Mediocre weekend fishing report

[bass]

I fished out of the George Rogers park area on Sunday and had a mediocre day. I had not been out on the Willie in 4 weeks and so I was anxious to locate some nice fish. I felt extra pressure since I have a friend visiting from NC next week and I want to get put on some quality kayak sturgeon fishing.

I went to the deep hole that had been producing for me this winter but it was a ghost town. I spent about an hour looking for the big schools of sturgeon like I had found this winter, but they were not stacked up like that. Not sure if that is due to the arrival of the shad, the departure of the sea lions, water temp or what, but my previous pattern was dead.

Afer not being able to really mark any fish I went to a spot I have had success at in the past and anchored up. I spent 4 hours fishing there, but only caught 5 shakers in the process. A couple were pushing keeper sized, but they were all under. In talking with other folks it seems like they all had good days with quite a few huge oversized being caught, but for me it was pretty poor fishing.

The nice thing is that they the ones that I did catch fought hard with two of the fish coming completely out of the water. The bad news is that my Shimano Cardiff 400 broke again in the same way (handle pulled out) as last time out. I thought I had fixed it but I guess not.

Here is a pic of the dude who broke it:



It is hard to see from the picture but he had a very smug smile.

Around lunch time I decide to switch over to the smallmouth. I fished for them for about 4 hours and landed 4 fish. Not great, not terrible. The fish I caught were pretty shallow (4-7'). The interesting thing is that I had two spots that each produced two fish, but no other hits. I did not have a sniff in deeper water. I mostly switched off between a spinnerbait and a crankbait. I did not spend much time throwing soft plastic, perhaps that would have helped in the deeper water. The bass I caught were OK sized but no lunkers:



My biggest was 2.5lbs but I did not get a picture since he slimed the lens.

Overall the fishing was OK, but not great. I am hoping I can do better for my friend next week!

 

[Casting Call]

How's the new Yak? CC

 

[bass]

How's the new Yak? CC

I really like it. I have been out with my son in it twice. The new yak is not really set up for intense fishing yet (no rod holders, no install for the fishfinder yet). So this past weekend I was out in my Outback (old yak).

 

[Gettin' Jiggy Wid It]

Thx for the report. Looks like the Willie is clearing up a little. I went out on the Yamhill Saturday morning for about 3 hrs and it was chocolate enough to put the smallies off the bite. Now that the rains will be gone for a bit, the bite should pick up some more. If anyone knows some chocolate water tactics that work well for smallies, it'd be great to read about it.

 

[bass]

Thx for the report. Looks like the Willie is clearing up a little. I went out on the Yamhill Saturday morning for about 3 hrs and it was chocolate enough to put the smallies off the bite. Now that the rains will be gone for a bit, the bite should pick up some more. If anyone knows some chocolate water tactics that work well for smallies, it'd be great to read about it.

Willie turbidity was not bad. I could see the bottom in 2' or so.

I have not done any dirty water fishing for smallmouth out here in Oregon, but I used to fish a lot of chocolate water for largemouths in NC and PA. We used to pray for rain so that it would mud up. Popular baits included buzz baits and spinnerbaits. In this situation I usually preferred black with a chartreuse trailer or chartreuse with a black trailer. I think creating contrast helps the fish to see the bait. We also like loud baits like rattle traps and crankbaits that had a loud rattle. Usually picked bright colors for those or ones with good contrast like firetiger.

I am not sure if the above translates from lake largemouth to river fishing for smallmouth, if I ever figure anything out I will let you know.

 

[Modest_Man]

I recognize those buildings. We were out there sampling today. Visibility is 1.9 meters by the way.

 

[bass]

I recognize those buildings. We were out there sampling today. Visibility is 1.9 meters by the way.

Cool. How does the fish population in the lower compare to the upper river? Is the distribution of species similar? What about ratio of large to small mouth bass? Any difference in overall fish density?

I would love to hear any information you would be willing to share.

 

[Modest_Man]

It's like comparing apples to oranges, we have a sampling radius of about 6' max on the boat. Most of the lower river is quite a bit deeper than that, so we don't shock up many fish. This doesn't mean they're not there - just that we can't access them. So we see many, many more fish in the upper river, just because we can sample all the way to the bottom of the river. We did turn a sturgeon today which is the second one since I've been doing this. We know there are a lot more sturgeon down there, they just aren't normally on the surface.

Lower river is almost all smallmouth, while it transitions to almost all largemouth upriver. You get a decent mix around the Santiams. I've got a lot of info - but you'll have to ask specific questions as it's pretty generalized.

We'll be out there the next couple days below the falls.

 

[bass]

OK. Here are some questions.

Do you check the stomach contents of the bass? If so what is the ratio of crayfish to fish? It would be interesting to know this for the upper vs the lower for smallmouth and largemouth.

Other than bass how does the species breakdown differ between the upper and the lower? Especially from a forage point of view. What do you feel is the most important fish type forage for bass in the upper vs the lower river.

Right now have you shocked more bass from current or protected areas. I have no idea where river smallmouth spawn. I assume it is about the time of year that they are spawning. Last weekend all my hits came from protected areas. Is this where you would expect the bass to be right now.

I know from a thorough personal sampling that the lower river has a lot of smallmouth. I am surprised to hear that the upper river has more largemouth. To what do you attribute that. I figured the amount of current would favor a smallmouth population. Is it possible that what you observed is that the largemouth prefer shallower cover and thus were more in range of your shocking?

In the upper river (and the lower) I would assume that the main river is smallmouth territory and that the sloughs are largemouth terrritory. Is this a correct assessment?

Do you ever find largemouths in current?

Did you shock through the shallow channel side of Hog Island? If so, did you turn up many bass in that stretch? I have fished that a few times but I tend to do better in the main river. It seems softer bottomed and the smallmouth I catch always seem to be on rocks. I am curious.

Did you shock in the cove above the railroad tracks where Tryon creek dumps in? I looked in there once but it mostly looked like a big soft bottomed cove and so I have never spent any time in there. It does look like it might be decent largemouth water.

 

[Modest_Man]

OK. Here are some questions.

Do you check the stomach contents of the bass? If so what is the ratio of crayfish to fish? It would be interesting to know this for the upper vs the lower for smallmouth and largemouth.

We do not. We release almost all of the fish. A few are vouchered and placed into the University fish catalog, and a few invasives get a parasitic load analysis. We do get some bass with fish tails sticking out of their mouths, and got one yesterday with a crayfish hanging out.

Other than bass how does the species breakdown differ between the upper and the lower? Especially from a forage point of view. What do you feel is the most important fish type forage for bass in the upper vs the lower river.

There are roughly 60 different fish species in the Willamette. So I'm not going to get into depth, but I would say that largescale suckers and the minnows (pikeminnow, chiselmouth, and peamouth) are a very common food for the bass, just based off of my personal observations of densities and habitat. Potentially juvenile Chinook and red side shiners as well. Here's a bit of info about what species there are - http://www.fsl.orst.edu/pnwerc/wrb/Atlas_web_compressed/4.Biotic_Systems/4d.fish_assmbl_web.pdf

Right now have you shocked more bass from current or protected areas. I have no idea where river smallmouth spawn. I assume it is about the time of year that they are spawning. Last weekend all my hits came from protected areas. Is this where you would expect the bass to be right now.

Almost all the smallies so far this year have been out of the mainstem in sloughs (aka protected). The sloughs stay warmer which is a big part of why the smallmouth like it. Approximately 99% come from sloughs.

I know from a thorough personal sampling that the lower river has a lot of smallmouth. I am surprised to hear that the upper river has more largemouth. To what do you attribute that. I figured the amount of current would favor a smallmouth population. Is it possible that what you observed is that the largemouth prefer shallower cover and thus were more in range of your shocking?

The big part of where a species are based off of our observations are flow, temperature, and substrate/cover. It goes from nearly 100% smallies low down to almost 100% largemouth up high. We get almost no bass in the mainstem current, either largemouth or smallmouth. We really don't know why they're distributed the way they are. So far though we've got one largemouth bass and probably 90-100 smallmouth sampling below the falls

In the upper river (and the lower) I would assume that the main river is smallmouth territory and that the sloughs are largemouth terrritory. Is this a correct assessment?

They're both found almost 100% in sloughs.

Do you ever find largemouths in current?

Rarely. And if we do they tend to be juvenile (small).

Did you shock through the shallow channel side of Hog Island? If so, did you turn up many bass in that stretch? I have fished that a few times but I tend to do better in the main river. It seems softer bottomed and the smallmouth I catch always seem to be on rocks. I am curious.

We did not shock that area. But I agree with correlating smallmouth with structure like rocks. Check out the small slough just upstream of Hog Island on the east side of the river. We sampled it today and got a LOT of smallies (and carp). Some big ones. Largest two were pretty similar sized and the largest was 454mm to the fork of the tail (that's 18" fork length, more like 20" total length).

Did you shock in the cove above the railroad tracks where Tryon creek dumps in? I looked in there once but it mostly looked like a big soft bottomed cove and so I have never spent any time in there. It does look like it might be decent largemouth water.

We did sample near the Tryon creek confluence, but I don't think we got any bass. We did get a cutthroat trout though, that had a pit tag in it. Very neat, as we don't see them commonly until much higher upriver (and we almost never get tagged fish).

Answers in bold

 

[bass]

Answers in bold

Thanks for all of the info and the link.

I am surprised to hear that you are finding all your smallmouth in the sloughs. Does this include any summer sampling? If it is from this only from the spring then it makes sense that the smallies would be in there for the spawn. In the summer I catch all of my bass in the main river near some type of current break. Last week my fish came from protected areas so perhaps they are all in the sloughs right now.

Did the fish that you shocked up look like they had spawned yet?

 

[Modest_Man]

They still appear to be pre-spawn. We do get some in the mainstem further up-river (I recall three in particular right at the Santiam confluence). It could be a time of year thing, as the mainstem hasn't warmed up enough yet to allow them to move freely outside of the sloughs. We are constrained to shocking below 64 degrees F for the health of the fish permitting wise. So we try to sample when the lower river is cool, and work upstream with the rising temperatures throughout the summer. If we attempted to sample below the falls in the summer we couldn't do it legally.

 

[bass]

They still appear to be pre-spawn. We do get some in the mainstem further up-river (I recall three in particular right at the Santiam confluence). It could be a time of year thing, as the mainstem hasn't warmed up enough yet to allow them to move freely outside of the sloughs. We are constrained to shocking below 64 degrees F for the health of the fish permitting wise. So we try to sample when the lower river is cool, and work upstream with the rising temperatures throughout the summer. If we attempted to sample below the falls in the summer we couldn't do it legally.

OK, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with me and the forum. I almost feel like I am cheating when I ask you questions