Summer Bassin’

Since it has been awhile since I have been able to put together a report, which I apologize for I am going to recap my last couple weeks on the river. The patterns and techniques I talk about can still be utilized on the river until the bass get into their fall bite. I have had two successful tournament finishes in the past couple weeks, which have capped off a fantastic summer of fishing on the river!

Three weeks ago I spent four days on pool 9 fishing for the Harvester Bass Club tournament. Pre-fishing was very successful for me, I had fish going on several different patterns and come tournament day Alex and I put those patterns into action. We started each day of the tournament off chasing schooling fish by throwing topwaters and plastics. After that we worked on getting a kicker fish, but that fish eluded us each day. The one pattern I would like to highlight is fishing the arrowhead and pad edges with an RC Tackle swimming jig. I caught well over 50 bass on Friday by fishing these edges that had current and plenty of baitfish on them. Alex and I finished 5th in the tournament with a two day total of 10 bass weighing 25.04 lb.

This past weekend was the Grant County 4-man open out of Prairie Du Chien on pool 10. Mother Nature had me a little worried come tournament day with all the rain, but that didn’t affect fishing until about noon on tournament day. Again many patterns were available for an angler to take advantage of. Fishing the clean water around pads and grass is how I started out pre-fishing Wednesday night and paid off by catching some quality bass on frogs and Gambler DOA Shads. Fishing points for us was our primary plan of attack and paid off for us. We weighed in our 12 fish limit for 28 lb. 13 oz. and finished 5th again. Fishing this pattern not only got us a lot of bass, but it also got some very quality 3 lb. plus fish, a variety of baits worked for us and not one specific color caught more fish than another.

I am not sure when I will be back on the river next as it is time to get back to school. I hope to get one or two more fishing trips in on my home water before hockey begins. With all the rain the area received this past week the river is going to on the rise and the amount of debris in the water will be increased as well. Be sure to be careful on the water and enjoy the last few weeks of summer!!