Willamette was on fire again in Portland, OR!

I was on the water from 8:00 until 5:30 with only one quick pee break, that is a long day in the kayak!

I fished for sturgeon from 8:00 until 10:30. The bite was slow but steady I landed 4, all between 30" and 35". Not great, but still pretty fun. Here I am trying to get one to smile for the camera



When the current and the bite died I switched over to bass mode. The bass fishing was insane. I ended up landing 25 and lost a bunch more between 10:30 and 5:30. No monsters but there were a handful that went around 2lbs and the best was 2lb 12oz. I caught 14 on my favorite crawfish pattern crankbait and 11 on a dropshot. I am finally starting to get the hang of fishing that rig. I missed a ton of fish on the dropshot at first. I would go to give it a twitch and there would be a fish already on it that would spit it out when I made the twitch. I switched over to feeling for a fish before twitching the worm and my hooking percentage went way up. I am not sure what other folks do, but that worked well for me. I feel pretty confident with that technique now!

I also found a new favorite spot. I found a second hump fairly close to my favorite (old favorite) hump. The bottom comes up from 35' to about 12' pretty quickly and the top of the hump has a lot of big rocks on it that stick up several feet. I caught 7 bass off that spot and missed a bunch more. A cool thing is that after catching 6 on the crankbait (including my 2lb 12oz fish) the crankbait bite stopped. I then went back over the hump with a drop shot and missed several fish before hooking a nice one. I think I could have fished that one spot all day long, but I wanted to explore and see if I could find any other great spots. I picked up a lot of fish, mostly covering good rocky points with the crankbait and then fishing the dropshot when my fishfinder showed me good stuff in the 15-25' range. By the end of the day I was pretty whipped and ended up missing two really nice fish within a couple of casts. At that point I knew I was done so I fished my way back to the ramp picking up my final bass pretty close to the ramp. In all, it was by far the most bass I ever got to bite in one day. My landing percentage on the dropshot was pretty abysmal through much of the day until I started using the feel then twitch approach. I also lost a ton of fish at the boat on the crankbait when they would thrash as I tried to land them. Strange day in that regard. However, overall it was a beautiful and productive day on the river. Here are a couple of smallmouth pics to close out the report.

_________________
Fish tremble when they hear my name

A ship in harbor is safe -- but that is not what ships are built for.
--John A. Shedd, Salt from My Attic, 1928

As a owner of a 2010 Hobie Outback have been wanting to fish the Williamette for bass but just don't know where to go. I'm sure you don't want to give up your favorite "spot" but could you tell me where you put your boat in and I'll do the rest. Thanks, nice fish.

I sent you a PM with some information that I hope is helpful.

_________________
Fish tremble when they hear my name

A ship in harbor is safe -- but that is not what ships are built for.
--John A. Shedd, Salt from My Attic, 1928