Love them Smallies

[bucketmouth]

John Day River is a premier Smallie river. Lots of fish, some real lunkers too. I love fishing that river and intend to float it soon. Service creek to Twikingham. Will chase the Smallies hard.

[shalom]

Welcome aboard.I enjoyed your first post.Keep them comeing.
Bucketmouth give me a call if you want to drift the John Dat river.

[duckhat]

I'm new to this & have been informed I should tell a story. Well here goes. Love to fish Smallmouth. Got started a few years ago on the John Day. Went over on a whim & caught the river just after a thunderstorm had lowered the temp a few degrees, man did the fish get aggressive. For two days they hit everything we threw. When we shifted to top waters I knew I was hooked. Nothing beats that explosive take on light gear. Been bass fishing ever since. Can't wait till spring.

good fishun

[bucketmouth]

The float from Service Creek to Twikingham is an easy jaunt. I have a cousin that was in the National Guard until he retired. He is able to rent from the Army depot at Hermiston a 12 man raft for $10/day. We load up the coolers, the wet bags and the fishing gear and make a nice full day out of the float. If we wanted to float only and row through the slow portions of this drift, we could make the trip in about 5 hours. But because we want to fish, we end up making a whole day out of it. In May or early June when the water levels are perfect for drifting this portion of the river the days are long and daylight last til about 7:00PM. We get started at daylight and take our time. It is a very fun drift and the fishing can be fantastic! :smile:

[duckhat]

Been on the Service cr drift many times. Best to fish out of a drift boat if possible, but if one is not available then a raft can work fine. May & June are definatly the months. Watch the flow rate. If it's above 5,000 ft don't bother. If it's below 1200 the water is starting to get very thin in places & you might have to walk your boat over the shallows.

Wind can be a real bear sometimes too. Had a couple of times it would blow my drift boat upriver on the lower mile or two. Can make for a very long day.

good fishun

[M BASS]

John Day River Smallies. what do you float in do you need a driftboat? i have wanted to make that trip but don't know anyone in that area and I have heard that it can be a hard float.

[K-Mac]

A friend and I floated from Service Creek to Twickenham last July. We each have a 10 foot creek company pontoon which worked great. We floated it towards the end of July and we started off with less than 100 cfs at Service Creek. We floated to Russo Rapids. We had to dodge rocks at every rapid and we had to stand up and drag our toons in many places. Russo was nothing more than huge boulders that we had to drag our pontoon through. The water is still flowing pretty fast through there so that made it difficult. We each caught at least 80 smallies that day with a couple 3 pounders.

The second day was fun but there are tons of mine fields from Russo to Twickenham with several slow deep water sections. Day two was tough but still doable at low water. The heat was the hard part. It was well over hundred both days.

My advice is anything less than 500 cfs at Service Creek, use a pontoon boat. You can stradle alot of rocks where you can't in a raft.

[B.J. Lilly Hunter]

On the John Day if you want a chance at bigger bass, float it in April-June. If you want a chance at 100+ bass a day fish it mid July-August. I would also agree that 1200cfs would be the minimum for a drift boat.

[Beerbelly]

Welcome!!!! Fished JohnDAY, But found bigger sm in a better place, So now I fish it. :smile: