Pool 7 Bass Report - Mississippi River – Bass - Mississippi River – Bass

Today was our first club tourney of the season and it was a tough day on the water. My partner, BJ, and I made the decision to hit the river first thing in the morning instead of going to fight the masses on the lake. I had a few spots on the lake to hit, but they weren’t going to produce until a little later in the day when the water warmed up. So, off to the river we went at 6 this morning. The wind wasn’t terribly bad until the sun poked its head out over the bluffs, then it blew and blew hard. The first spot we hit was a nice point right off the main channel with 4 fow. I threw a Yank ‘Em flippin jig in a craw pattern right next to some wood laying in the water. As soon as it hit the water, I went to hop the jig, but it didn’t move. I thought I had snagged on the branch until it started to pull back. Our first fish of the day was a nice 18″ smallie that went 4#. That is a beautiful way to start the tourney. We then fought the wind in several other locations in the same area with no luck. Most of the spots we planned to fish were muddied up by the 20+ mph gusts we were faced with. The next fish came from backwater bay that had a little protection from the wind and still had clean water. The structure here was a large beaver lodge with a small feedpile in front of it. The water itself was fairly shallow except the runs that the beaver used. I threw one of my custom made Yank ‘Em swim jig with a B-fish-N Tackle Wine and Roses K-Grub into the shallow shelf and swam it into the deeper channel when it was absolutely hammered by a nice largemouth. This fish turned out to be the Big Bass of the club and went 4-9#. After that fish, we went for a long dryspell with no fish or bites. We already planned to fish the river until noon and then head for the lake to finish up the tourney. We ran into a slight problem when we tried to get on plane and head back. For some reason the boat would not plane out and reved up really high. I shut the motor down and tilted the motor all the way up. Right away we noticed a bunch of small diameter rope wrapped tight in the prop. Somebody had set a trot line out and we caught it in the prop. That was a real pain to try and get out of the motor in 2’ swell in the main channel with no knife. Once we got that undone we made our way to the lake. That was one of the roughest rides I have taken in my life. By the time we got to the lake, my trolling motor was very loose and I think I rattled a few teeth loose in the process. In the last hour my partner added 2 more fish to the livewell with a crankbait fishing in 12 feet of water. My YoNet worked like a charm and reached right out there and scooped all of our fish today. At the weigh-in we ended the day with 4 fish that went 14.1#. The winning bag was 6 fish for 17#. All in all, it was a good day even though we didn’t get our limit. I was very pleased with the weight we did get with the fish we caught. My partner and I had never fished together before and we both fished very well together. He is a pretty good stick and I am glad to see him join our club this year. The picture is of my partner and I with the fish we caught today. He is holding the nice smallie in his right hand and I have the big large mouth in my left hand.