Outdoors | Hot day of fishing surprises on the Hanford Reach

It’s a hot summer day in late July. I take that back. At 112 degrees, it is the hottest day of the summer.

I motor my Hewescraft upriver past three-story houses with elaborate roof lines, landslides that slump into the river, and leafy apple orchards.

A pair of eastern kingbirds flutter after moth-like caddisflies that swarm above overhanging alder.

What’s missing is a line-up of boats anchored along the shoreline, as they were during the heyday of the Sockeye run.

An empty launch greeted at midmorning when I arrived at what my friend Greg calls “ham and egg time.”

The day is without expectation, but I am prepared for action with five rods and three gear bags onboard. The plan is to troll for walleye, toss plugs for smallmouth bass, and possibly anchor up for a chance at a tardy sockeye.

It’s good to be on the river after looking out the window with the air conditioner on full blast.

Reports of walleye caught in the lower Snake River tempt, but with gas $5 a gallon I don’t feel like hauling a boat and trailer that far. Plus, plying my luck in the Hanford Reach, a place where I have worked and played for almost five decades, is more interesting.

Today’s bait includes a dozen nightcrawlers picked up at a mini-mart. Fishing for walleye without crawlers is like going to church without a pledge envelope to put in the collection plate.

You feel inadequate. At 40 cents apiece I could easily supplement my retirement income by picking worms from the lawn except I don’t remember the last time it rained hard enough to saturate the soil and bring them to the surface.

This part-time walleye angler gets serious when he hooks a nightcrawler behind a Smile Blade and trolls downstream at 1 mph. Not so serious I hooked up my bow mount though.

Halfway down Johnson Island, the bottom walker hangs up. No matter, I turn the boat around with a thrust of the kicker motor and work back upstream.

My rig comes off the bottom then gets stuck again. Then it moves. Line peels from my level-wind as the pointy nose and round body of a huge fish erupts from the water’s surface.

The reel sings like an alto saxophone on steroids when the fish blitzes counter-current and jumps again. This time I get a good look at what is a white sturgeon.

I motor after it and we go back-and-forth, round-and-round, and up-and-down for the next half hour or so.

Drifting downstream to the 300 area, I work the fish close, remove the leading hook from its bulbous lower lip, watch it burp air and admire its primordial beauty as it swims out of sight. The 46-inch-long sturgeon was keeper size for waters upstream of The Dalles Dam, except the Reach is catch-and-release.

I could declare victory and head home, but instead I dump a bucket of 66-degree Columbia River water on my head and soak my T-shirt to lower body temperature to a safe range.

With water level dropping, smallmouth bass should be active around shallow weed beds and boulder piles. However, when 20 minutes of casting does not provide enough action to warrant heat stroke, I head downriver.

I anchor up, let out two spinner rigs baited with coon shrimp, and put the canvas boat top up to provide an illusion of coolness. No sooner do I grab a sandwich and a bag of chips from the cooler when the inside rod tip twitches.

Then it bounces. I watch as if hypnotized before lifting the rod from the holder to feel the pull of a strong fish.

Some days you don’t know what species of fish is on the end of your line until you net it.

More than once I’ve been fooled by the take of a 5-pound largescale sucker. Walleye grab spinners that have a piece of attached protein. A wandering smallmouth bass, pikeminnow, or channel catfish also strike shiny lures.

This fish means business, which eliminated walleye and pikeminnow. Both give up early.

My expectation rises when it runs towards the middle of the river and makes a slashing turn at the surface.

I hope it is a summer-run Chinook salmon, but to my surprise a 9-pound hatchery steelhead succumbs to pressure and is led to the side of the boat. I release it gently with the hope enough steelhead will return to the Reach for the season to open under statewide general rules on Oct. 1.

A boatload of teens floats by on the other side of the river.

Heads bob and arms splash in the leeward side of their pontoon boat. Loud screams and laughter drift my direction. “What a great way to spend the hottest day of the year!” one young lady shouts to her companions.

My sentiments exactly. No finer way to spend a 100+ degree day than having fun on the Reach.

Dennis Dauble is a local author of five books about fish and fishing. Contact him at his website DennisDaubleBooks.com.