait to drop off quickly in effectiveness, so as the Rovers and whatever grow in popularity and see a larger share of the walking bait market in terms of both sales and time in the water, the Sammy, Spook and others are all going to become more effective in the right situations until the pendulum swings back and people start wearing them out on those baits again

There's one out on Johnson Creek and 82nd in Portland that last time I was in there had 0 hunting/fishing goods, it was almost entirely devoted to team sports goods, clothing, and fitness, not sure if they were just out of stock or if that store didn't carry any of it, but it's had the effect of my overlooking Dick's as a viable option more often than not if I'm looking for tackle

Well, #1 on my list starts tomorrow afternoon, dropping a load in Athens Alabama, leaving the trailer at the company shop in Moody and handling a couple of paperwork items while there, and then it's off for a Tuesday afternoon through Monday morning fishing vacation with my brother, I think the current plan is to do the work we have planned in the morning and then fish our butts off the rest of the day until at or after dark, definitely hoping I can hook into a DD this week, depending on how things go I may be devoting one of these afternoons to grabbing some crappie for a fish fry, but either way I'm super pumped to get after it.