Bass & low water/flow

This might just be my first post on the bass forum. In any case I made it out on pool 12 this past Saturday afternoon. I tried fishing a couple dams for walleyes but with the strong NW wind I struggled to see the dams. I caught one legal size walleye and a sauger and decided it was time to try something different.

I headed down a slough I haven’t travelled down in years and started tossing a crank for bass. First of all the water level is really low on pool 12 and there is little or no current to speak of. The normal areas that largemouth bass usually hang this time of the year are high and dry with every lilly pad bed I saw completely out of the water. Even some of the points they hang on are too-shallow to hold fish. I figured that with such a huge drop in bass cover that the fish would have to be concentrated on other structure. Boy were they ever. I found a rip-rap lined shoreline in this slough and popped several bass off of it along with a nice fat sauger. I fished another rocky shoreline and found good numbers of hungry bass. I figure I didn’t do too-bad for a walleye fisherman as I would have been able to keep a limit of nice bass with at least 2 of these fish over 3 Lbs. I had lots of action in a couple hours of fishing. That bass fishing is almost too-easy compared to walleye fishing. It is no wonder there are so many more bass fishermen than walleye fishermen. I mean if I can catch bass anyone can catch these things. I’ll admit that it was fun as every one of the bass I caught did a nice tail dance at the boat and the bigger ones fought almost as hard as a walleye does. All bass were released to be caught another day when the weather doesn’t cooperate for walleye fishing.

Eyehunter

Funny post – thanks for sharing!!!

Congrats on a good day out

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and the bigger ones fought almost as hard as a walleye does

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Do your walleyes look like this?

A walleye that fights as hard as a Smallie!

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and the bigger ones fought almost as hard as a walleye does

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Do your walleyes look like this?

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No, walleyes don’t have red, bloodshot hangover eyes like that bronzy. Actually I only caught one smallie on Saturday. Everything else was a largemouth.

It was fun to say the least. Lots of action. My biggest fish of the afternoon came when my crank got fowled up in my line. I knew that it was messed up and was just about to reel in when the big boy came up and hit the crank floating on the surface just like a topwater lure. I love catching anything on topwater.

Although bass fishing can provide lots of fast action I highly doubt if bass will ever replace walleye as my preferred quarry. I know how scrappy bass can be and there isn’t a fish in the river that pound for pound outfights a smallie but those big walleyes can put up a battle and then some. Plus they can be a challenge to find in the first place which is part of the fun. You can find bass in every mud puddle bigger than 3′ across.

It is a good time to get out and catch some of those bass. They are concentrated on structure seeing how they lost most if not all of their normal cover to the low water. If you catch a fish off of a structure don’t think that it was the only fish on said structure. I was finding 2 or more fish on every little structure I fished. Sometimes on back-to-back casts. Not all the fish were big ones but I would have easily had a limit of 5 legal fish if the darn things were any good to eat.

Eyehunter

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there isn’t a fish in the river that pound for pound outfights a smallie

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Ever caught a barker?

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there isn’t a fish in the river that pound for pound outfights a smallie

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Ever caught a barker?

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Ya mean the ones from the local watering hole after too many of these?

walleyes=smallies??

No way!!

My biggest walleye is 7lb9oz and I didn’t realize that it WASN’T another perch until it’s head came up the 6″ ice hole.

I’d love to see what a 7-1/2 lb smallie would do to my tackle, heck, I think it would pull my boat!!!

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Ya mean the ones from the local watering hole after too many of these?

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Wellman, I have NO clue what you are talking about…