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I have been a little disappointed with this pond at Klinline park in Vancouver, Washington. Usually, I can count on it to produce several quality largemouth and other species . However, I fished it hard Friday evening with nothing to show for several hours. Not even a nibble. I threw plastics, Rooster tail's, Rapala's and topwater poppers. Nothing. Came back the next morning, got there a little later than I wanted and the sun was already high in the sky, sending the fish deep. Managed this nice bass off of the shore on the Dinger , but nothing else. Here's a little close-up action on this guy, great fish. Klineline (Salmon Creek Park) has some decent fish, but they can be tough to find. If anyone else has caught largemouth there, send me some pics, I'd love to see them.

Another fishing trip, another catch. I don't know if it is the cooler mornings or the earlier sunset, but the bass fishing at this pond at Salmon Creek Park in Vancouver, Washington, hasn't been the best lately. However, the big northern pikeminnow (previously called "squawfish" until such nomenclature was deemed insensitive) still come out to play, smashing the Senko clones with abandon. This guy was 16 inches, on one of my last casts of the day. I set the hook, battled him for a bit, then the line went totally limp. Sighing, I reeled in the slack-only to discover he was still on the line, he had just been swimming right towards me! This was on last Thursday, haven't been back to the pond since. I went out fishing again on Saturday, with a friend, to a spot near Vancouver Lake. We both had watercraft-his was a kayak, mine the Sevylor Fish Hunter. I managed a grand total of one lost Yum Dinger and zero fish landed; he got two largemouth bass. Good times!

Got these monsters today at a pond near Klineline on Salmon Creek Park in Vancouver, Washington. I was fishing for bass, but ended up trying the deeper water instead of my usual shallow water haunts. I need to try a dropshot rig at this location, but I was still rockin ' the 4'' Yum Dinger on a Texas Rig. Had a few small largemouth tackle the lure and a sunfish engulf it, but these Northern Pikeminnow really stole the show. Both struck near the shore, just around dusk, ripped drag, but never went airborne. Smaller one was just over 13'', biggest was pushing 17'', definitely my PB pikeminnow . Interestingly enough, you can actually get paid to catch the much-hated pikeminnow if you catch it in the Columbia River. A partnership between the Bonneville Power company and the WDFW pays $4 per fish over 9''. Some anglers have reportedly made over $40,000 a year just catching these baby salmon-killers.

1.5 hours, 7 fish landed, 4 lost, all from the bank. Biggest sculpin I've seen in a long time. Nailed a Yum Dinger hard. Caught two of these big northern pikeminnows, both on the Dinger. Really a surprise, a little dissapointed they weren't big bass. Still, they pulled super hard, unlike most pikeminnows I catch. Never had 'em hit a Senko-style lure before. This one in the above pic was 15 inches. This is the biggest largemouth that this park has ever produced for me, sitting at 14 inches. Not huge, but a monster compared to the dinks that I usually catch here. Good fight on 4lb test. Klineline pond and the surrounding waterways in Salmon Creek Park continue to surprise me with largemouth bass. I've lost some pretty big ones here but hopefully I'll connect and actually land them on my next trip.

Got these little tykes off a weedline at one of the Salmon Creek Park Ponds. So far, I have managed to catch largemouth bass at but one of the ponds at this park. The main pond, Klineline, has been the hardest to crack, I'm still working on that one. Clear water, loads of pressure, not much cover. Oh, and I lost a really big one today, also on this Yum Dinger, 4''. Never even got to see it before it took off and threw the hook.

There is one pond at Salmon Creek Park, in Vancouver, that I can never seem to catch any bass at. I have seen bass, had bass bite my lures, even found a dead 6 lb largemouth in the shallows with a big heron wound on its side, yet never landed one myself. Finally, at dusk, I caught this guy on a Yum Dinger. Dink? Totally. Still glad to shake the bass skunk at that pond.

Oh Hai ? Salmon Creek Park is full of turtles. In elementary school, we used to watch videos of endangered sea turtles laying their eggs on beaches. It would seem that the common freshwater turtles in the Pacific Northwest do the same thing. I've lost track of how many times I have stumbled across a female turtle, digging a hole near Salmon Creek for its eggs.

Salmon Creek Park, in Clark County, Washington, is loaded with small ponds. Some hold hardly any fish, others have all kinds of different species. The main pond, referred to as Klineline Pond, gets stocked with loads of rainbow trout every year and subsequently receives insanely heavy fishing pressure. There also is a lot of bluegills and other sunfish in it, and some huge bass, but they are quite hard to reach. I love exploring Salmon Creek and the ponds in the park. I've found some spots with loads of bass eager to bite. Most are dinks, like this guy, not much bigger than the Yum Dinger I got it on. Still, they put up a nice fight on light tackle, and there are some much bigger specimens available too. Most of the ponds are really weedy, so you really have to work to present your lure to the fish. Here's a report from one of my most recent trips: Another 45 minutes to spare for some fishing in the evening. The closet spot was the Salmon Creek Park ponds, so I grabbed the ge...