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Smallmouth bass are not native to the Northwest. They were brought here in buckets borne by homesick railroad-traveling easterners. Oregon’s best smallmouth fishing can be found in the John Day, Willamette, Umpqua, and Columbia Rivers.
They prefer warm, flowing water and can be found in great numbers around weed beds, grassy banks, along the seams of riffles, deep along rock walls, and in gravel flats. On clear summer days when the sun is high, the biggest fish will be found in deeper water. On overcast days or when the sun is low on the horizon, smallmouth can be caught on or closer to the surface.
You don’t have to get up early to have a good day bass fishing. Nevertheless, when my friend Brian told me to meet him at 4:30 in Redmond, I said okay, setting my alarm for 3:55 a.m.
Morning was pushing back the night when we began the climb into the Ochocos on our way through Mitchell. We headed north along a gravel road, trying to outdo each other spotting game. I saw more deer, while Brian was quicker at spotting antelope, hawks and golden eagles. The elk were easy to see. We stopped to snap photos and listen to them calling to each other from both sides of the road. This was why we woke early.
We were fishing by 8:00. Here, the John Day smoothed out in a long, glassy stretch to sweep in a hard right turn downstream, creating a deep pool at the outside of the next bend. A large ponderosa pine was submerged in the deep water.
Upstream, Brian was already standing up to his waist in the river. He prefers to fish a long shank No. 1/0 hook tied directly to his main line. Baited with a whole nightcrawler, he can reach most of the water he wants to fish without adding weight. If he can’t cast that far, he will wade or swim there.
I caught my first bass of the day on a Luhr Jensen crawdad pattern crankbait. I cast downstream along the submerged tree and cranked it back to me. The big fish struck hard, putting a deep bend in my spinning rod. It ran downstream, then back toward me, coming to the surface to turn and seek out the bottom again, its bronze flanks flashing in the sun.
Next, it turned to the tree for help, tying the line around the end of a limb. I was stuck. Dropping the rod tip, I saw the line still sawing on the tree. I still had him. After giving him slack for thirty seconds, he pulled the line off the tree and I put the backbone of the rod into it, making sure he didn’t tangle up again. At the bank, I unhooked him and watched him kick away.
These are aggressive predators, feeding on smaller fish, insects, leeches, snails, and crayfish. Since big bass eat little bass, the smaller bass tend to stay in schools away from larger fish. If you are catching little bass, move to deeper water to target larger fish.
Plastic worms work well for smallmouth. Fish a four or six-inch worm unweighted on an ultra-slow retrieve, or fish it weighted with a slip sinker so the fish won’t sense the weight on the bite. On the initial strike, drop your rod tip and let the fish take it before setting the hook.
A couple of years ago, I fished the mainstem Umpqua, from a drift boat, casting to the bank. The Umpqua’s underwater ledges are where the predatory bass hide, waiting to ambush schools of baitfish. We used three-inch floating Rapalas painted to resemble small rainbow trout and salmon fry. I learned you can catch a few fish if you simply cast the plug and retrieve it, but to really make that thing work, you’ve got to fish it like my friend Gary Lewis of Gary’s Guide Service showed me that warm spring day.
Pretend you are where the plug is, just a little ways out from shore, out where the hungry bass prowl. You’re a little fingerling rainbow with a whole lot of problems. A long-beaked bird just stabbed you and now you’ve got a broken back and your chances of making it through the next ten feet are not very good. You twitch and jump and kick from side to side, and struggle like there’s no tomorrow, because as soon as the first bass spots you, there won’t be.
Last summer, I fished the John Day with Steve Fleming from Mah Hah Outfitters. Yes, his Dutch-oven cooking is second to none, but the real highlight of the trip was standing in the raft and casting my five-weight as far as I could, to splash a rubber-legged frog popper right at the bank.
I watched for places where the bank sloped sharply down to the water and the grass grew right at the river’s edge. We hooked bass up to 16 inches in such places in water that was no more than a foot deep.
Remember, the better the cover, the better the fish. At one point, I spotted a downed tree in the water along a high bank. The boat spun in the current and put John, in the bow, within easy casting range. I watched as he put the steel to his biggest fish of the day, right at the surface.
When you go, wade or drift as far from the bank as you can and still reach it with your longest cast. Splash that popper down and let it sit until the rings dissipate then give it a jab, making it chug and gurgle like a frog that just realizes it made a big mistake. Wait half a second at the strike, before raising your rod and setting the hook. Give the fish time to close its mouth over the lure, or you’ll miss him.
These days, in rivers like the Umpqua, the Snake, the Columbia, and the John Day, there are plenty of bass and they’re almost always hungry. They eat crayfish, mice, minnows, frogs, insects and whatever else they can choke down.
Plop your plug or popper at the water’s edge. In the shallows, near the bank, the grumpy offspring of those pioneering transplants lie in wait. They’ll mangle your minnow imitation or clamp down on your cork popper out of a predatory instinct that tells them to blast the weak, the vulnerable, and scared.
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To order a signed copy of Gary Lewis’ latest book, Freshwater Fishing Oregon & Washington, send $22.95 (includes shipping and handling) to Gary Lewis Outdoors, PO Box 1364, Bend, OR 97709 or visit www.GaryLewisOutdoors.com.
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