I was able to make good on a promise to Take my good friend Jim Arvidson of Grandview out walleye and smallmouth bass fishing up in the Crow Butte/Alderdale section of the Columbia River this weekend. I was jumping at the chance to give some of my new custom poured3.5" Matador Sculpin jigs a try so I could get some good photos for an upcoming article in the works for Bass Angler magazine. Jim and I drove his awesomely decked out Lund walleye boat down to Crow Butte park only to find 40 + plus rigs parked there. It was a zoo of sorts, only comparable to Drano Lake in Late August! Still we did our best to find some elusive wally gators for the fry pan. The bite was unusually slow for this time of year and we missed a couple walleyes early trolling fire tiger wedding rings on a 1.5 oz. bottom bouncers. I managed to put a nice 25" walleye keeper in the boat. Man did she put up a scrap! Still, we had 5 different boats push us out of the walleye spot so Jim and I decided to fish the main river to the west for smallmouth bass. We managed to put together a productive pattern by tossing My custom made 3.5" matador Sculpin jigs toward the shore bank rip rap- rigged on a 1/8th oz specialty jig head. The watermelon pepper and smoke pepper sculpins with a chartruse tail were the hot baits. I rated the day as a 4 because of the Ginormous 3 pound plus average size of the bass we put in the boat. It made for some great photos to submit for the Bass Angler article for sure. Hope to make it back down there when the weather cools a bit. It was 98 degrees when we pulled out at 3:30 p.m. (A lot of guys are killing the bass on my sample packs of sculpn jigs.) Tight lines brothers. Jiggy

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