Just had a great weekend with the MO River smallies. SD hosted their BASS Federation Open on Francis Case 6/2-3/07 and were gracious enough to let a couple of us NE teams enter. Myself along with 3 others from our Plattevalley BASS club paired up to fish it and took home 2nd and 3rd for nearly $2000 those SD boys were kind enought to send us back with.
Lots of Smallies this year with several 8 fish limits weighed in. We culled through a couple limits each day and still only totaled 19.78 pounds for 3rd with 2nd at 19.88 and 1st 20.5. Lots of small fish, plenty of 12″ers, but the better fish are few and far between. We could never find that one 3 pounder we needed to win the thing.
The smallies are still shallow. A 3″ tube or 4″ worm on 1/8 oz jighead is about all you need. You should get plenty of action almost anywhere you find rocky banks just casting at the shore.
For you walleye guys there were lots of those coming into the cleaning station. As many boats as there were, the word must be out that the bite is on at Francis Case if you’re looking for those.
Nice job and thanks for the info.