Mississippi River Pool 4 Bass

This spring has been very inconsistent. It’s been feast of famine, with the famine dominating. The highlight was a win in the Team Supreme tournament on May 22. The weather has not cooperated and a series of motor problems forced to cancel my first two guide trips. The bottom line there hasn’t been enough information to do a report. I believe we are over the hump. On Friday my wife (Rheta) and I hit the water thinking we would be chased off by noon. To our surprise the weather cooperated and we got in a full day. Another pleasant surprise was how clean the water was at the lower end of pool 4. With all the rain and high water I expected to see cloudy at best. We didn’t set the world on fire but there were a couple of spurts. I was multi-specie with bass, walleye, saugar, northern’s and white bass. The photo is a smallie that came from a mixed school of large and smallmouth we found on the WI side of Lake Pepin. As dark colored as that fish is I’m sure it’s been in shallow water for some time. On the MN side of Pepin we picked-up 4, 16-21” walleye swimming a K-Tail grub in less that 6 feet of water. We talked to several boats that trolled by and it sounded like they were doing well in the 20’ range. It was one of those days everyone was happy. If I didn’t say Rheta caught more fish than me there will be hell to pay. Never-mind that I took her to the best spots and gave her the best lure to catch them.

Later in the day we move below Wabasha and found pockets of fish. I hooked the fish in the picture below a weed clump and another fished followed. Rheta cast to the fish and converted a double. Her fish weighed 2-8, mine was heavier. Not far from there Rheta caught a 21” sauger in 3 feet of water.

Saturday was spent searching flooded vegetation for largemouth with Brent Haimes (Fishnut). And yes, they are there. If you found one there were more near by. The fish in the photo came out of flooded emergent vegetation Brent took a slightly smaller fish a few casts later.

Sunday was another less successful search day except for walleye. They continue to amaze me how shallow they can be. The 24” fish in the picture was caught in a milfoil/cabbage bed hundreds of yards from any deep water. I took a 22’ fish even further from deep water. In three days of fishing in less that 6 feet with non-traditional walleye baits we caught 8 walleye and one saugar and all but one was legal sized. The good news is it’s going to get better.