May, June, and July Bass Report

Despite my lack of activity on the forums as of late, I have been far from inactive on the water in the months of May, June, and July. These months have meant Summer for this college kid, and I have spent countless hours on various Mississippi River pools, along with a few lakes, including Stugeon Bay and Kentucky Lake. Since I haven’t made a report in so long, and have gobs of pictures to unload, I’ll be briefly summarizing a number of my better tournament experiences, along with some of the better “fun fish” outings of the year.
Starting with May:
May on the river brought a continuation of relatively high water for much of the month. Zac Cassill and I fished an MSBC on May 21st and had a solid pattern of late prespawn/early spawning fish that we thought could produce a big bag. We were targeting coon tail and milfoil clumps on a hard sand bottom with unusually clean water. Using a lethal weapon swim jig we found a lot of 3 lb fish the week of the tournament. On tournament day we ended up struggling to catch a kicker, but did find a bunch of quality bass and brought a 6 fish limit weighing 17.52 lbs to the scales, finishing 20th place out of around 50 boats. Shortly after that tournament, I got on the motherload of a school of fish that I was able to capitalize on in a couple of small weeknight tournaments. These fish were post spawn and loaded up on a sand drop taking rat-l-traps and jigs. Even though most were post spawn (still a few pre spawn fish), they were all thick with the plentiful forage we had this spring on the river. In a 2 fish tournament I had 8 lbs 3 oz and 2 days later the school shrunk on me but I still won a 3 fish tournament on those fish with 3 for 8-12. I worked those fish for one more tournament, this time a 4 fish tournament, and caught 4 for 11-12, just shy of making 3rd place check, which was at 12 lbs even. I must note, the action I speak of above is mostly from the very end of May. I had a rocky start to the month of may with a terrible finish in the BFL on my home water, but with school wrapping up that same week, I finally had time to get on the water and figure things out to salvage the rest of the month.

The month of June brought more fishing, and a few bigger opportunities in Tournaments. I started off the month with a club outting to Sturgeon Bay, WI. I had been looking forward to this tournament for a long time. After one day of practice we realized quickly the fish were bedding- HARD. It was incredible. Practice was tough but for the torunament the winds laid down and made fishing phenomenal. I had 16-3 the first day, and adjusted on the 2nd day to catch 20 lbs 6 oz for 5 fish..it was also the biggest bag I’ve ever weighed in a tournament. Unfortunately for me, the guys really whacked ’em that day, and I only finished 4th. I can’t complain, it was the most fun fishing in my life. After Sturgeon bay, I continued fishing weeknight tournaments, but the big show for June was to be the FLW College Fishing Qualifying event at Lake Winneconne on June 19th. Zac and I went down to prefish the week before the tournament (before off limits) and did pretty well fishing swim jigs around rock and grass mix. The highlight of the practice was a nice 3.13 smallie that smashed a lethal weapon II in gill pattern. When you can catch a fish that size on that body of water in June, you’re on to something. We ended the day with 12+ pounds for our best 5 and knew that we were going to be around fish for the tournament. On tournament day, we found out that there was a very restrictive off limits area. Unfortunately, 2 of our prime areas, including the one where I caught that nice smallie, were off limits. Luckily, we still caught a lot of fish within the boundaries. Our starting spot produced a quick limit of fish worth probably 9 lbs. From there, we spent the entire day upgrading (first legal culling WI tournament I ever fished!) on every spot we stopped on. As the day progressed, I knew we had to allow at least 2 hours on a certain key stretch that has always produced for me. I won the Junior state championship in 2009 off that stretch, and was hoping we could repeat with similar results that day. In hindsight, I think we could have spent the whole day there….because we proceeded to upgrade almost every fish in our bag fishing that stretch. In the end, we had a team limit of five fish weighing 11 lbs 4 oz and finished 3rd, earning $2,000 and a berth into the regional championship which will be held this October on Lake Kinkaid in southern Illinois. Wish us luck, the tournament will be on Versus programing! After our success at Winneconne, we decided to enter into an open collegiate tournament on Kentucky Lake just one week later. We left on the 24th and I drove through the night. I have never pulled an all nighter in my life, but after a waffle house breakfast at 5 AM, i was ready to catch some big old KY Lake bass. Our prefishing was pretty tough all week. Just like here in the midwest, the weather and water conditions have been abnormal this year, keeping the fish scattered and off of their typical mid summer patterns. We lived and died by the ledge bite that week, and knew that the tournament would be won that way. After catching only 2 4 lb fish all week, we were nervous as to how well we would do in the tournament. On day one we were able to get a limit after running all of our best water. We had 6 fish for a dismal 14.75 lbs, but good enough for 18th place. For day two, we decided in order to win we would need to make a huge jump in the standings, and with the fish we were on, we felt the only way to do that would be to go the opposite direction of the 30+ waypoints I accumulated that week. We went “prefishing” during day 2 and just looked for fish on the graph. We caught some fish, but just couldn’t get good ones. We ended up catching just 3 keepers all day and dumped our fish and headed north with our tails between our legs. It turned out that everyone struggled on the final day as the weights were down…They pulled current at the dam all through the previous night, which is theorized to cause the fish to feed heavily through the night and bring about a tough bite the next day. I definitely believe it… It was definitely a learning experience though and I had a blast! We caught most of our fish mixing it up between 10″ worms, Lethal Weapon football jigs, Strike King 6XD cranks, and Strike king sexy spoons. We were focusing on irregular features in ledges, but specifically the ones that were loaded with arches on the graph. Most of the time when we found points or outside turns with arches, we could catch at the very least, non keepers almost immediately. You live and learn, it came down to too little prefishing time, and a battle of Kentucky Lake Locals! I also had some really good times on pool 5a before the Winneconne tournament. Zac and I got on some really impressive fish. My first day out on 5a was a solo trip where I had about 14 lbs in 5 hours anchored by a 3.46 smallie. When Zac and I went out, we kept a frog rod in our hands all day and pounded 3 pounder after 3 pounder. Zac had over 17 lbs and I had over 16 pounds. It was some of the best frog fishing I’ve seen in a while!

