Entries by Dennis Dauble
One last bass before the sun goes down
My fishing buddy is a liar. Unlike other anglers I know, he does not fib about location or the size and number of bass he catches. He also does not fabricate descriptions of lures he uses, water clarity, or temperature. This information is readily shared after he enters it into a spread sheet for the […]
Sockeye fishing in the Hanford Reach requires patience
It’s high noon and discharge at Priest Rapids Dam is 100,000 cubic feet per second., I drop my anchor in 10 feet of water and put two rods out. Each is baited with a red prawn on a double-hook rig, above which spins a pink-and-silver Mack’s Smile Blade behind a six-inch dodger. My preference […]
Rafting the Wallowa for Redside Rainbows
Our summer float trip on northeastern Oregon’s Wallowa River started off with Ken admitting that he had left a large bag of fresh-made cookies on the kitchen counter. “How many did you make?” Ted asked. “Sixty. They’re chocolate chip,” Ken replied. We were 15 minutes down the road. I did the math […]
A Century of Smallmouth Bass in the Mid-Columbia
“Toss a spinner over by that rock pile,” my supervisor said. “Big bass move into this backwater slough to spawn.” As his subordinate, I felt obligated to obey. The 3½-pound smallmouth bass hooked on my first cast served as a rousing introduction to a fish whose fighting prowess has destroyed more than one cheap spinning […]