Northwest Sportsman – August 2019

94 Northwest Sportsman AUGUST 2019 | nwsportsmanmag.com

FISHING

smallie fishing venue in the West. If

you’re a numbers guy, you can have

100-fish days here. Smallmouth

thrive in this freestone, mineral-rich

water, much like redband rainbows

do in the Deschutes to the west, and

there’s a fish behind nearly every

rock, or so it seems. While they do

tend to put the small in smallmouth,

there are plenty in the 13- to 17-

inch range. Anglers targeting trophy

bass will want to come in the early

season, when the water temperature

is below 52 degrees and you can find

the bigger spawn and prespawn bass

up and about while the little ones are

in the den watching cartoons.

WE’D BROUGHT ALONG a good stash of

Zman baits in all manner of shapes

and colors. These things are tough

but flexible and they float. The bass

had eyes only for the more realistic

colors this trip. Those would be the

smelt and mud minnow baits in the

Finesse TRD line and we had the

most luck with their Slim SwimZ

baits that look like trout fry. JD

smallies are notoriously fickle about

color and you had better bring a

spectrum of options if you want to

ensure success. Spinners, spoons and

flies all caught their share of fish, but

what worked best were these lifelike

plastic baits with small lead heads.

Zman has a line of proprietary Ned

rig and NedlockZ jigheads that we

used in the swifter flows in^1 / 5 and

(^1) / 6 ounce and down to (^1) / 10 ounce in
slower water, quartering casts upriver
and bouncing them back down over
the rocks, but we caught most of
our fish on the swing. The sexy tail
action of these things was too hard
for fish to resist. Interestingly, our
biggest fish on this river have come
while fishing topwater steelhead,
and again, always on the swing.
We had success fishing tight
against the edge of the cottonwood
shoots that lined the riverbank with
the high but dropping water level of
late June. They provided excellent
cover for bass and a break from the
current. The sheer basalt walls that
rise vertically in places along the
river were popular with the drift boat
guides and the back eddies have their
share of opportunistic fish waiting
for food to slip into orbit.
The John Day is full of crayfish. If
you’ve got a trap or two, you might
Smallmouth are a prime target from the prespawn into early fall. Author Rob Lyon watches his line
while drifting a lure below a basalt wall. (ROBYN MINKLER)
With the possibility of big-number days on bass, it’s easy
to catch dinner. The river is full of smallies and removing
some won’t hurt the population. (STEVE THOMSEN)
want to bring them along. We had
pan-fried bass for dinner several times
and all of the fish had been eating
crawdads. Next time around I know
what we’re having for an appetizer.
I HOOKED THE biggest fish of the trip on
a crayfish bait. I was on dinner duty
that night and with smallies on the
menu and none in the box, planning