Welcome to our John Day River Fishing Home Page
The John Day River starts in the Strawberry Mountains in Central East Oregon and ends at the Columbia River. It flows more than 280 miles making it the northwest’s longest free flowing river, except for the last 2 miles. The John Day River is a tributary of the Columbia River and it is one of the better smallmouth bass rivers to fish in the west. On some parts of the river, it is not uncommon to catch 50 to 100 bass a day and if you follow the fishing reports, you will see some crazy reports where a couple of anglers catch 200 plus bass in a single day. Most of the smallmouth bass will run small with 8 to 12 inchers being the norm, but there are plenty of big bass in this river as well. You will just have to sort through a lot of smaller bass to catch some of the bigger bass.