pdxfisher

Thanks everyone! That was just an incredibly lucky and fun day. Nothing like fishing new water and having an awesome day. Reminds me of one of my favorite Satchel Paige quotes: "It is better to be lucky than good on any given day" Thanks Fish, Pray, Love! I never thought too much about how I am fighting the fish but I guess I am doing it right!

I had one of, if not the best fishing days of my life on Saturday. I met up with a friend to hit the big C for the first time this year and fished the Dalles for the first time ever. The forecast was for pretty light winds picking up a little in the afternoon. The reality was light winds in the morning fading to dead calm in the afternoon. Dead calm in the gorge, you already know it is going to be a magical day. So, never having fished that location before I started the day just trying to cover water with a variety of techniques and a variety of depths. The water temp was around 47.5F (about 4 to 5 degrees cooler than the Willamette). I was a little nervous about whether they smallmouth would be aggressive and if I could find them. I just kept the kayak moving along and rotating through my rods. For the first hour or so I did not have much luck in figuring out what was going on. I had only one "liar" bite in about 20' of water on a drop shot. Those smallmouth were doing their best to deceive - and it worked for a while. However, after spending about 20 minutes probing various deep rocky structures without another bite I went back into search and destroy mode. Part of the problem with that area of the Columbia is that everything looks good and it is hard to narrow the search. However, like so often in fishing, persistence paid off. I was fishing yet another rocky structure (this time with my trusty white 3" swimbait) when I felt a solid smack. I set the hook and was into a solid fish, I was so stoked to get the skunk off with that first fish. Not a monster but a solid fish. After that the bites came pretty fast and furious for a while. I just kept working my way along a rocky reef and picking up fish every couple of casts. In less than 10 minutes I was up to 4 fish. The best part was the size. My first fish weighed 1lb 12oz and the next bunch all weighed over 2lbs. Now these are not giants but they are good sized fish and the fight really hard, even in the cold water. The only thing I could really notice was that when I got them next to the kayak they did seem give up and weren't too difficult to land. When the water is warmer I think the only reason smallmouth ever allow themselves to be reeled in is so that they can try and bury a hook in you The day just got better and better as it went along. I would fish along and then run into a school of 2+ pound fish had multiple periods of the day where I would catch 4 or 5 bass on as many casts. Just crazy good fishing. After the initial flurry on the swimbait I did go back to rotating through my rods and the next flurry happened when I was tossing a jerkbait. I am not sure if I just happened to be throwing a jerkbait when I ran into the next school or if the jerkbait was important, but one thing I know is you don't mess with success while you are fishing. So, until the very end of the day, I rotated through a variety of lures but every fish I caught was on either the swimbait or the jerkbait (KVD bone color). I through a crankbait a ton, a rattletrap a fair bit and a spinnerbait a little but I never had a hit on any of those. My best fish of the day hit around lunchtime and came on the jerkbait. It was a beautiful 3lb 10oz bass. It put up a decent fight, and I could feel its weight during the fight, but in reality most of the fish around 3lbs even fought better and longer. Around lunch time my shoulders (which I have problems with) were starting to ache from all the casting and catching. For most of the afternoon I really took my foot off the gas in terms of fishing and spent a lot of time graphing and mapping the area (Garmin quickdraw). I picked up fish here and there and I have to say I was pretty spoiled because I would be like, "Oh, another 2 plus pound smallmouth, that's nice". You know you have had a great day when even catching them seems kind of routine. The one thing I did was started fishing a crankbait more and more. It was pretty easy on the shoulders (I fish it on an old glass rod that was a super slow taper) and I really wanted to catch a fish on a crankbait. Long story short is that I never did. Towards the end of the day my friend and I were back to my best rocky reef. We had fished it couple of times already but now the wind was just dead calm. I caught one on a jerkbait but then decided it was time to give the Ned rig a try. My friend had most of his success on one and it is really easy on the shoulders. I hit one last flurry for the day catching one last bunch of fish to bring my total to 32 bass. On the day I caught the 3lb 10oz, a bunch of 2lb 13oz to 2lb 15oz and ton that were between 2lb 3oz and 2lb 6oz. I would guess my average weight for the day was well over 2lbs, maybe even 2 and a quarter. I only caught a few fish under 2lbs on the day. I am sure I could have racked a lot more fish and weight if my shoulders had not been complaining so much, but catching enough fish that your shoulders hurt is never a bad thing! Here is a video of some day's action.

