Upper Mississippi River smallie report 6-2-07

A lot of changes have taken place here on the Upper Miss over this past weekend. Low and behold the bite remains to be pretty good with some rather large smallies making their way boatside. Some of the changes I witnessed over the past 3-1/2 days of fishing was the fact that we saw some post spawn fish as well as some late pre-spawners and got a visual on 2 smallies that appeared to be actually in the midst of laying eggs. One factor that caught be by surprise from Friday to Saturday was the fact that the river rose about 1-1/2 feet over night. Does not sound like much to some anglers that are from the southern portions of the river, but up here that’s can be a bit dramatic. So needless to say we had our work cut out for us coming Saturday morning.

This past Thursday fellow IDA’er Bob Bowman and I cut out from the cities and headed up to my camper that I have on the upper miss this year for some scouting for a couple guide trips that I had coming up over the weekend. Friday morning Bob and I got an early start and started probing some shallow water looking for any and all current breaks that looked promising for holding some springtime smallies. Bob and I developed good pattern of pitching light 1/16th oz black Jimmy D’s Riverbug’s in 1-3 foot of water. Through out the day, it appeared any decent sized current break that had rock, weeds or wood present, it held fish and the bigger the better. Bob and I had a fantastic 8-9 hours of fishing. About midday Friday, Bob and I packed up and took the boat to a section of river that I had not been on for awhile and did a little hide and seek. This section of river offered up quite a challenge for Bob and I for the rest of the afternoon as this section had little to no resemblance to what we had been fishing previously in the day. Within a couple hours and a lengthy 15 mile boat ride, we found exactly what we were looking for. We found an island cluster that offered up some very big smallies. We only boated 6 fish during our 5 hour stint, but they were all big fish. 3 of those 6 fish hit the tape over 20". By days end, we tallied 38 smallies not counting the number of pike that took advantage of our light little riverbug morsels. A fun day indeed! Thanks again Bob for coming up and keeping me company!!

Saturday, Mike Lee (aka..Crossin Eyes) and Mike Yager (aka..Suzuki) and I hit the upper Miss in pursuit of some smallies. Upon my arrival to the river I noticed the river up substantially. This left a bit of a challenge as the current breaks that we had fish going in recent trips, were full of flowing water through them. Our first spot consisted of a mid river flat that had a fairly big slack water behind it. Within minutes of our arrival here we had smallies working all around the boat chasing our riverbugs and nearby minnows. Needless to say we hit the nail on the head and landed a midst of a feeding frenzy all around the boat in 2-3 foot of water. "Suzuki" decided to step up to the 1/8th oz black Riverbug instead of the 1/16th oz for longer casts and started swimming the jig and developed a pattern that would stick for us the rest of the day. Although the morning bite was red hot, the afternoon slowed considerably and we had to work harder and slow down to pick off fish. Some of those fish had clear evidence that they had just recently spawned with fresh scars from their recent duties. These fish were the first post spawn fish I had seen thus far. Maybe this is the first sign of a slowing bite? We tallied 31 smallies for the day and a couple real nice fish with one fish hitting that 20" mark on the tape.

Sunday, Tom Wallrich joined me once again for a retaste of those smallies that he has a hard time getting enough of! I do not blame him one bit!!

Sure enough the morning showed water levels had risen again overnight but not quite as significant. Another day on the water but different circumstances once again, Tom and I proceeded to the same flat area that Mike and Mike were at the previous day. We noticed the look of the area had changed quite a bit, so we fished it quickly only to find that the fish had moved off this area a bit and relocated to somewhere nearby. Tom and I finally made the right switch and found some calm water inside a island cluster that offered up a bunch of fish that looked to be hiding out of the current and willing to chew. Tom got his fish going with a 1/8th oz BFT’s Super Doo jighead and a 4" black pepper tube. I stuck to my guns and fished a variety of sizes of Jimmy D’s riverbugs. Tom and I proceeded to have a somewhat of a consistent day picking up one here and one there. By days end we had 27 smallies for the two of us with 2 more big fish over the 20" mark.

One neat sight we got to witness was 2 bigger female smallies in an area spaced apart about 25 feet dropping their eggs. We had the sun at our back and calm waters and we had a front row seat. These fish were pounding themselves on the bottom in a circular motion. We simply were in awe of this and sat back and watched a powerful moment in the freshwater world.

Until my next report, Good luck to all!

Look for more pictures to follow!