It has been a little while since my last report because I have been a busy guy the last several weeks on the water. The smallie bite on the Upper Miss right now is in top form. The lack of water we have seen this summer has put our river systems in a dire drought and have forced the smallies to some real predictable areas where the faster water flows. As much as I like catching all these smallies right now…I would rather have the river levels to where they belong. Farmers here in central Mn are in a severe drought with all their crops and the days continue to be hot and dry.
Anyway…on to the fishing;
This past Saturday, I was asked to help out some former sponsers of mine for taking a couple writers out in the boat for a day of smallie fishing with hopes of catching some picture worthy fish. The fish did not wait long to respond to our baits. We all nearly hooked up on several fish on the first spot. Topwaters, tubes, hair jigs, drop shots, etc..everything was clicking for most of the morning. Jeff Samsel was having his way with a good number of fish rigging a YUM Craw Papie on a drop shot rig, while Darl Black did his number on a bunch of smallies pitching a buzzbait and a YUM Dinger. I was up front in search mode swimming a 4″ tube or throwing a variety of topwaters.
The key for the day for us on this outing was finding those neck down areas of the river where faster water would be pushed through. This quicker water brought plenty of oxygen and lots of bait and the smallies were there in groves. We tallied the day with about 80 fish with a handful of 18-19-5″ fish.
On Sunday the St Stephen Lions club had their 14th annual smallie tournament that has been getting a lot of popularity over the years and on most years bring in some stiff competition with 60-80+ boats on this 25 mile section of river. This section of river has the top 8-10 miles of pretty skinny shallow 1-4 foot of water while the middle to bottom end is a much deeper and wider waters. The take off point was right near the middle portion of the pool and there was a mix of jets boats as well as some of the finest big motored bass boats. My brother Tony and I teamed up once again for this event and here is a little recap of the day…….
Tony and I decided it was best to run south for the first couple of hours with the expected number of jets running north. We were hoping to stick a couple nice fish south and then go north to fill the rest of the bag. Tony’s second cast of the day had a big smallie blow up on a topwater and we could not get that fish to chew again, so we stayed on the move. About 8:00am I rose a nice smallie on a topwater and I immediately reeled the topwater rod in and picked up another rod and threw out a 1/16th oz Riverbug and that 3-1/2# smallie completely inhaled that Riverbug on the drop. That was a fun fish! At 9:00am we decided that we hit all the spots that we wanted to hit, so we headed up river with one nice smallie in the box. From 9:00am until noon we could not produce another weighable fish, plenty of little 14-15″ fish, but nothing that was going to take you to the win column. We hit our number one pre-fish spot 3 times throughout the day and never produced a smallie…..We wanted to panic but realized that was not going to get us anywhere, so we shifted gears 180 degrees and started hitting every single little nook and cranny and went into the finesse mode and went slow and started connecting with nicer smallies one at a time. A couple nice 3# fish came on a wacky rigged YUM Dinger and one on a tube. At 2:30 (weigh in at 3:00pm) we made a desperate move to get our final 5th weighable fish. We went back to our number one pre-fishing spot in hopes of coping one out of an area that took some time to fish. Within a couple casts Tony hooks up on a nice 3#+ fish! We both made several casts to this spot and about on the 5th cast in there, this smallie hit. Little did we know that was the fish that made the difference for the day?
Overall we caught lots of fish, just 5 nice ones for the day. I guess it pays to be better lucky than good on a one day event!!!
With water levels on the extreme low right now the fish are pretty predictable right now and the bite is very good with numbers and bigger fish making it to the boat. I suspect this bite will carry right on through into Sept/Oct timeframe where we see lots of fish stack up together. Also……if you are a musky fisherman, now is the time to be on the rivers. The fish have been out in full numbers on several sections of river up here and have been willing to show themselves on a regular basis!
Here is a photo that was taken of my brother Tony that was carrying our bag of fish to the scales. We weighed in about 15 minutes early with our fingers crossed!
Here is a shot of Jeff Samsel fighting a scrappy shallow water fish….while I look on with envy!
Here is an “action” shot.
That looks like too much fun Steve!! Great report and congrats on your tourney finish!
Thanks for the great Report and congrats on the finish
Congrats Steve
Way cool report and pics
Nice report Steve and way to go in the tourney!
dd
Nice fish Steve, Congrats on the win.
Great report and nice win!! Congrats!
Nice fish, nice report and congratulations to you and Tony on a nice win!
Boog
Thanks guys!
I owe a huge THANKS to Kevin Turner of River Pro jet boats for making it possible to fish these waters right now with the river being so low. Getting to places you have always dreamed about since you were a kid is like reliving childhood all over again. I have never been this excited about smallie fishing as I have been the last couple of years. Every single smallie puts a smile on my face!
So thank you Kevin! You build one heck of a nice rig!
For more info on his boats check out;
River Pro Jet boats
Nice job on the Tourny buddy
Great report, and I love that action photo 
Good job Steve! Congrats!
Hey Steve how much difference (if any) is there in how shallow you can go between a Lo-Pro and a Hi-Pro boat? I like your Lo-Pro sir; but the lack of gunwales makes this guy nervous!
dd
So you won the tourney? I didn’t see where you said you won the tourney. I have a friend who fishes that every year. I think he got 4th last year, but he struggled this year with the lower than usual water level. He does not have a jet boat, and so it seems like you had to have one to get where the bigger smallies were. I only fish muskies, but in the past we would just nail the smallies up there. Buzzbaits in the slop in 1-3 feet of water was the most fun.
Great report Steve!! Congrats on the finish…
Would you say that this summer has been slower than in years pasts? This year is the first year that I have really struggled to find numbers of big fish in the miss..but maybe that is just because I am a cornfed Iowa boy…
Nice report , we were there also caught around 25 smallies ,along with some nice ones, Where do the muskies bite at in the river ? , would like to spend a day or two on them
Baby Mallard,
Here is a pic ofthe leaderboard. We were boat #15.
I gues after I posted the pic, I cannot see it very well. IF you want to, send me your email addy, and I will send the pic your way.
Luke,
With the river so low, I feel alot of fish have relocated slightly to more favorable haunts. This past weekened, we found more numbers of fish near the faster current areas, but the bigger fish seemed to be on the back sides of these fast water areas just down river a bit. Needless the say the faster moving water right has surely concentrated a fair amount of fish. It has taken a little hide and seek the last couple weeks, but now we seem to have a pattern down that we are able to duplicate with a little consistency. All of my go to areas right now for a normal year are either high and dry, or the fish seemed to have vacated the area, due to the lack of food, security, oxygen, etc…
Steve, I’m sorry but did you win? I didn’t see it either in this post? And what was your weight? Just curious on both. Thanx
Ken
Great report and win Steve!
nice report and awsome pics.
Sorry guys, the pic is pretty tough to read here on this post. Yes, my brother and I did win the tourney with #15.28 for 5 smallies.
Sorry for the confusion.
THe bite remains very good right now with a good day for numbers as well as size the last couple of trips. I should have a report up later this week.