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This report is specifically for last Wednesday, but due to my lack of reporting I wanted to mention a few fishing trips from my last month of fishing. May was busy and I worked two ten day stretches, so fishing was a little slow for me. I did make it out on the Snake and Palouse a handful of times however. Early in May (13th and 15th) I tried to find some prespawn smallmouth in the Snake. With the water at 58 degrees at the time, two evening trips resulted in two fish (one pictured, 1.5 lbs) and lots of soft bites.

After these trips I started working so didn't get out much. I found some crappie in the Palouse during this time. Fished about three or four evenings and managed to boat about ten crappie total with a handful of bass and bluegill mixed in. These were found in the coves around the old state park area, with water temps in the high 60's at the time. Following the crappie fishing which tapered off at the end of May, I went in search of some cats.

I zeroed out in the catfish department, spending a whole day up the Palouse (May 30th) in search of them. I started with worms. Was getting very small taps on 1/0 hooks, with nothing sticking. Switched to smaller hooks and started slaying bluegill and perch, probably ended with about 20 plus caught. Ended up using these as cut bait in tailouts and glides, but no takers.

Finally last week I got into some decent fishing. With the Palouse warming to the upper 60's low 70's I figured it was time to seriously target bass. Fished the shorelines and found fish in transition zones from brushy to rocky and around barely noticeable coves and points. Ended up with around 20 fish caught, with a majority released to grow bigger (8 to 10 inch average). Kept six nice fish over 12 inches. Bonus catch was a 17 inch walleye that just nailed my crank.

Thought I finally had a decent bass from this area, but ended up being the eye. No complaints here. Hooked something big on a grub that ran deep and came off. My guess is cat as I've caught cats on this grub before and it didn't have the right amount of zest for a smallie. Had one rod rigged with a Rat-L-Trap and one with various soft plastics (mainly one form or another of curly tail grubs). Hot colors were green/watermelon for the plastics and orange/gold on the cranks.

Tight lines all!

SnoKing

6/20/2014 8:23:00 PM

Fishman, I nice mixed bag for sure and better than coming up short.

I've been over at the Palouse twice this year; one around mid May and then again just after June 1st. Both times I got zilch for cats. Water temp did come up after June to about 62 and I thought maybe they might be up the Palouse as opposed to where it dumps out on to the flats.
Tried worms, liver, cut fish, about everything I had and still no blues; only those pesky yellows. Last year at the same time I had a great time catching 16 pounder, 11 pounder, and a herd of 2 to 4 pounders all of which were released. My fear is that we have too many people taking too many home and depleting the run keeping in mind that the cats are spawning about this time. That 16 pounder was a hen chuck full of eggs judging from her girth.

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