Bing cherries on the tree -- and about to make the short trip to my mouth.
I had high hopes for Bass-O-Rama this past weekend.
My partner, Heather, was harvesting cherries at a family orchard upstream of the Columbia River's John Day Dam, and great smallmouth bass water is a short walk from the fruit trees. I sometimes feel bad about strolling off with fishing tackle when everyone else is working, but an angler has to be strong sometimes.
This rocky stretch of river -- what part of the Columbia River isn't rocky? -- has the perfect mix of ledges, weedbeds, current seams and dropoffs. It also swarms with ultra-aggressive, red-eyed smallmouth bass. I arrived late on Friday night, but the very air seemed to carry the mixed scent of biting bass -- and ripe cherries.
Heather, who gets up at the wicked, foolish hour of 4:15 a.m. on harvest days -- never mind it is still too dark to see the doggone fruit -- advised me Saturday morning that the wind was howling. I got up -- about three hours later -- and the wind was ripping down the river. Swells pounded my favorite rocky banks, and casting a fly rod and gurgling, chugging popper would have been foolish.
In fact, I didn't even give it a shot. I spent the day hiking around the orchard and eating handfuls of cherries picked right off the tree. Blood-red Bing cherries dripped off overloaded branches, and the whole red-and-green color scheme reminded me of Christmas.
When I looked at the river, I was reminded of a stormy Pacific Ocean.
My eyes popped open on Sunday morning to the sound of lighter winds. I jumped into my clothes, and sauntered into the living room, where Heather and her parents greeted my arrival with complete astonishment.
"I'm going fishing," I explained. No one was surprised at that.
The river still looked a little rough, and the breeze was cold. Rick, Heather's dad, reminded me that a backwater a few miles away was in the lee of steep ridges. I was there in less than 10 minutes. The backwater is narrow, as steep slopes rise from the banks. It was cold -- but calm.
I rigged up near a jumble of bones and deer hair. A mule deer fawn had died a few weeks before, and not much was left of the carcass. This is hard, scrabbly sagebrush and basalt country, and scavangers had quickly consumed all there was to eat. Now, white, sun-bleached bone gleamed through gray patches of gray hair.
I shivered and wished I'd brought a fleece instead of a cotton sweatshirt. But it was good to be on the water before the sun popped over the rimrock and blasted the bass into the greeny depths.
I hiked up the ridge and scanned the water below. Smallmouth bass hovered near clumps of rocks and ledges. There it was -- Bass-O-Rama -- and just a day late. I eased down to the water, tied on one of the poppers my friend Dwight Caron recently gave me and dropped a cast near a clump of big boulders.
Two chugs, and that popper vanished in swirling whitewater. A foot-long smallmouth was at my feet a couple minutes later. I rock-hopped a few feet and made another cast. Another smallmouth -- bigger and fatter --whacked the fly.
Yes!
I got out my camera to take a photo of the bass, and it wouldn't work. A message on the screen -- isn't it weird that everything has an electronic screen these days? -- said: "Insert New Power Pack."
The "New Power Pack" was about 70 miles away in Hood River. I, foolishly, was attempting to travel light.
I let the fish go, and figured I would surely now catch the 20-inch-long, 5-pound smallmouth that I've wanted for a couple of years. In my weird belief system, things like this happen when the camera is at home or not working.
A gust of icy wind hit my face. Then another gust. And then it started to really blow. All this happened in seconds. I tried a cast -- and hooked my own hat.
Bass-O-Rama would have to wait a few more weeks. Smallmouth bass fishing from the Columbia River shoreline is good all summer -- especially early in the mornings. And this day was the first day of summer -- although it felt like late October.
But knowing that months of good fishing are ahead took the bad taste out of the bitter wind.
I rock-hopped back to the car and headed for those trees dripping with sweet, tart fruit.
