Upper Miss River Smallmouth Bass report 9-14-04

Its been a few weeks since my last report. The words “Spare Time” seems to be lost out the window when you have an active toddler around the household, but you gotta love it!

The fishing on the Upper Mississippi River has been hit and miss a bit over the last 10 days or so. Still the afternoon/evenings remain the best time of the day to take advantage of these scrappy fish with the heat from the sun which spikes their activity and feeding levels. Fishing good spots in the morning may lead you to believe that the fish are not there or active. Both could be true, however smallies are extreme home bodies and will not slip too far from their day to day haunts this time of year, so returning to these higher percentage spots later in the afternoon could pay off huge!

Last week Lance Wendlandt and his guest John and I took to the Upper Miss River for an all day trip. We got started around 7:00am and starting probing some of my usual good areas. A fish here and there was the theme for most of the morning and about noon and just there after is when the fish started to come alive a bit. Even though the fish were not on an enormous chew that day, we made the best out of what we were dealt. Looking for the sharpest breaks on the back side of outside bends in the river are classic September spots for river smallies. Pitching tubes lighter 1/16th oz texas rigged tubes around and underneath the over hanging trees gave up a nice fish here and there. By day’s end we put together a respectable showing of 25 smallies with a half dozen going over the 18” mark. Of course we lost several that we would have loved to get our eyes upon, but that’s the special gift that a smallmouth bass has over even the most seasoned bass angler.

The best presentations for myself over the last 10 days have been the obvious topwater search baits such as the Rebel Pop-R and the BooYah Dancin Buzz baits. These lures will find active smallmouth quick this time of year and you can usually expect to see more fish nearby if you get a fish to rise on a topwater. At this time, the follow up lures play a huge role in turning those lookers into biters. Two presentations that are my drop dead go to’s for this time of year for this approach, one is Jimmy D’s small 1/16th oz black or white river bug and the other is a 1/16th oz B-Fish-N Tackle’s Super Doo head rigged on a 4” Yum Garret Tube. These two presentations provide a soft and subtle approach to an active fish that misses on a topwater. I believe these slow falling hair and plastic presentations are too hard for the smallmouth to resist when they are on the prowl. Definitely keep these in your back pocket or even have the guy in the back of the boat rigged and ready in case a fish shows itself from your buddy in the front.

Recently I have taken some time out of my busy fishing schedule to fish with friends and family on some stretches of river that I rarely get a chance to frequent. Some of these areas include small little rivers that feed into the Miss river like the Rum river in Anoka, The Crow River in Dayton, etc… With a small flat bottom jon boat that I own now, it makes these trips possible. There are some great fishing opportunities if own a small boat or a canoe. Take a day and drift these rivers sometime in the next few weeks and you may be surprised at the quality of fish that can come from a small river!

Look for more pics to follow up my report!

*****A reminder that the mandatory catch and release restriction has been put in place on Monday September 13th, 2004 for all of Minnesota. All smallmouth bass must be returned to the water immediately.*****