Hi, Oregon Fishing Forum community. My name is Sam. I’m trying to make a habit of journaling after fishing trips. Thought I’d post a short entry about a weekend coho adventure. I have to keep this one short; lunch breaks don’t last forever!
Went to fish my usual spot, which I’m treating as a kind of test site. Rather than driving up and down the valley, my strategy’s been to visit the same location again and again; one of these days, if I’m persistent enough, the coho and I might cross...
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Hi, Oregon Fishing Forum community. My name is Sam. I want to make a little habit of journaling after fishing trips (partially inspired by bass’ wonderful catalogue of fishing excursions). Thought I’d post an introductory entry about tonight’s coho adventure (better pictures next time):
After finishing up some weekly grading, Tsuga (faithful mutt companion) and I hit the highway, heading east from our little college town in the Willamette Valley. Drove up gorgeous autumn farm country, using...
Two trips ago I caught a 5lb 0oz but yesterday I topped that with a 5lb 3oz, 21in GIANT!!
The day did not start out all that great. I fished the first spot pretty hard and only managed on 6" bass. This is the spot where I caught the 5lb oz two trips ago and pulled 15 and half pounds off of last trip, so I was a little worried. At the next spot the I started to catch fish and the size started to increase, but very slowly :) I did finally manage a 2lb 7oz of that spot which made me feel a...
I hit the Columbia out of Stevenson Wa on Saturday. I was excited to get out and try my new fishing rod. I told my wife I was going to buy a new rod for my birthday and she said "Oh, is that what I am getting you this year :)". That's a wife who understands you!
I got to the river and since it was cloudy and calm I figured I would get things going with the old topwater. Well, the bass had other ideas. After just one dink I realized topwater was not going to happen. I quickly decided I...
What a great day! I met up with Michael Jarvis (https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelJarvisFishing), I got to see a family of otters, and as the tile indicates, I caught a giant!!
I got to the river a while before Mike and fished around the ramp area waiting for him to show up. It was actually quite slow for me to start the day. I only picked up one dink on a Ned rig before I saw Mike unloading his kayak. I pedaled over to him and we chatted briefly. The wind was calm but it was overcast and I...
I hit the Columbia out of Stevenson on the 31st and was a bit dismayed to find out there was a 20 boat bass tournament launching from across the river. Made for a tough day of fishing behind people and not getting to fish spots that I wanted to. I am generally pretty spoiled about having large sections of the river to myself :)
The day started out very slowly for me. The first point I fish is always good for a few fish up shallow but I beat it to a froth without getting a bite. Eventually I...
I hit the Columbia on Sunday and conditions were pretty ideal. There was wind and cloud cover and I knew that would have the big bass feeding. I started fishing the first point near the ramp and within a handful of casts I had a bass just stop my spinnerbait dead. I heaved back and it was on. That fish took off and was ripping drag like crazy. I worked it closer to the kayak and it made yet another mad dash and the hook just pulled out.
I was completely stunned. Usually when you have a...
When it's too hot, windy or raining, I'm in my basement workshop (a small table in front of a TV) coming up with new and different plastic lure shapes. I have three local lakes to test them and try to test at least 8 - all rigged on light ball head jigs. Winners catch many fish when fish are found in spots that are high-percentage areas or schools are discovered on the sonar. Here are some recent winners:
This was a curl-tail grub modified by cutting the tail as shown. The tiny flutter on a...
Smashed my PB! 23 pound channel, Portland area. Hope this encourages people to go find em, they’re out there :)
I hit the Columbia on Friday the 14th and it ended up being an awesome day! I caught 55 bass and at least 30 of those came on the old spinnerbait! I love a good spinnerbait bite and this day delivered that in a big way. My best 5 went 16lb 2oz and 94.5". Two of the bass went 20" and weighed 3lb 12oz and 3lb 9oz, which are still on the skinny side but I also had a nice and fat 18.25" in the mix that went 3lb 4oz.
The day started out dead calm and I can say that the shad fry out-migration...
I hit the Columbia on Sunday the 9th with my friend Mike (https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelJarvisFishing). I got to the water well before Mike and the wind was already whipping pretty good at 16-20mph. Of course the wind only builds during the day in in the afternoon it was blowing 25-30mph. That wind puts the big bass in a feeding mood but man is it a lot of work to fish in those conditions. Here is the wind speed plot from the day:
Even though it was blowing pretty good I started out...
This week I went to the Willamette river in search of catfish. Any species, doesn’t matter, just wanted to catch some cats. Had some surprising results !(to me at least)
I went three nights in a row, here are the results
Night one: Caught three bullheads, one of them surprisingly large. Figured this would be the only species I’d catch.
Day two: To my surprise, I pulled in two channel catfish! I was more than pleased and did not expect them to fight like that. They were both around 5 pounds...
The Tenmile Bass Club had it's Tenmile Open on Tenmile lake August 1st & 2nd 2026. 42 teams were entered and the fishing was a bit tougher than expected. There were some limits of heavy bags of Bass carried to the scale which is not uncommon. They top ten places received plack and the tournament payouts were impressive through 8th place as were the big bass winnings.
What a day! That is a new PB for me for length for a bag of smallmouth but well short of my best bag for weight (19lb 6oz). It was a funny day of lots of dinks but occasionally lightning would strike and I would land a good one.
I started the day throwing a Sammy (walking bait) and did pretty well at the first spot. My first fish was a dink. Second was not bad. Then another dink. Then a 17.5" and finally the first fish that made it into my bag, a 19.25" and 3lb 5oz (still pretty skinny from...
