Story Photos
 A small mouth bass takes a Bass Assassin lure on the Umpqua River near Elkton, Ore. The Umpqua River is one of the most productive small bass fisheries in the West. Jamie Lusch / (Medford) Mail Tribune
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Bounty of bass leaps from the Umpqua in Southern Oregon
Thursday, September 4, 2008 11:32 PM PDT
By Mark Freeman
(Medford) Mail Tribune
Printable version
E-mail this articleELKTON, Ore. — Katelyn Rolen’s right finger releases its grip on the lower lip of a 13-inch smallmouth bass, sending the fish tumbling back into the Umpqua River as she reaches for her clicker.
“Number 34,” says Katelyn, 12, as she clicks the golf scorekeeper that guide Todd Hannah has in his driftboat for just such occasions. “I need this to keep score.”
And it isn’t even lunchtime yet.
“She’s been doing that all morning,” says Dalton Rolen, her grandfather, as he waits for the next smallmouth to wiggle his rod tip. “No doubt she’ll do it some more.”
Catching and releasing bushels of bass comes easily to Katelyn and other Umpqua summer anglers who are taking advantage of one of the West’s top bass fisheries in this storied steelhead stream.
The one-time illegal alien that over the decades has turned into the Umpqua’s Favorite Son of summer, bass populations have exploded among salmon and steelhead to create a celebrated summer fishery for anglers in need of few skills to rack up huge catches.
During warm August days, triple-digit catches are the norm for those plying the Umpqua’s lazy waters, where thousands of fish ranging from a few inches to 8 pounds await to pounce on any offering.
Everything from bass flies or surface lures to lightly weighted plastic worms bounced off the bottom will catch fish.
Katelyn doesn’t even need to learn how to cast a spinning reel to find smallmouth. All she needs to do is drop her small jig overboard, let it wiggle along the Umpqua’s ledgy rock bottom and keep that clicker within reach.
“That’s the secret — find the bottom, reel once, shake it a little bit and, bang, you got a fish,” Hannah says.
Many Umpqua traditionalists believed their salmon and steelhead fisheries might disappear 44 years ago when the voracious predators first reared their hungry mouths in the Umpqua, a wild steelhead stream made famous by the likes of Zane Grey.
No one knows for sure how smallmouth first got in the river, but most piscatorial pundits trace the Umpqua’s smallmouth genesis to the region’s 1964 flood, when surging flows overran scores of farm ponds — at least one of which probably contained smallmouth.
The first clusters of bass somehow found their way into the mainstem Umpqua or the South Umpqua, a major tributary whose mouth is near Roseburg. The nonnative invaders found the warm summer confines of the mainstem and the South Umpqua much to their liking.
It wasn’t long before steelhead anglers started catching bass, and found that some of them belched up smolts — young salmon and steelhead — heading to the sea. Worry spread among Umpqua faithful and state fishery biologists who feared the smallmouth would overrun the basin and displace salmon and trout.
“When they first showed up, there was talk here and by biologists of using rotenone to get them out,” says Hannah, referring to the common fish-killing poison used to cleanse unwanted species in Oregon for decades.
Over time, the species carved out a niche for itself.
When smolts move through the mainstem Umpqua in the spring, the flows are high and cool and the smallmouth are largely dormant. In summer, when the predatory smallmouth are patrolling in force, juvenile salmon and steelhead gravitate toward tributary streams or cooler water higher in the basin.
An Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife study concluded that small salmon and steelhead make up only a minor component of a smallmouth’s summer diet, which is filled mainly with infant shad and crayfish. But little other research has been done on the competing Umpqua fisheries.
“Smallmouth are definitely here and continue to spread, so we’d love to do a smallmouth survey,” says Laura Jackson, a biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s office in Roseburg. “It would be nice to do something when the smolts were coming through.”
Hannah’s father, Denny Hannah, is considered the first guide to turn the bass’s presence into a positive experience. He set up his first smallmouth camp near Elkton in 1980, shepherding the first few anglers down the lazy Umpqua in driftboats.
By that decade’s end, smallmouth had become a summer staple, earning the Umpqua a nod from Sports Afield as one of the country’s premier smallmouth fisheries.
Begrudgingly, Southern Oregon denizens began to accept the carpetbagging bass.
“The local people started tolerating them when people from all over the country started coming here to fish for them,” says Hannah, who has plied the Umpqua for smallmouth for 25 years.
The Rolens, residents of San Jose, Calif., discovered the Umpqua after friends of Katelyn’s father, Dave Rolen, talked up the fishery after a July outing around Elkton west of Interstate 5.
“I heard of the fish counts and the drift down the river sounded relaxing,” says Dave Rolen, a refrigeration technician. “The fishing’s fun. And just the scenery is phenomenal.”
The mountains and swirling osprey, however, do little to impress Katelyn like the 16-inch smallmouth she holds by the lip.
“I’m at 50,” she says, beaming.
Hannah implores her to give No. 50 a kiss. Katelyn gives the universal “yuk” face and drops her catch. Hannah barely touches the oars before Dalton Rolen pulls a 10-inch smallmouth over the driftboat’s transom.
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If you go:
Smallmouth bass fishing is hottest on the Umpqua River near Elkton from June through early September, when water temperatures begin to cool.
Focus on pools, eddies and slow waters with ledgy bottoms. Bass tend to avoid swifter water.
In the mornings, top-water baits like Spooks or Bass Assassins that imitate infant shad work extremely well. When the sun is on the water, one-tenth of an ounce jigs with chartreuse, purple and pumpkinseed worms work very well. Cast and jig off the bottom, or fish straight off the bottom from a driftboat.
Six-pound test line tied straight to the jig or hook is best, and an ultra-light rod is perfect.
The limit is 10 bass a day, but most anglers release their catch.
Public access is sporadic, with Osprey Park, James Park and Yellow Creek boat ramps best for driftboaters.
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