I have mine mounted on a telescoping painting pole. It is attached to my crate so the view is of me fishing from behind. I just posted on the fishing reports page and there is a YouTube link in how post. I have tried a head mount (too jerky) and a chest mount (good but it does get in the way a bit). I like having the camera behind me and out of the way but sometimes I think a chest mount may produce more immersive footage. Good luck!

I hit the upper Willamette out of West Linn on Saturday. The forecast for the day was for gorgeous weather and for once the forecasters were telling the truth (they like to do that every now and again to throw you off). I launched around daybreak and the water temp was 47.5F and visibility was about 1-2'. I did not have high expectations since the cold rain earlier in the week had cooled the river temp down by a degree or so. I was expectiing that the slight cooling would put the bass off their feed. Thus, my mindset was that I did not have high hopes for catching fish but instead to just focus on being out on the on a nice day. The first spot I fished produced a single hit on a crankbait. That one stupid hit kept me on that spot way too long. I figured there had to be a bunch of bass around if I got one bite, but that was not the case. I really still had no idea at this point if the bass were in deeper water in more of a winter pattern or if they were on the flats trying to fatten up for the spawn. I went back and forth between deeper water and shallower water, making a couple of casts deep and a couple of casts shallow. Eventually I lucked into my first smallmouth of the year on a Ned rig. I say lucked into because that was the only fish I caught that way all day long. After more fruitless searching I pulled onto a point/flat that is usually a good producer for much of the year. I fished it with a handful of baits without getting any action when I decided to try to switch out my jerkbait for a swimbait because the guy I was fishing with had caught a smallmouth and a pikieminnow on an Alabama rig populated with swimbaits. I did not want to go full A-rig but I knew I could quickly throw on a single swimbait and get to fishing. I had never really used that little swimbait much in the early season even though it is probably my top produce of the course of the entire year. I am not sure I would have tried it at all without my friend's success, but I have to say that I am really glad that he showed me the light. Within a few casts I caught a 1lb 11oz smallmouth on the point that already fished with numerous baits. Not a monster but definitely a respectable fish for the Willamette. The other part that was sweet is that I caught it on a new rod and reel! Always nice to get that first fish on a new rod and reel and remove any curse that may have been picked up in shipping When I went to take a picture of that fish my camera gave me an "out of memory" error. It took me a moment to realize that my SD card was at home safe and secure inside my laptop. Doh! Fortunately I had my gopro with me and so I spent the day holding fish up to it to try and get some still shots. Now the action was never fast and furious but I was able to scratch out a total of 9 smallmouth and 5 pikieminnows. The cool thing is that the smallmouth were all between 1lb 7oz and 2lb 15oz. No dinks all day long. I don't think the small fish have moved up yet (certainly not complaining). The crazy thing was the size of the pikieminnows. I caught a 3lb 10oz, a 4lb and a 4lb 3oz pikieminnow. Those are the 3 biggest pikieminnows I have every caught from that stretch. I know a lot folks hate on pikieminnows but I still think they are a pretty cool native fish and they fought really hard in that cool water. I could not tell if I had a bass or a pikieminnow on until I could see them. Every fish (bass or pikieminnow) I caught was in 6-10' of water. I caught 1 on the Ned rig, 10 on the swimbait and 3 on a Rapala DT6 (in Disco shad). The biggest bass and the biggest pikieminnow both came on the DT6. Now, to be fair, I did not not spend much time outside of the 6-10' range so it makes sense that is where I caught my fish. An interesting point is that most of the fish (all but the first two) came from one of 2 smallish areas. I am not sure if that is because I fished them so hard after catching a fish at each one or if they fish were just bunched up on those spots. The one good spot was just a small part of a huge flat that did not seem any different than anywhere else around it. I am not sure why that particular section seemed to be so loaded up. The other spot was a small, isolated hump. I did spend time on other parts of that big flat, on a couple of other big flats and on several other small, isolated humps but all of those other similar looking spots seemed devoid of fish. Here is a picture of my 2lb 15oz bass and of my 4lb 3oz pikieminnow. Sorry you have to click on these to see them. Flickr used to embed the photos. I will need to figure out a better way to post pics in the future. https://www.flickr.com/photos/36989183@N05/shares/Dk60n8 https://www.flickr.com/photos/36989183@N05/shares/1iwRkr Here is some video from the day. So, in summary, I went out with low expectations but came back with a decent day of catching and even got a little sunburn on my face and hands (even though I wore my sun gaiter for much of the day). Hard to do better than that in March in Oregon!

