Brief Pool 8 report/question

Got out on Pool 8 Saturday morning…much colder than last week. The fish we had caught on a break off a point were all gone, so we moved to a different point. Ended up catching one largemouth in about 5′ of water and 2 stripers. Not the best trip I’ve had, quite honestly. My question is based on this: we were sitting in 15-20′ of water and marking fish down on the bottom that appeared to be pretty big. I dragged a spider grub down there to no avail. Are those bass or perhaps something else?? I’m still observing and learning the ropes of seasonal movements, so I’m honestly not sure.

I trolled 3 ways on pool 8 Saturyday. Caught some eyes near bottom. I then trolled a shad rap at about 8’deep and started to pick up northern.

I could be all wet on this, but…

I have never caught a bass on the river deeper than about 6′. All of the telemetry studies I’ve seen on river bass indicate that they spend most of their time 3′ deep or less. My guess is you are marking drum, carp, buffalo, or other trash species. Fish locators on the river don’t do much to locate fish, in my opinion, if you’re a bass fisherman. Your eyes are much more important, I think.

The biggest LM Bass I ever caught(22″) was pulled from over 12ft deep on a crankbait. So they do hold lower in the water column.

Those fish you marked could be just about anything including Bass.

I would agree, 90 percent of what is being marked on the river is rough fish. Not much of a bass fisher myself but, I use my locator mostly for finding structure and depth. Once in a while to find suspended crappies.

I believe the winning weight in the KFAN tourney was caught in 10 -12 feet of water, at least thats what they said and I totally believe it as I was catching most fish deep too. They are shallow too but not all the time. They move up and down the water column quite often.

It was probably bass, or maybe walleye, sauger, northern, perch, bluegills, green sunfish, warmouth, rock bass, big or smallmouth buffalo, carp, gar, white bass, maybe yellow bass, drum, channel catfish, flathead catfish, suckers, bowfin, possibly sturgeon, bullheads, crappie, quillback, large gizzard shad, or perhaps paddlefish. I doubt it was muskies or brown trout, but it is possible.

I heard there’s spotted bass in the Mississippi now,maybe they made a journey northward.

I caught a nice bass trolling for walleyes last year in about 15 feet of water. I was using a huge diving crankbait and the fish nailed it.