By the dawn’s early light we headed east to Krumbo Reservoir. It was late June, too late for good trout fishing, though Nolan King managed to land one anyway. I let 12-year-old Paxton knot an orange Stan’s Spin to his line.

He fired the spinnerbait left, right and center in a fan from the bank and finally nailed a small bass. The boys, Sam, Nolan and Paxton, spread out along the bank, while Don Kagey and I watched to make sure they didn’t fall in, get bit by a rattler or carried off by mosquitoes.

Over the rimrocks we watched Paxton bring the spinnerbait along a submerged ledge. A five-pound bass followed out of the dark water then turned away. Paxton didn’t see him.

On his next cast, Paxton raised a different bass that clamped on the bait’s rubber skirt then spit it back out. He saw that one.

“You’ve caught bass before, haven’t you,” I asked Paxton.

“Not that big,” he said, eyeing the one-pound largemouth lying in the rocks in three feet of water.

“Well let’s get him.”

For the next half-hour, Don and I rummaged through my box and Paxton tried the gear we recommended. The fish wanted to bite the Stan’s Spin, but nothing else we tried. We rested the fish in between baits, then worked him again.

It was a three-inch blue plastic Berkley PowerBait rigged on a No. 8 red Daiichi hook that proved his undoing. On every other cast, the fish would grab the bait then blow it out. After about a dozen tries, the hook stuck. The fish rocketed into the air, the red hook and blue minnow waving like Old Glory.

Krumbo Reservoir is located 45 miles south of Burns on Highway 205. If you’ve heard how fast Krumbo’s trout grow, you might guess that the lake is capable of producing big largemouth. You’d be right.

There is good bank access, but the best bet is to take a small boat with an electric motor (gas motors are not allowed). Stay on the move and cast to the weedbeds and shoreline tules.

It isn’t as easy to find good largemouth bass fishing in Central Oregon as it was in southwest Washington and the Willamette Valley where I grew up. But I’ve caught the biggest bass of my life in the waters east of the Cascades. My biggest largemouth came from the mouth of the John Day, while we were fishing for smallmouth.

My best day ever was on Crane Prairie Reservoir with Brett Dennis a few years ago. Casting trout-size swim baits and crank baits, I landed a dozen four- and five-pound bass in 30 minutes. At each grab, the fish rocketed into the air to walk on its tail, then surged toward the trees to wrap the line in the standing timber.

This year, fly-fishing-only Davis Lake has had the hot bass bite. We hit it on a blue sky mid-May day with Howard Abshere of Central Oregon Stillwater Outfitters. I used my 9-weight rod and 50 yards of 25-pound test monofilament. Howard, balanced on his toes on the edge of the boat, opted for a 10-weight.

Bass are reaction biters. Usually you’ll get them on the first good cast to cover, or not at all. Our flies were seven-inch blue and purple bunny leeches with heavy lead eyes.

Using a trolling motor, we eased along the tules. I cast at the edge while Howard flipped his leech into tiny openings between the reeds.

Sometimes we’d see the fish and cast to it, sometimes we’d see a swirl or watch the tules shake as a five-pounder shouldered in. The first grab felt like a tick in the line that shivered through the rod. I drove the hook home and the fish surged toward the weeds. With the 25-pound test, I kept him out of the brush. We boated four each that morning.

The last one I caught was looking to the sky. We found a reed mat at the back of a cove. As soon as we were in range, I fired my bunny leech onto the mat, let it sit for a second, then hopped it into the water. The surface exploded as the fish locked on, then launched on his tail.

As the water has warmed, the latest reports have been of 25-fish days at places like Davis, Crane Prairie and Krumbo. Big poppers and bunny leeches are the best bet for the fly rod set.

If you want fireworks and aerial displays, it’s hard to beat largemouth bass. Especially early and late in the day, when they’re oriented toward the surface, almost every grab blasts them skyward.