Thanks for the input! Sounds like the ML rod with the Elite reel will be the proper match for my needs. I just have never held nor seen a Tatula rod in person and I really wanted to get a sense as to what they meant by their ratings.

Thanks! I think that for the lighter baits I throw that perhaps the ML will be a good fit.

I am considering a Daiwa Tatula Elite Casting Rod 7' Med Lt Howell or perhaps a Daiwa Tatula Elite Casting Rod 7'3" Med Hvy Ehrler. I was thinking of pairing either with a Daiwa Tatula 100 Casting Reel or a Daiwa Tatula Elite Casting Reel. No place anywhere near my zip code has any of these rods or reels in stock so I will have to just order something and live with it. Most of my fishing is for smallmouth and I would be using this combo with things like small swimbaits (1/8 to 3/8oz jig heads), 1.5 crankbaits, jerkbaits, rattletraps and topwaters (in smallmouth sizes). I would love to hear opinions on anyone who has used these rods. I am not sure what the action difference really means (regular vs fast) and how much difference there is in terms of handling lures on the lighter side of things. As a reference I have a CarbonLite 2.0 casting rod 7', ML, 6-14lb test, 1/16-1/2oz that I use like and use a lot. I want to add a second rod in that same category and thought the Tatulas might be an upgrade. Also, does anyone has an opinion on whether the cost of the Elite casting reel compared to the 100 is worth it - especially for casting distance with light lures. Thanks!

I hit the Willamette out of Swan Island for sturgeon on Sunday, October 25th. It was my first trip out for sturgeon this fall and my hopes were high. I met up with friend who I had not fished with in years so it was already a special day. We saw scattered fish as we made our way through the harbor. They looked huge on the side imaging (judging by my speed and the size of the marks) but they were all kind of isolated. One here and one there. We made it out to the first dry dock and there were a ton of fish kegged up as expected. We both normally prefer not to fish close to the dry docks and usually do so only if we can't find biters anywhere else. However this being our first trip we figured "hey, lets get the skunk off and then move on". Narrator's voice: "They did not get the skunk off" We fished there for about 15 minutes with only line rubs to show for it - unless you count the old rusted light fixture I reeled up. However, the light fixture was not clipped so I had to throw it back We then headed out to the edge of the harbor and fished for a bit. My friend got his skunk off with a shaker but all I got was a bait stripped to the bones by some type of nuisance fish. We then spent a fair bit of time zig-zagging our way down to the RR bridge looking for signs of life. We marked plenty of small fish (pikieminnows?) but nothing that looked sturgeon-like. We then zig-zagged back to the harbor on a different path but once again could not find any main river fish. Out near the mouth of the harbor we marked some small groups of what appeared to be sturgeon but we could not buy a bite. We stopped at a few different places but we never found any biters out at the mouth. We then headed back and decided that we might as well fish the dry docks, at least for a bit. I stayed well out near towards the mouth and my friend went in close. I was marking a decent amount of scattered fish and he said they were kegged up as usual right next to the dry dock. Almost immediately we both hooked up. The water temp was 57 and at that temp those sturgeon are crazy! We both had really hard battles and in the end we both were able to subdue our fish. Mine was around the 4' mark and my friends was around 6'. While he was fighting his fish one of the dock workers told him he should not be so close to the dry docks (like you have a choice where you are going when a 6' sturgeon is pulling you around in a kayak). Once of the main reasons I hate fishing near the dry docks is that there is so many places for a fish to hang you up. I find it a lot more relaxing and fun to fight fish out in more open water. After getting yelled out my friend moved further out (closer to where I was). About that time other kayakers came into that little harbor. Some of them went and fished near where the fish were kegged up and they all fished way further in than my friend or I. I did see the security guy call over the one kayaker and say something to him (no idea what) but they went right back to fishing. I think legally you can fish there but I try not to rock the boat. Anyway, within a short while I hooked up again and landed another nice one after another spirited battle. My friend decided at that point to fish his way back to the dock as he had been out salmon trolling the day before and was pretty whipped. The funny thing was that every once in a while I would call him on the radio to say hey and see how he was doing. Each time as soon as we started talking I would get a bite! Eventually I started calling him and saying that I wanted to get a bite so I was calling him I caught fish steadily all day long. Never red hot, never ice cold. It was just a nice fun day of relaxing sturgeon fishing. There were enough fish out where I fished to keep it fun and each battle was a crazy tug of war. Here is my biggest fish (probably about a 5' fish). By now you must be wondering what is up with the title. Well, during the course of the day I had 3 sturgeon leap completely out of the water in crazy twisting jumps. I got a good video of only the last and smallest. The others are just off camera but you can see and hear the splashes. Here is a frame grab from the video: Here is some video from the day (including good footage of the jumper I caught on film). Overall if you want to fish tight to the dry docks the bite is really hot. If you'd rather fish out a bit the bite is still good. I ended up with a dozen for the day (full day) which was enough for me.

