The smallie bite on the Upper Mississippi River this past week overall has been a little slower than weeks past, but with a few minor changes in location and presentation I have found the bigger fish more than willing to cooperate. The recent rains have dirtied the water on a couple of the stretches of river that I have been targeting, so fishing harder for less has been the scene as of late on a few sections of river.
Tom Wallrich of St. Paul, Mn hired me this past week for 3 full days of Mississippi River smallie adventures. His quest this weekend was to fish a different stretch of river each day.
Tom and I fished hard each and every day looking for those elusive 20”+ smallies that the Mississippi river has a reputation of delivering. Days one and two were very similar patterns for producing fish. Morning hours found us throwing unweighted YUM Dingers rigged both wacky style for the open areas and then texas style for the areas that had a little more cover to throw around. The morning hours on these two days were a little slower than we had experienced in weeks prior, but none the less fish to be caught. By high noon the fish responded to the high sunny skies that were upon us and started to get more and more aggressive in chasing. After we noticed a few fish following our baits back as we were burning it in for another cast, we picked up the pace with our offerings and BINGO, the fish responded. Tom was throwing a YUM 4” black/red Garret tube on a 1/4oz BFT Super doo head rigged with an exposed hook.
Day three Tom and I once again got on the water about 7:00am and hit a new stretch of water and took to the shorelines looking to see what these smallies had in store for us on this day. To our surprise, the fish were hot right out of the gate with several presentation taking fish for the first 4 hours of the morning. Tubes, Yum Dingers, cranks, Jimmy D’s Riverbugs, and topwaters all took fish throughout the morning hours. The key for us here was to get your bait as close to the bank as possible. Fish it slow for the first 5 seconds and then burn it back half way and slow your retrieve down to a crawl for a couple seconds and then back to a higher speed retrieval again. This pause gave way to several nicer fish for the day for both of us. Tom and I produced well over 50 smallies in just the morning hours including some real nice 19”+ fish. Thanks again Tom for the three days of fun I had with you. Tom expressed interest in having me sneak down to Pool 2 in the coming days to change up the pace a little….well see!
Day four IDA founder and operator James Holst, Samson (camera guy) and myself took to the river with the intentions of catching some nice video footage of some surface breaking smallies. Upon our arrival to one of my home section of the Mighty Miss, I noticed the recent rains had the water even muddier than the other sections of river I was on days prior. After several hours of hunting around and only producing a handful of fish, I knew some changes were in order for us to be successful. Taking the advantage of a boat that can run through extremely shallow water, we decided to run up a small 40 foot wide feeder creek that had ultra clear water coming into it. This section has been good to me in the past and my thoughts with the high skies that we had, the fish might be tucked tight to the bank in any shade that was avail. This creek had waters from 4” to about 3 feet throughout the 2 miles stretch that we ran up. IF a guy is into sight fishing lots of smallies in really shallow water…this was the ticket! James and I caught lots of fish through the afternoon and seeing nearly every fish hit our plastics. Samson captured some great footage for some future great opportunities that James has in mind. I will let him spill the beans when he is ready to do so. Thanks again guys for letting me be involved in such a fun adventure!
Great job Steve! Looking forward to that video footage.
Wow those are some great looking fish…Can’t wait to see that video
Here is Tom with another nice fish!
Here is James with one of many that we captured on video.
Here is a pic of myself with our camera guy Samson
Here is my niece Natalie with a smallie she caught on her first cast last night.
That’s the best pic of Holst I’ve ever seen. All fish, no face!
This last pic is of my little best buddy James holding the smallest smallie we have seen this year. He said it was just right for him to hold even though he pulled in some nice ones last night. Atta boy James….You make Daddy proud!
Awesome! Nice job there James!
nice fish and nice report steve
Awesome…..fishing may have slowed but looks like a great time to me!
I’m sure you’ll pay for that one next week.
Simply AWESOME…….Great job Daddy
Great fish Dad’s little buddy James!
Another Dezurik puttin a hurt on the fish????
Those walleyes and Bass will never get a rest. 
Nice report Steve!
Great Report Steve
Those pics are outstanding
dave
Awesome report Steve!!
Great report Steve.And way to go James,you da kid-kid!!!
Can you imagine the fish that James will catch when he gets older.It’s almost scary isn’t it??
Thanks for your reports Steve,there always so nice to read.
Ryan Hale
Awesome Steve!
Bring on that streaming video James~!
Nice fish Steve..
That poor little fella looks an awful lot like daddy!! Sorry about his luck!
Great job Pops!!
Holeeeeey Cow, those are some awsome fish.
John
Great Report Steve.
You need to change the name of those fish Smallies just does not seem appropriate.
As always nice report!
Steve, same stained conditions near Sartell and north with the catfish beating the smallies to the tubes, cranks and whatever else you try to throw them. Not sure what to think of it? Great to see somebody can catch them!
Maybe catch you on the river someday up here?
Randy Omann
Yeah, he sure got the tough end on that deal!!
Randy,
Good to hear from you. I saw a Tracker jet last Friday up there….Was that you by chance?
Looking forward to hitting that alot harder in coming weeks.
I will see you at the Lions tourney!!
Hey Steve
Fishing on a friday… I could only wish! Try to save that vacation for bowhunting. Looks like you’re doing it right! As you know the popularity of these boats is soaring and I see at least one or two more a year. Just wanted to tell you that I and I’m sure many others appreciate and envy your info an skill. After reading your reports I always seem to want to hitch up the boat and head out. By the way watch out for the jack that thinks it’s ok to trap and target shoot in and over the river just north of the Rice bridge before first island. My air horn didn’t even stop him as he was wearing ear muffs and I’ts happened more than once. Anyway take care, good luck and we’ll see you in Aug. Later, Randy