August Smallies

Got out Saturday with Chris and Joel on the Mississippi north of Brainard to chase some Smallmouth. Water levels are dropping good with the river guage reading just over 2′. Makes getting up river challenging but it’s worth the effort. Chris’s first cast of the trip got him a nice 19″ smallie. Fish where biting on a bit of everything but with the water still a little dirty from last week’s rain louder more aggressive baits did well. Wakebull did real good. Jig and plastic that did well last weekend got very little action.

Plenty of fish still relating to the shorelines just waiting for a frog to hit the water. Well they don’t always wait as Chris had one Smallie come up the bank and grab a lure on shore. There is also a fair amount of fish hanging on mid river structure to. By the end of the trip we pretty much where casting to anything we saw in the water.

Bite should only get better as it gets closer to fall, water temps drop and clarity improves. Temps had already dropped 6 degrees this last week. Lots of good fishing to come.

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Awesome, I love those river brownies. They really put up a heck of a fight, and they are extremely underfished. The river I normally fish is too low to float this season because of drought, unfortunately.

River up here is low enough I need someone in the front of the boat looking for boulders. We went a few miles up river running from 3 to 5 mph. At just over 2′ water level travel is slow but not to bad yet. Loose another 6 inches and I might have to push the boat through one spot. Lowest after level we have had the boats out at is .98 feet. Record low is .60 feet.

Not sure what happened to some of the photos. They got real blurry. The one photo of the bank is a fawn laying right at the waters edge.

Hopefully these versions of the photos are a bit better.

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River levels here in West Central MN are looking pretty good for this time of year. I had to be real gentle to get the smallies to bite though. I almost switched to tubes.

We did real well a couple weeks ago on the Mississippi. From tube and wackey some swim baits.

Trying to make another run up for a Sept trip.

Yep. Fishing gets real good in September. I’m sure we will be bringing sucker minnows with on those trips.

My best river fishing was always when it was warmest out in July/August. They smashed topwaters willingly. When I’d miss a fish, I’d cast right back there with a tube or wacky and often catch the same fish. Tons of crayfish everywhere too.

Once cooler nights rolled around in September, they shut off. Like completely shut off. So then I started going back to lake fishing and because that improved again.

These annual summer droughts ruin it because of the poor water levels. I have a jon boat that can float through 2 inches of water and I can’t even do that anymore.

The bite up here typically ends in October. Bass go from being spread out to schooled up and then gone. Seem to remember low to mid 40 degree water temps and they are gone.

gimruis wrote:

My best river fishing was always when it was warmest out in July/August. They smashed topwaters willingly. When I’d miss a fish, I’d cast right back there with a tube or wacky and often catch the same fish. Tons of crayfish everywhere too.

Once cooler nights rolled around in September, they shut off. Like completely shut off. So then I started going back to lake fishing and because that improved again.

Smallmouth congregate in deeper pools in the fall, generally downstream of their summer range. They aren’t shutting off, they’ve moved. It becomes feast or famine at that point. You’re either around all of them or none of them.
That’s why the season closes in late summer, to protect those very consolidated and very venerable fish. If you know where they go in fall on rivers, it’s like taking candy from a baby.

grubson wrote:

They aren’t shutting off, they’ve moved. It becomes feast or famine at that point. You’re either around all of them or none of them.
That’s why the season closes in late summer, to protect those very consolidated and very venerable fish.

Did not know that. Apparently I’ve just always hit the famines.

That looks awesome. Can’t wait to get back up there again.

SR

Did you put in at Lum Park? Tromauld?

grubson wrote:

If you know where they go in fall on rivers, it’s like taking candy from a baby.

When u know the general location is easy to find the footballs on your sonar

Blade baits work pretty well when the temps are in the 40’s.

Not sure what this landing is called but it’s not in great shape.

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Mike that launch looks as bad as Franconia. And I thought that was a hard one to beat. We actually been launching at copas due to Franconia being so low.

Bearcat89 wrote:

Mike that launch looks as bad as Franconia. And I thought that was a hard one to beat. We actually been launching at copas due to Franconia being so low.

My trailer was bottomed out in that picture. Still had to muscle the boat off the trailer after the frame hung up.

Looks like the perfect area for my kayak! Fun read and love the deer photo.