I have a Garmin echomap Ultra 106 on my Hobie outback. I had an echomap chirp 73sv before the 106. I usually split my screen 2D, SV and maps. Sometimes 2D, SV, maps and DV. I also have an NMEA 2000 network with a Garmin steadycast. I have found the heading sensor to be invaluable in fishing offshore structures.

I never pass up a chance to fish unless it is dangerous to be out. One of my most memorable days in PA was in horrible post-frontal conditions on a small lake. By all accounts I should have not caught a thing. Instead I lucked upon some kind of wood that was jammed into and inside bend of a massive hydrilla bed. I caught about a dozen bass including 4 over 4lbs fishing that one little spot. There was a lot of luck involved in stumbling on it but no amount of luck gets me a bite at home! I did not get a bite anywhere else that day but there were enough in that spot that if I made repeated casts with Carolina rig with 6" finesse worm I would get a bite every now and again. On the way to the lake I was thinking I would be lucky if I got a bite. You just can't ever tell.

Thanks for the extra tip! I will get a white one and a dark one before next spring.

I catch smallmouth in rivers out here in Oregon and in a local lake. They fight really hard in both. I think that smallmouth fight the hardest when the water is clear (or fairly clear). One of my local streams (called a river) is pretty much always turbid. I don't think that the smallmouth in that river fight as hard as those in the local lake or the bigger rivers. I would be hard pressed to say that the big river smallmouth I catch fight harder than the lake smallmouth - they both fight so dang hard that is beyond my ability to compare. Both the big rivers and the local lake are fairly clear when I am fishing in them for bass.

Great report! That is a Fishing with Bill Dance kind of a day!! I had to look up what a Jackall Grinch was. That is an interesting concept. I might have to get a couple to try next spring. Thanks for the report!

We are fortunate out here in the Pacific NorthWest. Bass fishing is usually good and stable through late October to November depending upon when the winter rains start. The weather and water conditions out here are much more stable than they were when I lived back on the East coast in PA and NC. I don't miss the chaotic conditions of the East coast playing havoc on my success. On the other hand we don't get those crazy bites just as a massive front rolls through either. Just remember the good times to help get you through the bad. I hope those who need rain get it and those with too much dry out!

Thanks! I really feel blessed to get to fish productive waters in such a beautiful setting. You might even say it is... gorge-ous (for those who don't know the area is the Columbia gorge)

