Columbia River WalleyeFest......

[DocSpotty]

I’m seem to be getting quite reticent in putting up fishing reports.....I’m just getting old and lazy…..well, at least lazy. Did a recent overnight trip to McNary Dam on the Columbia River to fish for walleye. They are considered nasty, vermin related, non-native, steelhead and salmon frye scarfing interloping aliens….and therefore there is no limit on the absolutely yummy eating critters. Was introduced to a new form of fishing I had never heard of before……”blading”. I mean when the term was given to me I was looking for some kind of vengeful, day-swimming, vampire like thingy…..but it has no relation to the movies. The first afternoon and evening we did a lot of worm harness drifting which scored us several nice walleye but we were constantly being ripped off by the voracious, mindless hoards of smallmouth bass in the river. My fishing mentor here, Bill, did catch the only native fish we saw….a cute little white sturgeon:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/Oregon/Columbia%20River%20Aug2016/IMG_2097_zpssmmuhrvy.jpg (http://s76.photobucket.com/user/DocEsox/media/Oregon/Columbia%20River%20Aug2016/IMG_2097_zpssmmuhrvy.jpg.html)

We did some drift blading in the evening and caught some nicer fish. Blading involves using a 2-3 inch long vertical metal jig…..drop it to the bottom and keep ripping it up 1-2 feet. The key is staying in touch with the lure as you let it flutter back down to the bottom as that is where nearly all the strikes come. Anyway it was a decent first time and we ended up with a nice batch of these vile alien walleyes:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/Oregon/Columbia%20River%20Aug2016/IMG_2098_zps2s7zsp3l.jpg (http://s76.photobucket.com/user/DocEsox/media/Oregon/Columbia%20River%20Aug2016/IMG_2098_zps2s7zsp3l.jpg.html)

Spent the night at a campground conveniently located right next to the boat launch. Next morning sunrise was quite nice:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/Oregon/Columbia%20River%20Aug2016/IMG_2099_zpsf6devivs.jpg (http://s76.photobucket.com/user/DocEsox/media/Oregon/Columbia%20River%20Aug2016/IMG_2099_zpsf6devivs.jpg.html)

We fished for about 5 hours, mostly blading and ended up with another 10 walleye with several from 20-23 inches.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/Oregon/Columbia%20River%20Aug2016/IMG_2100_zpsns6yhoyo.jpg (http://s76.photobucket.com/user/DocEsox/media/Oregon/Columbia%20River%20Aug2016/IMG_2100_zpsns6yhoyo.jpg.html)

Lots of meat for the table AND I feel terrific about myself for having rid the mighty Columbia of these terrible non-native salmon frye hoarders. The drive home was long but the deeply felt satisfaction of having helped the native ecology of the beautiful river definitely made it worth the trip (are you buying this line of caca?). A good 10+ lbs of walleye fillets helped too.

Just had to throw in this pretty picture of an American goldfinch from our backyard….unfortunately they do not taste like chicken….. ;-)

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/Oregon/Columbia%20River%20Aug2016/IMG_2055_zpsiz5tcxta.jpg (http://s76.photobucket.com/user/DocEsox/media/Oregon/Columbia%20River%20Aug2016/IMG_2055_zpsiz5tcxta.jpg.html)

Brian

[DarkShadow]

Love reading your reports, Doc!

You mention smallmouth....do you know if they get to be of any good size in the Columbia?

[City Dad]

great report. thanks!

pics brought back memories as my dad used to live in Kennewick and every once-in-a-while we'd go 'round the bend and fish down there at plymouth.

caught bass and our share of jr sturgeon on night crawlers - but the real draw was the giant carp.

[DocSpotty]

Love reading your reports, Doc!

You mention smallmouth....do you know if they get to be of any good size in the Columbia?

DS....we caught 30 or 40 smallies without trying....most were small cookie cutter critters 8-10 inches. But we did get a few larger...biggest was probably 12 or 13 inches. Might do better size fishing different areas.

[DarkShadow]

DS....we caught 30 or 40 smallies without trying....most were small cookie cutter critters 8-10 inches. But we did get a few larger...biggest was probably 12 or 13 inches. Might do better size fishing different areas.

The great part is that you weren't even targeting the smallmouth. I can only imagine if you had focused on them. I'm sure there are spots where the bigguns swim about.

I'm a huge smallie fan, if you couldn't tell.

Thanks again for your report.

[Calicanuck]

Sweet. Thats funny I was looking at going down there are fishing last summer and that place had a limit on the walleye. So I just did a search and it seems that they got rid of limits of Bass, Walleye and catfish in the columbia from the border to 524 miles up stream. That sounds good.

For this blading or jigging you're talking about what kind of lure are you using? Got any pictures of them. What was the weight on those jigs and how deep were you fishing them. Any bait used while jigging? Thanks for the info. I might have to take a little trip down there and get some walleye or give the Canadian Portion of the Columbia up here a try again with the same technique. I tried last year with little success. Great Report!

Thanks.