john day river

[Adam]

How's the fishing there? does anyone know how hard it is to get a boat in the water with the low water levels this year? or is it no problem. also where is the best fishing located on the river for bass with a decent boat ramp? planning on heading over there in early august. and tips are greatly appreciated. images/icons/rolleyes.gif images/icons/rolleyes.gif images/icons/wink.gif images/icons/wink.gif

[FishinJeff]

I haven't been to the John Day for about 1.5 weeks. We put in at the ramp at the mouth of the John Day east of The Dalles. Then we run up the river which is actually resevoir looking since the water backs up from the John Day dam. You may know this spot. We run up 8 miles to the narrows which are at a falls, the name escapes me. The water was getting low but you could pretty much stay in water that was at least 6-7 feet deep all the way up to maybe 1/4 mile below the narrows. It gets down to about 3-4 feet at that point. You can get out here (maybe you'll need to get out below) and walk up to the narrows. Go up to the pools and you can catch all the bass you want. I went a number of times over several weeks and the water was down a bit each time. The fishing in there is amazing -- pretty much can't keep the smallmouths off your hook. Good luck.

[Tanner]

Three weeks ago I drifted from Service Creek to Twickenham in a 16 foot cataraft. We absolutely slayed the bass. At this point I would not advise taking a driftboat down, but if you have an inflatable, GO FOR IT! This time of year the bass really get concentrated in the deeper pools. If you can get your lure down to the bottom of some of those holes without catching small ones, you can pick up some pretty big fish.

A lot of people don't know this but there are also some hefty channel cats all the way up to service creek too.

[brshooter]

What type of lures do people use on the John Day. I have never fished it, but have heard you can get plenty of action on the small mouth over there.

[blackdog]

Generally speaking the smallies on the John Day aren't real particular about what they strike. Two weeks ago it was everything from 4" curly tailed grubs to 6" rubber worms to 4" floating Rapalas to flyfishing with bullethead flash-a-buggers. If its in your box and you want to try it, you will probably get some to strike.

[Grits]

Black dog is correct these smallies are not real choosy. I use rooster tails. My favorite color is brown with a gold spinner. This is a great area to try out new stuff since the fish are so willing to bite.

[fishwish]

worms work realy good and black-silver rapalas.

[fishwish]

worms work realy good and black-silver rapalas.