I hit the big C on Sunday, not looking for salmon but rather in search of bronze. The salmon run is waning but the smallmouth are always there and always hungry. I got to the ramp close to daybreak and quickly launched. My partner was already on the water by the time I got there. He had to leave early and wanted to squeeze every minute of fishing out of the day that he could. We headed upstream looking for the rock structures that are smallmouth magnets. I am surprised by how much more chunk rock that Columbia has compared to the Willamette. It seems to make the smallmouth a little more choosy about the rock structure that they will use. The Willamette smallmouth seem to be OK using the smoother basalt rock while the Columbia smallmouth don't seem to care for it, likely because of the better options. We started the day fishing our way upstream. At first we were only finding smooth structures that gave way to sand. Those all seemed empty and we kept moving along, hopscotching each other looking for that right kind of rock. I hopped past my partner to a rock formation that, on the surface, looked like all the previous rock structures, but this one had that special something. Rather than being a giant rock sticking out of a sandy bottom, this one had a nice rocky reef that trailed out to 25-30' of water. I was excited as I made my first cast onto the reef with a Ned rig. I slowly worked it back to me, letting the current do most of the work when I felt that weight and tug that means smallmouth. I set the hook and the fight was on. The fish went airborne immediately - like smallmouth love to do. I was happy to see that the hook stayed fast and I went to work on the fish. Applying pressure and letting my spinning rod wear the fish out. After a minute or two I was able to land a nice fat 2lb 15oz smallmouth! On my next cast we doubled up and I caught a nice 1lb 13oz fish. After a couple of fishless casts I hooked a 3rd fish. After that the bite stopped for a few minutes. I went back and forth over the spot with my sonar a few times to map it out better (you have to love Quickdraw). Once I understood the spot better I decide to go back over some interesting looking rocks pile that was out a bit deeper. I switched to a drop shot and on my second cast I was rewarded with a 3lb 1oz bass! I kept probing that deeper stuff and was able to nab a fish fish off that structure. Not exactly kegged up like they get in the summer but still a pretty outstanding grouping of fish. That pretty much describes how the day went for me. If there were fish on a structure I could usually pull off 3 to 5 fish. If not then I moved on. What I came to find out was that, on that day, the smaller structures were not holding fish. The best spots were good sized rock formations that had lots of chunk rock mixed in. I still hit every rock formation I came to but I quickly moved on if they did not look right. If I caught one fish I would carefully work the structure over, switching between the drop shot and the Ned rig. As the day wore on and the wind picked up I concentrated on the drop shot which is easier to maintain contact with. Some times I would see them on the sonar and bop them on the head - I love that kind of fishing. It is really cool when they are suspended and you watch them follow your drop shot down until there is just one mark on the screen and then you feel that thunk! It was just a fantastic day in a beautiful part of the Columbia. I really covered a lot of water in the kayak. I ended up more than 3 miles upstream by the end. By that point the wind reversed and the river got a little choppy. At that point I had 19 bass and really wanted that 20th. I headed back downstream into the chop - stopping to fish the best spots I had found during the day. I am not sure if the fish moved, if they set up differently due to the wind change or whether it was just tough to fish while bobbing up and down in the small wind waves but I had to work like a dog for that last fish. It was a little anti-climactic since it was only a 12" fish and it basically hooked itself (no skill involved whatsoever) but I was happy to get it. Just a great day on the river! A couple more pics with just a beautiful backdrop: That was definitely more pound and a half to two pound fish than I think I ever caught in a day on the Willamette. I know there are plenty of much, much bigger fish than the ones I caught but it was a pretty awesome day on new water. I can't wait to get the Columbia really dialed in. Here is some video from the day.

Thanks!

My first trip on the big C in a kayak. Went in not knowing a lot and left with gaining some knowledge. I only ended up with 4 on the day. A 3lb 4oz (which is sweet), a dink and two in the 15-16" range. My partner on the day drubbed me catching 8 nice smallmouth. We both wasted a lot of time learning the area and fishing (what we now understand) is unproductive water. Next trip should be better (I hope). Here is a short video of landing my biggest fish and the bumpy pedal back!

