Greg, Allan, and Ken: Snake River - 8/3-5/2025

Back to the Snake River for fabulous fishing. We camped at the Devil’s Bench campground just above Lower Monumental Dam on Herbert G West. This facility is primative at best for camping. There is no shade trees, no running water, and no power hook ups. But camping is free and the boat launch is decent.

Sunday: Allan and I arrived late Sunday afternoon. It was 96 degrees when we launched the boat at 530 pm. We motored upstream several miles and jigged up nine 15 inch walleyes in a small bay with weeds and rocks. We trolled crankbaits and picked up another 2 walleyes before heading in around 8 pm. All walleyes released.

Monday: Ken joined us for the day and displayed his fishing supremacy. He caught 25 walleyes between 830 am and 3 pm. He got big fish for the day at 24 inches (released). Our total walleye count for the day was 52 walleyes along with a bunch of smallmouth bass and perch. We cleaned 23 walleyes in the 16 to 21 inch range. Ken is a dominant bottom bouncer fisherman. He used the same chartruese Smile Blade with chartruese beads and a wedding ring for the entire day. Every spot we tried produced walleyes from depths between 15 and 35 feet. West winds blew 15 to 25 mph all day behind a cold front that caused temps to be 15 degrees cooler than Sunday. We burned through 7 dozen night crawlers.

Tuesday: With our worm supply almost completely depleted, Allan and I had to be creative on Tuesday. Our 6 remaining crawlers lasted just 30 minutes. Plastic baits infused with scent were not productive. Scent sprays didn’t work either. We did save strips of walleye meat we zipped from fish we cleaned Monday. That “cut bait” was effective tipping jigs, but didn’t produce much on a crawler harness. We ended the day with 13 walleyes and several perch and smallmouth. All fish released.