There is no doubt that the invasive nature of smallmouth bass and their rapid spread have been at the root of liberalized regulations over their catch and retention. For 2025, when fishing in rivers and streams, there are no size limits and no bag limits, and anglers can keep any smallmouth they catch. There are also no tackle restrictions and essentially every type of bait and lure is acceptable.
The rapid proliferation and impacts on anadromous species have alarmed and become of great concern to fisheries managers, who have found measurable declines in salmon stocks that they attributed to the explosion of smallmouth. On the Coquille River, the situation is critical – all the statewide regulations apply, but you can also skin dive and spearfish for smallmouth.
No longer a novelty
Once a novelty, it has only taken a handful of decades for smallmouth bass to carve their own niche in Oregon’s angling landscape with no reasonable way to halt their spread.
The liberalized regulations around smallmouth bass apply only to rivers. For 2025, on lakes, ponds and reservoirs, there is still a daily bag limit of five bass of any species in combination. Also, no more than three fish can be larger than 15 inches in length.
Of all the sunfish species, largemouth bass are generally more numerous in Oregon’s lowland lakes and ponds. But smallmouths, with the help of humans, have begun to show up in many of western Oregon’s aquatic habitats and will likely dominate those habitats in just a few years. But they remain included in stillwater regulations.
Having worked their way up the Willamette River from Portland, where they were illegally planted sometime around 1920, smallmouth now occupy every single Willamette River tributary up past Cottage Grove on the Coast Fork and to Lookout Point Reservoir on the North Fork.
With the exception of the McKenzie River, what we know about the upper Willamette drainages is that they have their fair share of toxins, some created by past industrial practices. Toxins such as arsenic, which naturally occur in the region’s geology.
Warnings about consuming bass caught from both Dorena and Cottage Grove reservoirs have been in place for over 40 years, primarily because of their high arsenic content. Both reservoirs are also the water source of the Willamette’s Coast Fork. Before gathering in the main Willamette as it passes through one of Oregon’s largest urban communities, Eugene/Springfield, where stormwater runoff also adds a measure of additional pollution.
Smallmouth issues
Of concern to humans, as a resident species, smallmouth bass quickly reaches the top of the river food chain and a big smallmouth is not very selective about what it eats. Their diet includes (but is not limited to) aquatic insects, other fish and even small birds and ducklings. Their status as an upper food chain predator makes them like a biological centrifuge that concentrates the toxins from their watery habitats and from what they consume in those environments.
It truly is a conundrum for fisheries managers concerned about their spread into traditional salmonid rivers. Few people in Oregon actually eat smallmouth bass. Most, including myself, are concerned about their toxicity, and release all the smallmouth we catch. Likely adding to their persistent advance in western Oregon rivers. I’ll add that, when compared to steelhead, salmon, or even hatchery trout, there is no comparison in taste.
A guilty pleasure? Absolutely, especially if one considers the negative impacts. But admittedly, smallmouth are just downright fun to catch. Their aggressive nature makes them vulnerable to a number of tackle preferences, lures, and presentation styles. My preference is always the simplicity of an 8wt. fly rod and reel, coupled to a fly I innovated back in the 1980s for Umpqua smallmouth. “The Loop Special” is a relatively large bug, heavily weighted and tied on a 4/0 steelhead hook. A simple copper beard-headed fly with a purple chenille body, white legs and tail, wrapped in copper wire. Similar in design to a “girdle bug” – a fly innovated back in the 1930s, but with updated materials.
Plastic worms would be my next choice. My early introduction to bass fishing was from a traditionalist, Doug Baxter, who once owned a bass specialty shop in Eugene, and I still enjoy flipping a plastic worm from a casting rod. My favorite for river smallmouth is a 6-inch worm on a 2/0 bass hook, colored in root beer, purple, or black with a chartreuse tail. Lastly, I always rig up “drop shot” style and find I collect less river moss and also snag less often.
Email Frank: [email protected]