I hit the upper Willamette out of 10th street on the 20th. It was a really gorgeous day that started out chilly and foggy, ended up sunny and hot, and the smallmouth were cooperative all day long. From my last trip I knew the bass would be in the fall transition. I am sure most folks know this but I will say it anyway. When this happens not every fish transitions at once. There is a large percentage that make the move but there are always groups that continue that summer pattern. They are the smallmouth equivalent of the folks that can't take a hint that a party is over or the table that continues to hang out in a restaurant long after the open sign has been turned off. On this trip most of the fish I caught came out of a fall-like pattern. Fish were not on top of the humps but in the holes around the humps and at the edges of humps that had deeper water. Even though those fish made up the bulk of my catch I was able to catch 4 bass on topwater when the came up at various times busting bait. I only caught one of those on video but it is just such a fun experience. In the case I caught on video I was throwing a deep crankbait in some deeper water between two humps. All of a sudden bait was skittering and bass were busting just off to my left. I quickly reeled in the crankbait, picked up my topwater and tossed on top of them. I immediately got bit and landed a nice smallmouth. Just awesome fun! They came up about 1/2 dozen times during the day. I raced to them each time. Twice I did not get there in time but 4 times I hit paydirt. I through the topwater a lot during the day (off and on) but I only caught one fish on the topwater by just covering water and that was my first fish of the day. The fall transition is interesting because it is easy to get sucked into sticking with a summer pattern because that pattern will produce some fish, but you end up fishing over fewer fish. Another indicator for me that the fall transition is happening is that I start to catch more pikeminnows on the humps. It seems like once the bass abandon them the pikeminnow move it. Or it may be that they are always there but the bass outcompete them when they are both there. In either case, if you start catching pikeminnows on "bass" spots that is an indicator to change things up. When you see this on the end of your line start to think about fishing deeper and changing up your game. So, I did not completely abandon the summer patterns but I only fished them when the bass pretty much screamed "Here we are and we are hungry" Most of my fish for the day came on a drop shot in 15-30' of water. The most productive spots were rocky areas close to sharp drops. I did a mix of blind casting and video game fishing. I caught a lot of my fish by seeing them on my sonar and dropping on their heads. That is not as exciting as a topwater bite but it is really cool in its own way. True to normal fall fishing, the average size of the fish were nicer. Lots of pound and a half smallmouth. My big fish of the day was only 1lb 15oz but I lost several big fish (and quite a few normal fish) when the hook pulled out. I don't understand what was going on with that. I did change to a bigger hook and that seemed to help some (but caused a lot of line twist with the drop shot). I still need to find a better solution Here are some pics from the day: Here is a short video with some of the fish from the day. If you just want to see the schooling fish topwater bite jump to the 8:55 mark:

The fires out here in Oregon have kept me off the river for the past couple of weeks but I went out yesterday. The water temp was right around 60 and the bass here are definitely in the fall transition. The number of fish patrolling the flats is way down as expected. Fish mostly seem to have moved to deeper water near the edges of flats. To be clear, there are still some fish on the flats, just far fewer. A drop shot was the best bait for me. I spent most of the day seeing fish on the finder and dropping it on their head. Overall numbers were a little lower than normal for summer but quality was up. Fewer dinks as a percentage. The other indicator I have out here for the fall transition is that when I start to catch Pikieminnows on the flats where I would normally catch smallmouth. That means that the bass are mostly no longer using the flats.

This is kind of old school but one of my favorite techniques is to use a Johnson Silver Minnow with a twin tail trailer. You can slide it across the top like a frog but then drop into every little hole. I guide it from hole to hole and jiggle it until it falls in. I catch them both on top like a frog or as it sinks in (almost like a flipped bait). I am not sure if this helps in your situation (the holes need to be a couple of inches across to get it to fall in). The other question is whether you are trying to punch through the mats with a texas pegged soft bait as follow up. It may be that you are casting too far to make punching through with a heavy weight practical. In those cases I use not too heavy of weight and cast near (just beyond) the blow up and try and jiggle it to get it to fall through the mat. Using a bulkier plastic with a light (1/16 to 1/8oz) weight usually balances out staying on top of the mat when you want it to with still being able to jiggle it down a tiny hole. Best of luck!