The Month of July so far has been off to a good start. I have spent a couple of days on Lake Winona in Minnesota, and so far have had a tough time getting into the numbers of fish. When I find a few out there, they’re big ones…But I have had a hard time finding the mother load of big ones..And also have yet to catch anything over 5. I think that’s about to change soon though. The fish I’m catching are coming out of 12 feet of water on DD22’s and carolina rigs. They’re in pretty tight schools so it can be difficult to keep on top of them, especially if you fished with a dead trolling motor (like I did) and can’t pinpoint exactly where that last 4 lber just came from I have a club event up there later this month, so I’ll be spending a few more days out there, and I expect it will keep getting better with time.

I have only spent 2 days on the River so far in the month of July, but they have been 2 phenomenal days of fishing. I blindly fished a weeknight tournament last night and won with 3 fish for 10 lbs 1 oz, anchored by 2 pig July smallmouth. I don’t know what it is about this time of year, but I always seem to luck into a few of those brutes. It’s all about the right lure and the right area, and especially…the right timing. If you want to tear your arms off on quality 16-17″ largemouth, find yourself some good duckweed and go to work with a frog. I did this last night for about 3 hours and worked up an easy 20 fish in this size class. I made a gamble late and ran to a sleeper spot that has always kicked out good fish for me, and it paid off. I threw a storm wiggle wart to get their attention. The big one pictured below is 3 lbs 12 oz, the other can’t be far behind. I ran back out tonight after work and ran into a similar thing on a different part of the pool. Late in the day, i caught another 19-1/2″ hog smallie that went 3.65 on my digital scale on that same wiggle wart. The fish spit up a 5″ bluegill of all things. For the smallies, I’m fishing either low flow wingdams or sand drops. Sorry for the long read, I tried to keep it semi vague to avoid getting extraordinarily lengthy, but it seems I did that anyway! Oh well, I’ll just leave you with a bunch of pictures to make up for the vagueness. If you have any questions feel free to ask! I’d be happy to go further into detail about patterns via PM

-Cade Laufenberg