Fall Upper Mississippi Smallmouth Report

Well I’d like to apologize for this very late report, but I figured late was better than never. I’m coming off the busiest guide season I’ve had, thanks in part to everyone here at IDO. Couple that with a 9 month old baby girl that wants to see Dadda and that hasn’t left me much time for posting reports. As you can see I’m posting this at 1:00am. Anyhow here’s my report and I’ll also be posting a current walleye report shortly. ********************************************

In the month of September there is plenty of good fishing to be had, but there’s no place I’d rather be than fishing smallmouth bass. September is the month when these fish feed like no other time of the year. They will eat all day, every day, whether they are hungry or not. They have no choice, that’s the way they’re programmed. As the days get shorter, and the water temps drop into the 50’s, these fish know it’s time to get ready for winter.

This year with water levels nearly two to three feet low, many of my favorite shallow rock spots were unfishable. When Mother Nature throws you a curve like this, keep in mind all you have to do is locate the bait, and the fish won’t be far behind. I like to scan structure like rocks, brush and shoreline breaks with my sonar looking for bait or fish.

Once you locate a spot with fish activity it’s as simple as picking a few of your favorite techniques and seeing which one they prefer that particular day. There were many lures this year that caught fish. One day they’d love top water lures, and the next it had to be a subsurface lure like a Rattle crank bait bounced off the rocks. Really any large minnow or minnow style bait produced fish at some point all month long.

The smallmouth not only came in large numbers, but the size was once again outstanding. On most day trips we’d have 50+ fish with some near or at trophy caliber. As we do every year, there were also a couple days where the fishing was so good that trophy fish were frequent! No matter what size smallmouth you catch one thing is for certain: they will always be pound for pound the best fighting fish in Minnesota waters.