Mississippi River Pool 4 Bass 9 29 04

The weather and water levels have changed considerably sense my last trip to pool 4 but here is the snapshot in time of what was happening. My guest on Wednesday, September 29 was Marty Saxton of South St. Paul. Marty is an accomplished bass fisherman and a successful tournament angler. Marty wanted to gain more experience bass fishing on the Mississippi River. We met at 7:30 with a heavy blanket of fog. Fortunately, you don’t have to wander far from the Wabasha Marina to find bass. By using a Lowerance LMS 320 GPS and Navionics Map chip we were able idle to a productive wing dam. The map marks the center of the channel and the location of the wing dams with incredibly accurate. We arrived on the dam to gulls diving, and jumbo white bass busting shad. It was pretty easy to stay occupied till the fog lifted. We did manage several nice smallmouth and a largemouth in very heavy current. The photo is the largemouth that jumped all over Marty’s spinnerbait.

We spent most of the morning hitting wing dams main channel points. Almost every spot produced. A shad pattern willowleaf spinnerbait was the most productive lure but swimming a Northland Tackle Mimic Minnow or grub picked off some of the less aggressive fish. Some of the spots were recovering from the IDA tournament and it was clear that the fish had seen other lures. A lost fish was the kiss of death to a spot. The photo is of an average size smallmouth Marty caught off a rock point.

With the warm weather of last week and water temperatures in the high 60’s the fish seem to be getting mixed signals. The fish are consolidating but haven’t made any significant movement toward movement their wintering areas. Even with the high flow we found schools of smaller largemouth in heavy current just below wing dams. Vegetation in current and sand drops were loaded with shad and most held fish. On one current swept sand bar we cough over a dozen largemouth like the one Marty is holding.

From reading the post on the Mississippi Bass Forum, I suspect this week’s trips will be very different. However, what Marty and I experienced was typical summer patterns. We caught fish in heavy current, on wing dams, on vegetation, on wood and undercut banks. The fish were willing to chase and a horizontal presentation out fished flipping and pitching. It’s defiantly the time for change but I was amazed on how little the fishing had changed.