On Wednesday 7/15/26 my nieces husband
Ryan Mill landed a largemouth 4lb. 6oz cute little lady. On the e very next cast he managed to land her big sister. A gorgeous baby doll at 5.lb 8oz. largemouth! Oh yeah, he wasn't bored the time spent fishing the other parts of the day either! 😀
I hit the Columbia for a solo trip on Saturday the 11th. The wind forecast for Saturday was worse than Sunday but there was supposed to be a longer period of cloud cover in the morning. I figured it was worth the extra effort of fishing in the 20-24mph wind to have a better chance at a big bass.
Even though I got to the water well before daybreak, the wind was already blowing pretty good. I was expecting that though so I was ready for those conditions. I started the day throwing topwater...
I hit the Columbia with my good friend Mike (https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelJarvisFishing) again. We had been having a devil of a time getting out together the last month and a half so getting out together 2 weeks in a row was a real treat. The week before Mike was teaching me the ways of the S-waver and I am definitely now in the comfort zone with that lure.
It's the difference between saying "Oh my God, I got a bite" vs "It's about time I got another bite" when fishing a lure. It is now...
Hey all!
I'm mostly a saltwater guy now. Went to the chicken ranch last week. We caught loads of giant canary rock fish and of course some good eater sized halibut. The Ranch is not a secret spot and if anybody needs numbers just message me.
Water is warming up and tuna should be kicking of any day. Chlorophyl pushed back out but any day now everything will line up.
Tight Lines
TM
I took work off on Friday to fish with my good friend Michael Jarvis. We had not been out together in a little while and I was super excited to get out on the water with Mike. I was also excited because Mike was going to teach me the way of the River2Sea S-waver.
The weather forecast for the day was for wind and rain mixed with rain and wind :) It started out calm enough though. I got to the river about an hour and a half before Mike and started fishing - excited to have these conditions...
Annual trip with buddy's from as far back as '68. Good times; lots of fun. Just no fish. Oh, we marked PLENTY on the finder. But couldn't get any to bite; whether trolling or jigging. But it was still lots of fun. And one buddy used his new-to-him water scooter; and we dubbed him and his brother "Smallie Pirates". ha ha ha
Three of us stopped and had lunch, on the last day, at the Odell Lake Lodge (YUM).
I have not been out fishing in over 4 weeks due to not feeling well and suffering a heartbreaking near miss on getting a kidney. For 24 hours I thought I was going to be getting one but in the end that organ turned out not to be viable. (Long story but that is the gist). Anyway that was a real gut punch and had me feeling pretty down for a while. Following that was a nice bout of gout but I am happy to say that I finally felt like getting back out on the water!
My family almost begged me to...
I hit the Columbia on Friday the 22nd. It was a typical summer wind pattern. When I got to the river it was like glass (and stayed that way until about 10am). After that the west wind built up to the low 20s in the afternoon. I knew that was the prediction so I decided I would head east (upriver) to start the day and fish until the west wind just started to pick up. Then I would pedal back down past the ramp so that I would have the wind assist on the way home. I always try and use that...
I hit the Columbia out of Stevenson again on Saturday. The forecast was for light west wind but the forecast was definitely wrong. The day started with a light east wind and that built up to be pretty stiff upstream from the ramp. When I eventually turned around to head back I could see that the water was much flatter downstream by the ramp. Maybe there was an east vs west battle going on :)
Anyway, I was excited to get out there and start smashing them but once again it took a minute to...
I hit the Columbia out of Stevenson (with a ton of salmon fisherman) on Friday the 1st. I had high hopes for the day and I was hoping to catch a bunch of giants. That did not happen but I was able to scrape out a reasonable day.
When I got to the river the east wind was ripping pretty good and there were 2-3' waves smashing into the dock. It was a bit challenging to even get into my kayak and in all that excitement I forgot to start my video. The good news is that not having my video on...
I hit the Columbia river out of Stevenson WA on Sunday the 26th with my good friend (@MichaelJarvisFishing on youtube). Mike and I have been trying to get back out there together for a while but things just kept getting in the way. I was really excited when he said he was gong to make it out on Sunday! Water temp was ~53F, visibility was about 4' or 5'. Just perfect conditions.
I ended up getting to the river quite a bit earlier than Mike. I thought it was a good chance for me to see if the...
I took Friday off to hit the Columbia in hopes of some big bass. The day was a grind but it did pay off! The main plan was to fish a backwater off of the main river but I started the day just quickly checking a few spots in the main river. The bite was not on fire in the main river, I felt like I had to make a lot of casts per fish, but I did pick up 3 bass including an 18.5" 3lb 11oz fatty. It was a pretty good start!
Then I headed to the backwater. I was expecting to just breeze back...
Scored two Plano boxes with about 60 lures for$30. Lots of old or antique items with some rusty or missing hooks plus the boxes. I'm not sure if I needed them but couldn't pass it up. Someone's grandpa must have quit fishing.
I hit the Columbia on Saturday the 11th. I was torn between going to Hagg and hitting the big C. The wind forecast was quite variable. Some looked good and some looked bad. In the end I decided to roll the dice and hit the big C and man am I ever glad that I did! I definitely set a personal record for total weight of bass caught in a day.
I ended up with 83 smallmouth and 3 pikieminnows. I would guess that my average size bass was between 1.5 and 1.75lbs and that my total weight for the day...
This bad boy cost me 8 hrs of trolling around on the Columbia yesterday and a broken transducer but my persistence paid off. It was such a nice day it wasn’t too difficult to stay out on the water.
It was a pretty, Good Friday:
It was a pretty good, Friday:
I hit the Columbia on Good Friday since the wind forecast was looking sweet. I was super excited to get back out on the river since my trip 2 weeks ago was such a good one. When I got to the river I was dismayed to see that the river was close to chocolate milk color. I was really surprised since we have not had all that much rain. Not sure how the water was so off-color. Visibility was 6" to 1'.
Oh boy, cold muddy water...