The river smallie bite right now could not be any better in my opinion. Very aggressive fish stacked in somewhat confined areas, makes for some exciting and fun fishing. The smallmouth bass right now are starting to make their migrational movements on the river from what I have been seeing. Smallies that were spread out along shorelines have now started to show up in more numbers in some very precise spots! As water temps cool and the daylight hours get shorter, they instinctively start to bunch up in larger numbers for the anticipation of cold waters coming in the future.
Friday IDA member \\"Coppertop\\" joined me for an overdue fishing trip between him and I that has been in the making for several years now and we finally pinned a date down and went fishing. Coppertop and I go way back to our grade school days of river angling when we were 9yrs old. We each grew up on the river and both share a passion for river smallies that is hard to describe. Randy and I got on the water about noon on Friday on a new section of river and decided to go hunt for some smallies. Based on what I have been seeing the last several weeks and the \\"really low water\\" that still haunts these upper stretches, I decided we best find some faster current areas where food and oxygen prevail in abundance. Not long after we found these needed characteristics, we found plenty of nice Upper miss smallies to keep us busy the rest of the afternoon. Our best presentation seemed to be swimming tubes across some shallow fast moving gravel/weed flats that ranged from 1-3 fow. At times, the faster you swam the tube, the more they wanted it. YUM\\\’s Rainbow Trout color was my best color for most of the day while Randy swam his pumpkinseed twin tailed grub with similair results! By days end Randy and I put together a nice respectable day of fishing as well as getting caught up with each others since the \\"good ol days\\"! Thanks for hopping in with me Randy!
Saturday Tom Wallrich and I hit the river bright and early on one of my favorite go to sections for this time of year to try to take advantage of a top water bite on some of the shallow flats adjacent to deeper water. As we got started we quickly found out the smallies wanted nothing as far as topwaters go, but if you were to swim something just below the surface….you were going to get bit! Picking up on What Randy and I did the day prior, I decided to give that YUM Rainbow Trout color another try and we got nailed right away! This pretty much spells out our morning as we visited every late summer/early spot that has been good to me over the years. A couple fish here and a couple fish there was the norm. At about 11:00am the river was getting really busy with recreational traffic and river anglers, we decide to pull the plug and venture to another section of river and hit the faster \\"skinny\\" waters for the rest of the day. This proved to be the best move of the day….lots of really fast current and no anglers and the smallies were right there where we expected. The current was so strong in areas that my Maxxum 101# could not keep up, yet there was loads of smallies hanging around the area. We proceeded to slip drift these areas pitching mainly tubes in to the slack water and letting the current pull it out in the faster waters. Seemed like a pretty \\"old school\\" method, but the fish sure responded with ease in these areas.
Based on what I have been seeing the last couple weeks, the fish seem to be in transition just a bit right now and I am seeing more fish in the fall spots that I did last week. Which means, the bite will continue to be better and better. Slight modifications into your approach will need to take place when we get into late September in my opinion while most traditional presentations are working top notch form right now. The next 5 weeks remain the best time to take advantage of this smallmouth bass bite! Perfect time to get a youngster out in the boat to enjoy the outdoors with you! These are the times of which memories are made from!
Good luck to all!
Steve, The day went far too fast for me. I can’t say enough THANKS for taking time from your busy schedule! Hopefully it can happen again someday.
As always…Great report Steve
As always, great report! I appreciate the info. Nothing fights like those river smallies!
Thanks guys!
One thing I did not touch on in my report was the current water levels on the Upper Miss!
LEts just say they are LOOOOOOOW! All the rain that has taken place in Minnesota in Aug has somehow stayed to the south it seems as the river levels seem to come up just a pinch in some areas, while others looks like they continue to drop. Extreme caution needs to be taken when fishing some of these skinny stretches. The areas you could make it through a week or two ago, may be treacherous now. Just throwing a little word of caution out to everyone that is fishing or thinking of fishing the Upper Miss stretches. Also with this low water, the currents tend to funnel through new areas and form new sandbars and carry sand/silt to new areas.
See you on the water!
So your saying I should not tail you in the ranger
Actually Bob, be my guest!
After you take care of a few high spots on your prop and lower unit…you should free an clear!