Angler Sets New One Day Smallmouth Record On Oregon’s John Day River

The day started with a prayer.

The two guides and their four clients huddled together on the shore of Oregon’s John Day River in the early morning of August 23. All was in readiness for them to step into the two drift boats from which they would drift downstream and fish for smallmouth bass for the remainder of the day.

One of those men was a pastor from the Tacoma area. He led the others in prayer that morning before the trip got under way. Then two of the anglers climbed into one boat and the two others joined their guide in a second boat. They didn’t know it at the time, but when that trip was to wind up in the evening one of those four anglers would have shattered a record that had stood for 13 years.

I don’t have to go into detail in introducing knowledgeable Pacific Northwest anglers to Steve Fleming. This veteran guide operates Mah-Hah Outfitters out of Fossil, Oregon. For 13 years he and the guides who work for him have maintained an exacting record of the number of smallmouth their clients put in the boats.

I’m not exaggerating when I say Fleming maintains an “exacting” record. I’ve watched Steve and the guides who work for him do it on several occasions. Climb into a drift boat with one of them and you’ll note what looks like a wristwatch strapped to the handle of each of the boat’s oars. Watches they’re not. Examine one at close range and you’ll find it’s one of those little deals designed for golfers to wear so they can easily keep track of their strokes.

Steve and his guides use them to keep that exact record of fish boated I mentioned earlier.

What I’ve just had to say is important. Why? Because when Steve Fleming tells you how many fish one or another of his clients has caught on any given day----that’s exactly how it is. No ifs, ands, buts or wishful thinking. The man is meticulous in the way he conducts his entire Mah-Hah operation and that applies in spades to recording the number of fish caught.

The record set on that trip last August was for the most smallmouth boated by one angler in a single day. The angler who did it was Dean Manello, from Washington State. From the time the trip started about 7 a.m. until take out time at 6 p.m. Manello landed an almost unbelievable 250 smallmouth bass!

“This is the most fish caught by an angler on any one day since we started keeping records 13 years ago,” Fleming says. “Dean was fishing with Skip Geer, our lead guide, during his record setting day.”

It’s not uncommon for anglers to crack the 100 fish mark while fishing with Steve and his guides. Fleming maintains a record of the anglers who have earned membership in the “Mah-Hah Outfitters 100 Fish Or More Club.” If you want to get a complete run down on the astounding numbers of smallmouth the John Day produces, visit Steve’s Internet web site. You’ll find it at www.johndayriverfishing,com.

As soon as I heard about the new Mah-Hah record I called Steve to get the details. “I think it was mainly a combination of three things,” he told me. “Those three things were the right time, the best bait and the most effective fish scent.”

Fleming went on to say that the day before Manello’s trip, the Fossil area had a horrific storm with lots of lighting, thunder and rain. Evidently that put those aggressive John Day smallmouth temporarily out of action. They made up for it the next day when Manello set the record.

It pleases me to tell you the bait on which Manello caught almost all of his fish. The lure was a 5-inch plastic worm. The name of that deadly little bait is the Outlaw Baits Rippleworm. It’s manufactured right here in my hometown of Florence, Oregon.

I say that’s particularly pleasing to me because I introduced Fleming to that lure when I fished with him in June. I’ve knocked heck out of bass with it myself. Steve knows a good thing when he sees it. He has been rigging his clients up with similar lures ever since I showed It to him. “The Rippleworm has been our best plastic bait from the time we started using it,” he says. He finds it especially effective in the Outlaw Baits black and bluegill colors.

The scent Fleming favors is Smelly Jelly. “Whenever the water temperature in the John Day tops 58 degrees,” Fleming says, “I do especially well by mixing equal parts of Smelly Jelly’s craw/anise and anchovy scents. That’s what we applied to the Rippleworms Dean used to set the new record.”

I’ve been in Steve’s boat myself when my partner and I collectively boated more than 150 fish on a one-day trip. There weren’t many “dead” spots that day. Darn near all day long one of us was either playing a fish; turning one loose or watching one throw the hook. I’ll bet Dean Manello’s wrists were complaining a little bit at the end at the end of his record setting day. He had to have been one busy dude to catch and release 250 fish all by himself.

God willing, I’ll have the wondrous good fortune to share a boat with both Steve and Skip again next year. I’ll ask the others to join in a prayer of my own before we make our first cast. No, it won’t be to set a new record for fish caught. What it will do is ask for God’s blessing on my friend Steve and his Mah-Hah guides and to say a deeply heartfelt thanks just for the chance to be there.

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