I fished Lake Pepin on Friday with Jeff Reinardy (Haywood) and on Sunday with Jim Johnson (Champman). I would like to tell you the bite is awesome but that would be lying. The fish don’t seem to be able to decide if they want to be in their summer or over-wintering areas. In fact, I’m finding fish on the main channel below Camp LaCouplis in what I consider October staging areas. They must know something that we don’t know. So fare this is looking like the El Nenio years of the past where we caught bass well into December. The water temperature on the lake is around 47 degrees. The water still is stained from the heavy rains of two weeks ago. That may have something to do with the fish staying shallow. The picture is of Jeff with his best fish of the day. It bit on a 4” Yum Mega Tube in green pumpkin with copper flake, drug tight to the bottom.
Sunday was more of the same with a few fish shallow, a few fish deep and most somewhere in between. That meant that each cast had to be long enough to cover the entire depth range. Plus the fish wanted the lure drug tight to the bottom. If you swum or hoped the bait you didn’t get bit. The fish also showed a preference to the new Yamato Creature bait. We may have feed them too much of a steady diet of tubes. The size did improve on Sunday with several fish around 3 pounds like the one Jim is holding in the photo. We also caught two 20” walleyes, which made dinner Sunday night.
The common link between both days was the lure had to be tight to the bottom. This would lead you to believe the smallmouth are feeding on crawfish. Attempts to bring the fish up to take suspending jerkbaits have failed. Last year at this time a suspending Smithwick Super Rouge was red hot. This experience reinforces how selective of feeders smallmouth can be. Seems like you need to establish feeding preference each time you go out.
I fished Pool 5 Monday and found the situation there very different. I caught over half of my smallmouth by swimming a Northland Mimic Minnow. The other half came on a C-rig. Go figure! The best fish on Monday was a 20” smallie. The one thing that peaked my interest was a saw 2 turtle’s swim to the surface on wing dams. It’s been over a month sense I’ve seen a turtle. Do they think spring has arrived? The forecast for the weekend might be a reality check for them.The picture is from Sunday.
Great report John!
Do I take a pretty pic or what?
I was out on Tuesday as well and on 5A I found the wood with deep water access to be the ticket. I did not find them stacked up but the numbers were steady with a 4.5. being the best of the day
The temps may be climbing which is fine with us who want to catch bass into december!
Haywood
You’re killin’ me bud
Another great report.
Got out Monday and found the fishing on the lake tough. I only caught one smallie and a pike before I decided to give it up in favor for pool 5. The bite was a bit better there as I caught 14 bass mostly LM. Texas rigged tubes pitched to wood in wintering areas did the trick.
One thing I have been noticing is that my smallmouth spots are very sporadic. I will fish a spot with no success then pull up a few hours later and catch several. It seems to me that these fish pull out of the deeper water to feed for a short period then disappear. Is this typical of smallies near wintering areas?
Matt,
Pool 5 has definitely been the hot spot.
I have had the same results with the SM but I’m not sure if they are moving very far. When you look at how stuffed they are, I suspect they can’t eat much more. I have noticed more fish coming from behind the wing dams than last week. Plus, some fish have move out from shore as the flow has gone down. This long growing (feeding) season has to help them through the winter. 
John