We were down this weekend to fish the MTT tournament and had a great time. I still consider myself a river rookie but thanks to IDO and many of the members I have learned a lot over the last several years. I already had an idea where to catch big fish, so we spent Friday looking for a numbers spot. We found them using Dubuque rigs along a current seam in 10-12 feet. Even though we were catching fish all along this area, we caught all of the nicer fish in a 100 yd stretch. By nice I mean anywhere from 19-23 inches. Both Saturday and Sunday started slow. We started with a combination of pitching and Dubuque rigging off and on for the first few hours. From 11-2 was our best time period for both days. On Saturday every fish came on plastic and on Sunday it was bait in the AM and plastic in the afternoon. All of the fish again came from 10-12 feet. Even though the water came up over a foot in 2 days, they still were holding right on the break. The nicer fish eluded us on Saturday and we ended up having to quit an hour early when we boxed our 7th fish for a 12.11 lb and 13th place finish. On Sunday the bigger ones showed their faces. We had 3 fish between 23-25 inches and again had to quit early when we boxed our 7th fish. That 7th fish was our biggest at just under 6 lbs, so we were happy to call it a day. We ended up weighing 19.90 lbs and took 7th. Pitching up shallow never worked for us but we did see fish caught in the same area we were fishing. We did manage to put a pile of carp in the boat while pitching including my personal best at 30-35 lbs. I wish I would have taken the time to snap a picture but I was so frustrated because I thought for sure it was a huge walleye. Overall we had a great time fishing the river again and the highlight for me was having success on a technique I have never done well on in the past. It seems like every spring I add a new trick to the bag and that’s what makes it so fun to fish the river.
April 15, 2014 at 7:24 am
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