This past weekend I spent the weekend camping with fellow friends and IDA staffers James Holst and Tom Donaldson. This marks our second annual camping/fishing trip in the last two years where our number one objective is to have fun and chase the best of which the upper Miss river has to offer! We had taken one out of the four days to adventure and explore a section of river that the guys or myself have ever gone to before.
Depending on which pool you are on right now chasing smallies, one thing seems to be pretty consistent for my boat anyway, the afternoon still remains to be a better and more predictable bite than in the morning hours overall. After a few hours of probing the banks looking for those active fish, we realized that these fish were holding ultra tight to the cover. If you found some cover hanging in to the water, chances are there were some fish relating to it, but it might take several casts to this cover and your casts had to be pretty much dead on to get these fish to bite. Most of our most productive shorelines that overhung the waters edge were areas of shallow (6”-1 foot) sand or light gravel with deeper water real close by. It seemed to be a MUST for you to get your offering up underneath these branches for these fish to bite for us most of the morning hours. One of our better producing techniques for the day was skipping un weighted YUM 4” dingers up underneath these overhangs.
As the day rolled on it seemed you could get these bigger fish to start chasing swim jigs or other faster paced horizontal presentations. By that time your casts just had to be with in a foot or so of the cover and these fish would be drawn out from the cover and show themselves. Once a fish was seen, we would follow up with either a light tube or a un weighted stick worm. This technique has worked very well for my boat over the years up here when you get fish a little reluctant to pull out of the cover. This somewhat finesse technique calls for some sharp shooting accuracy, I often reach for my 6’ St. Croix Avid Series medium action spinning rod coupled with 8-10# mono. I have used braid on occasion in this heavy cover and had some good results as well. At times I feel that a little added buoyancy of mono give these dingers better action…it could be a confidence thing for me as well! 
This section of river that I like to fish for the bigger fish, tends to have a little less overall numbers but it often rewards you with a shot at some really big smallies. This weekend was no different; we had some 20” fish and also saw some 20-21”+ fish that came out of the cover and follow and then head for deeper water and we would be unable to get these fish to bite.
Another bonus for the trip was the fact that James had brought along his video equipment this weekend with intentions of catching some good smallie catching on video and we did just that! Look for more info on this to follow as James is ramping up for IDA to have some incredible video offerings in our future fishing reports. I won’t spill the beans too much here as I would like for him to fill everyone in on the future of IDA!
For anyone interested in some good late summer smallie guide trips, I do have a handful of openings yet in the August and September schedule if you are interested in tackling toe to toe with some of these upper Miss bronzebacks! See you on the water!
Here are a couple more shots of some fish that made it to the camera. Alot of fish were released during the video footage that we never got a digital pic of.
Here is a shot of James holding a smallie that smacked a tube on a deep edge of a sandbar.
A “Skipping” Awesome report!
Can’t wait to see the video!
There must be something in the water up there on that river. It makes your fish-holding hand huge! In every picture, your hand appears to be the size of a catchers mitt!!
Tim
Hey where are the pics of Blue and his big fish??
Was he “all time net boy?”
sorry man had to do it!
And your point is???? It’s the fish that matter, not how a guy holds em for the camera….and those are nice fish! Looking forward to the video!
Nice report.
Nice report, those are some great smallies!
Steve, That’s either a 1/2-inch finesse tube or those are some damn fine smallies you got there! Thanks again for another great, detailed report!
Kick Holst a few times and tell him to get on that video. We’re patiently waiting.
Great report and pictures Steve, as always. Looks like a great time. Love2Fish.
Thanks for the report Steve. Those are some great looking brown bass you caught.
Hope to catch a boat load that size up on Rainy this weekend.
Great pics and report.
Thanks for sharing
Looks like a blast
Steve, Wondering if u just might have a lucky cap?
Nice report again! Nothing like smallies with scales the size of a carps. Looking forward to the footage.
Keep up the good work!
Randy
Those brown things even make catfisherman drool!
Steve, I’ve been watching your guide trip reports for what? Four years now…are you ALWAYS on big fish??
What’s your boat’s largest eye and smallie?
Awesome fish and report Steve.
It sounds like you boys had some fun catching fish. I’m sure the nights conversations by the fire were quite fun too. Glad to hear nobody got hurt!
Holst, where is that video?
Brian is right, you are always on piggie fish not matter if it is Eyes or Bronzies
Steve I was lucky enough to get out in a drift boat that last rainy sunday for a day of smallie fishing on the upper Miss.What a blast, it was my best fishing trip of the year, I can’t believe I hadn,t tried this before.We boated 50 smallies and some nice channel cat on tube jigs, we each got an 18 incher for the biggest fish. The fish seemed to really turn on right in the middle of the pouring down rain, I have never had such a hot bite in rain like that. I guess my message to other IDAer’s is if you haven’t done this you have to get out there, I know I won’t miss this bite next year.I hope to get the wife out this weekend in the kayaks for round two. I wonder why I am watching a musky lure all day and not seeing a thing when I could be into smallies like that it was great
Great report and super nice pics
I can’t help but to just imagine the combined knowledge of smallies between these 3 guys. The smallies never even had a chance 
VERY nice fish guys. Thanks for the report and pics.
Thanks, Bill
sippi,
These smallie give me some of the most fun fishing I have had in years.
You hit it right on the head. People often ask me why I gave up my Mille Lacs summer schedule?
THanks for sharing your fun experience. Sippi is right, any of you that have never experienced the river smallie fishing is really missing out. Even if you are not a huge smalllie fan, these fish will give you a thrill that you will not forget.
Looking into the future….In the upper midwest here, the bite seems to get better and better as we near September. Finally the colder waters of mid to the end of October seem to shut the fish down pretty hard. Still fish to catch, but you will work for them. So that means we are amonst the best of the best right now through September. Keep an eye out for the mandatory catch and release on these smallies for Minnesota starting mid September.
Steve,
Simply, Awesome…
thanks.
Jack..