John Day River Fishing

Friday, 11 May 2007

The majestic John Day River in the state of Oregon is considered as the longest river in the United States that’s totally without dams. The river is estimated to contain some one thousand fish for every water mile. John Day is also known as a premier smallmouth bass fishery, if you would base it on quality and quantity of bass caught. During summer season, some anglers are known to have caught 100 to 300 bass fish in a day.

Starting its flow from the Blue Mountains going north to Columbia, a very long free-flowing river and is under the protection of the Oregon Scenic Waterways Act as a “wild and scenic river.

It was in 1971 when the first stock of smallmouth bass was introduced to John Day River. The population has grown and flourished since then. John Day River is touted as the best smallmouth bass river in the United States. The fishing season is usually at its peak from the month of May up to the first week of August. During this period, anglers commonly fish around 75 bass in a day. The fish usually average 8 to 12 inches in length.

The John Day River is the perfect waters to introduce novice anglers to the sport as the river teem with fish that are aggressive and bountiful. Most of the fishing is enjoyed from a boat using surface bugs and poppers.

The angling procedures and techniques at John Day River are just simple as they can be – you must try casting the lure to some small pools on the edges of the seam, and then start to retrieve. The bass fish usually hold out where they can access easily to passing forage. If the currents are raging, they dart and do strikes while if the waters are slow, they use up less energy by moving and swimming less.

Small Yamamoto have food grubs which are attached to number 176 color line thread would definitely work well among many of us. Rapala crank baits are effective when catching larger kinds of fish species. Likewise, some anglers’ big secret of using crank baits is by using an erratic retrieval that is up to the fishing boat. If you are able to fish some bass with length of 22 inches or larger, these can already be considered as trophy fish, especially if you have expend so much energy catching it.

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