The Mississippi River backwaters provide a ton of fishing opportunities along with a quiet relaxing place to fish. Some of the best multispices fishing you could ever ask for is found there. Mike Smith had found a couple new spots to fish on Pool 5 while I was laid up from my knee surgery and he was anxious to get me out on the river backwater areas.
My boat has been off the water too much the past couple months so we hooked it up to my van and headed for Pool 5. There are a huge amount of backwaters between Wabasha Mn and LaCrosse Wisc. A person could spend a life time fishing them and still not be able to properly cover it all. But you have to admit that it sure would be fun trying to fish it all. We put in at the newer ramp on the Minnesota side and headed to our first spot. This is a place that had downed trees and also branches laying on the bottom areas between the trees. Using a bobber set at a depth that would keep your bait off the bottom far enough so you didn’t snag up and also showed your bait to the fish was the technique we used. Casting the bobber past the area you wanted to concentrate the most in and giving easy jerks of the bait towards you and then let it sit for a moment. If no fish then keep jerking/rest jerking/rest the bobber back towards you until you have either gotten bit or it was back to the boat. If no bite then we would cast alittle bit off of your last cast to cover the area to the left or right of the previous cast.
After awhile we decided to head to another spot down river aways. This spot also had some downed trees and alot of weedy shoreline to choose from. We started at the wood and then fished shoreline and also an open area that had branches underwater which also held fish. This area held perch, bluegills and crappies. We fished it the same way we did the first spot.
The equipment we used was the following. Mike loves long rods so he used a 9 foot Eagle Claw med action with a fast tip rod. I used a 6 ft 6 inch St. Croix Avid with light action and a fast tip. Both Mini-Mite jigs, plain jigs, and plain hooks were used along with a bobber to hold the bait up off the bottom far enough not to snag. Waxies were added to seal the deal on caught fish. We mostly fished shallow water in the 1 ft to 5 ft range at this spot. The weather was great and sunny yet it didn’t seem to hurt the bite any in shallow water. There are so many places to fish in the backwaters and so many fish, yet not enough time to fish it all. I try to learn something new on every outting and this was a day of learning alot of new areas. Thanks Mike for sharing these spots with me. I owe you some spots bud. 
Thanks, Bill
ps. the last pic is of a tagged fish
Location : Minnesota
Water Body : Mississippi River
Species : panfish
Water Temp : 71
Technique : casting
I’ve caught many o fish casting 1/32 oz jig tipped with a worm all along the shore there this year. Some big cats lurk around there too. I’ve caught some good sized 