I have been trying to avoid fishing on weekends as much as possible this summer. However, work has been so busy lately I just did not feel like I could take a day off so I decided on a weekend trip. In looking at the weather it looked like Saturday was going to be the worst day from a pleasure boat view point (best day from a kayak fishing viewpoint). I decided I would fish on Saturday, but where to go. After thinking on it for a bit I decided to launch out of Newberg. I know the ramp can get busy but the number of folks just hanging out around the ramp is often much smaller than other places that have a lot of shoreline facilities near their ramps. I got there around daybreak and I was surprised that there were multiple other folks launching as well (I have become spoiled by my weekday trips). A couple of the boats headed in the direction I wanted to fish so I just resigned myself to fishing behind folks all day long. I think that made the fishing a little tougher but I was still able to scratch out 30 smallmouth and 2 decent sized crappie. I started the day fishing this point that is the bane of my existence there. It is a perfect looking structure - a rock monolith rising out of 20-30' of water and topping off around 4-6'. If you were to create a smallmouth structure this is what you would make. I never have much luck there but on Saturday that changed. I had no luck at all. Not even a sniff. That stupid point keeps me up a lot at night as I try to figure out what the heck I am doing wrong. After that I continued downstream to an abutment that sticks up out of the water a little ways above the bridges. I dropped a dropshot down to the bottom and felt a bite. Swing and a miss. I dropped back down, felt another bite and this time I connected. I was really surprised to really up a decent little crappie. I think I was getting lots of bites from them throughout the day. In lots of spots I would get those same bites that did not stick. I did manage to land a second one later in the day on a Ned rig. I don't catch many crappie on the Willamette so it is always kind of exciting when I do! After that I spent a good bit of time fishing between the bridge and that abutment. I mostly alternate betwee a dropshot and a Ned rig and picked up the occasional fish. I could not believe that I could not get bit on a topwater. It just seemed perfect. I threw a whopper plopper for a bit, then a Sammy for a bit and neither one got any interest. I finally dug deep into my tackle box and grabbed a Heddon Tiny Torpedo and tied it on. That used to be my go to topwater before I started buying all these expensive topwaters. On the third cast I caught a small bass. Then a couple of casts later I missed a good sized bass. I was getting really stoked but then the sun broke out and I just could not get another bite on that lure. I will be ready next time though! For the rest of the day I mostly alternated between fishing a dropshot and Ned rig. I would occasionally throw a crankbait or jerkbait. I did not catch anything on the crankbait but caught a few on the jerkbait. I think this was my first trip this year where I did not catch anything on my trusty 3" white swimbait - although I never do as well at Newberg with that lure as I do in other spots along the Willie. The bite wassteady all day long. When I got on a good piece of structure I would fish it very carefully with the soft plastic and was able to catch fish at a reasonable pace. I spent a lot of time fishing sunken brush - which usually produces in that area - but those spots seemed to be mostly dead. Some of my normally productive spots just seemed completely dead but I did stumble on a couple of new places. I went further on this trip than I normally do and made it all the way down to the 219 bridge. I caught a couple of smallies of the mid-river trestle in 40' of water which was kind of fun. I did as much scouting and mapping of that area as fishing and it looks really nice. I am excited to fish it in the future. I did manage about 1/2 dozen fish from the rocky structure under the bridge where it drops from ~10' into about 20' of water. The thing that felt different about this trip (and the last trip) is that the fish do not seem to be schooled as tightly as they were earlier in the summer. I can catch multiple fish from an area but I am not getting the kind of back to back to back action I am used to seeing. It kind of feels that rather than traveling in wolf packs that the fish are in similar areas but more spread out. I have no idea why. No big fish on the day, best fish was probably around a pound a half (never got out the scale) but a decent number between 1 and 1.5lbs. Overall it was a pleasant day on the water. The boating crowds were never too bad. When I pulled out around 4pm the parking lot was only 1/2 full if that and no one was on the ramp. Here are the crappie I caught: Here are some of the bass: Here is some video from the day:

I took a day off to fish the Willamette on the 31st. I went in with high hopes as it was supposed to be cloudy most of the day. Long story short, it was a pretty disappointing trip. I fished for 9 hours and only caught 19 bass. That includes a flurry of activity around noon where I caught 6 in less than an hour. The wind started out of the south and was pretty stiff most of the morning. In the afternoon the wind was out of the north and pretty strong. That period where it was shifting over is where I had my good flurry. I fished and caught fish from 5' to 30' deep. So many of the fish I caught were right after a move or a lure change. Each time I thought to myself "All right, here we go". Each time I was wrong. Best fish on the day was 1lb 14oz fish. A handful of others were decent and the rest were dinks. I am still not sure what the deal was. I was not marking many fish deep or shallow. I am not sure where they were. Maybe hugging the bottom and inactive or just not where I was looking or fishing (but that was pretty much everywhere). That was a puzzler for sure. Couple of fish pics from the day: And some video:

They just seem harder to lip due to the smaller mouth. Largemouth seem easy to grab but smallies definitely are a little tougher for me to get maneuvered into a good position while I am in the kayak. Otherwise no real difference.

I threw an AR for about 1/2 hour on Monday but did not have any luck with it. It was an extremely slow day - normally I have been catching around 50-60 fish per trip but I only got 19 on Monday and most of those were dinks. I will try the AR again in the future - especially now that I have a couple set up for use. The AR did look pretty cool in the water so I think it will be effective but nothing was working well this past Monday. I always struggle to get confidence in a new lure or technique until I have a really good day fishing it. I know it will happen for the AR at some point but I am not there yet. Thanks again for all the advice!