Rugbyguy and I slipped into the Missisloppy backwaters near Wabasha this morningin search of the mega bass and/or pike. We found neither. We did get into fish, but most were less than five pounds for the pike and the bass were nothing to get shakey over.
Its still funny fishing down there this year. The pads haven’t really fired up a bloom yet and that’s when we do our best with the topwater bite, as we snooped for today. There were a bunch of missed strikes….the fish missing the bait at the hit, not us missing the fish. And those pike with bad eyes put on some theatrical leap-shows too. One quite large pike took a swing and a miss at a bait but repeated casting to the same area resulted only in weeds. This has been a frustrating spring for the top water bite with so many fish missing the baits entirely.
MossBosses were the best tools today, with ScumFrogs, Skitterpops, and I think a rattletrap, each giving up a fish too. We didn’t try plastic or spinnerbaits, but perhaps should have.
We’ll let the area rest a week and give it another go. It certainly was a great morning on the water.