This past weekend I traveled to a new pool for me and fished pool 17 near Muscatine. The river conditions made fishing this pool tough as the levels are fairly low due to lack of rain. This made much of the backwater for this pool unreachable. The air temps were in the upper 90’s with very little wind and water temp was around 85 degrees. The current was mild and clarity was good for the river.
I found fish holding very tight to fallen timber and stumps. On Saturday I had good luck with a spinnerbait run along the stumps in the Big Timer area. I also caught a few on a watermelon creature bait drug over fallen timber. Even though I caught several largemouths, the majority of which were in 11” to 13” range, I only managed a couple keeper size with 2 that were over 17”. On Sunday things got a little tougher and I could not find a bite on the stumps but did catch a few on a green pumpkin candy colored Invader jig fished very tight to cover. I also found a couple of jig fish on main channel rip-rap in the afternoon as well as my bigger 2 fish of the day which were caught on a crawdad colored wiggle wart crankbait.