Mississippi River Pool 5a IDA Bass Tour

The title of this report might be how not to practice for a tournament but I won’t be that hard on ourselves. Sunday was the first IDA Bass Tournament held on pools 5, 5a and 6. One was scheduled earlier but we had to cancel because of high water. Brent Haimes (fishnut) and I decided we would fish the tournament if things went well on Saturday. Neither Brent nor I had been on the pool 5a or 6 sense our club tournament in May. We started our practice around 7:00 in a heavy fog that kept us close to the ramp for almost an hour. We were aware that the Fountain City Rod and Gun Club tournament was going on and made sure to stay out of the tournament angler’s way. We had 5 patterns we wanted to checkout which consisted of slop, grass in current, undercut banks and wood. With the high-pressure system and cooler than normal temperatures we expected the fish to be neutral to inactive.

However, in the fog we did find a few fish that hit a buzzbait and crankbait. In fact, I landed my first ever 2 fish on one bait. Once the sun burned off the fog the active feeding stopped. We checked cut banks and eelgrass in current in several areas and ruled them out quickly. We move to some less than obvious (submerged) wood and picked up several OK fish and decided there were enough fish in the area to be a starting spot. We hit a few big snags and I stuck about a 2.5-LB largemouth. I commented, “boy I wish I hadn’t set the hook”. We moved through several runs without any activity. We hit another of our confidence areas and Brent pitched a tube into a snag and set the hook on the fish in the photo. Brent said, “boy I wish I hadn’t set the hook”. It was clear that the wood would be a big part of our game plan.

Well you never want all your eggs in one basket so we started fishing wingdams and bank protection (riprap). On our first stop Brent made a cast before I even had the trolling motor down and a fish unloaded on him. The fish literally set the hook on its own. It was another “boy I wash that hadn’t happen”. We fished several other rock spots and shook of everything that bit so we had no idea of the size but we knew if we were in the area it would be worth the casts. What was interesting were the bites came about half way out the dam from shore.

The final stop of the day was an area that is hard to reach in low water. About half of our mission was to see how to navigate into the area. Once there, Brent had a hit that he shook off. Another fish hit and I told him to set the hook. It was a non-keeper so we needed to see if there were any keepers in the area. On the next hit Brent landed the fish in the photo. It was another “boy I wish I hadn’t done that”. We never got to the slop but we saw several knowledgeable guys working key areas but they didn’t do well in the tournament. With that information we wrote slop off for the tournament. At the end of the day he had 4 quality fish and several 14-15 inch fish. Brent had his 3 best smallies of the year.

We knew we would be facing a pressured fish and a tough bite. On the way to tournament we talked about locking up to pool 5 to try for a quick limit. As we passed through Alma we saw double long barge in the lock. We figured it would be at Bass Camp about noon and ruled out locking up. We knew what to do on 5a and decided to stick with it. By 9:30 we had 4 quality fish, weighing around 10 pounds. It took till 1:45 to catch another keeper. At that point the fish seemed to turn-on so we started covering water. We had several fish swing at the bait as it hit the water or hit the bait and dropped it before we could set the hook. These may have been fish that had been stuck recently. With 20 minutes to go we went to a community bank knowing it had been fished several times during the day but figured the fish didn’t bite. That decision paid off with our best fish of the day and a short fish. We ended up 2 fish short of a limit but took the big fish pot with the smallie in this last photo, which covered our entry fee. I’ve become an excellent net man in the last 2 tournaments but in a team event, who cares!