Oregon Open at Celilo

The Oregon Open at Celilo stages April 11 and 12, 2026, at Celilo Pool Boat Ramp in The Dalles, Oregon, placing a two-day bass fishing tournament organised by The Bass Federation on the Columbia River‘s Celilo Pool, a section of the river that occupies one of the most historically charged freshwater sites in the American Pacific Northwest. The Celilo Pool formed behind The Dalles Dam, completed in 1957, and in doing so submerged Celilo Falls, which had been the most productive fishery in North America and the trading centre for Indigenous communities from across the Columbia Plateau for at least 10,000 years before the dam’s closure eliminated the falls in a matter of hours.

The Celilo Pool Fishery

The Celilo Pool’s bass population, primarily smallmouth and largemouth bass, occupies water above The Dalles Dam whose flow characteristics, temperature regime, and structure differ substantially from the Columbia River’s free-flowing condition in the sections above Bonneville Dam that historically defined Pacific Northwest river fishing. Smallmouth bass, introduced to the Columbia system, have become the dominant sport fish in the reservoir sections above each Columbia dam, and Celilo Pool’s productive spring smallmouth fishing in the 10 to 15 degrees Celsius water temperatures of early April provides the competitive quality that The Bass Federation’s Oregon Open circuit targets for its April scheduling. The two-day format runs cash prizes across species and weight categories with entries through the TBF Oregon Open registration system.

If You’re Going With Kids: The Celilo Village, a Wyam community whose members have occupied the Columbia River shore continuously for millennia, remains at the site adjacent to what is now The Dalles Dam. The Columbia River Gorge Discovery Center and Museum at 5000 Discovery Drive in The Dalles, a Smithsonian-affiliated institution, provides the most comprehensive public interpretation of the Columbia River’s geological history, Indigenous occupation, Lewis and Clark expedition passage, and the Oregon Trail’s Columbia Plateau approach available in a single facility east of Portland. The museum’s family programme earns two hours from any itinerary that includes a tournament weigh-in visit to Celilo Pool.

The Columbia River Gorge and the Sternwheeler Corridor

The Dalles, the seat of Wasco County, anchors the eastern end of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, where the river’s passage through the Cascade Range creates the most dramatic river canyon accessible by highway in the Pacific Northwest. The Historic Columbia River Highway, running west from The Dalles toward Crown Point and Multnomah Falls, provides the scenic driving infrastructure that the Gorge’s basalt cliff and waterfall geography deserves, with viewpoints and trail access distributed across the route’s 120-kilometre historic paved corridor. Lake.com lists vacation rental options across the Columbia River Gorge corridor for anglers and families building a broader Pacific Northwest river stay around the Oregon Open weekend.