Upper Mississippi River smallie report 9-24-07

The bite this past weekend was full indication of what you wait all summer long for. To say the fall bite is in full swing is an understatement in my opinion. The bite is on fire is more like it. Depending on the section of river you are fishing, the smallies are all in pretty much the same mode and that mode is EAT or the smallie next to you is going to get that easy meal! This is just about as good of a smallmouth bass bite as you will see anywhere in the country as far as I am concerned.

Saturday I was joined by an avid fly fisherman by the name of Mick Mcmillian. His sole objective on this particular outing was to fish via fly rod and see what kind of combination he could put together to fool these scrappy fish. Throughout the day we stopped at many of my honey holes for this time of year and I just sat back and watched him throw a large variety different hand tied creations that he has developed over the years. Turns out a large streamer that he traditionally uses for his fly-in Northern Pike trips did the trick for these smallies! Measuring a large 7″ long, this black and silver flash coxed many smallies into biting! Even though there were other options that were working better for me, he insisted that he catch the smallies on his fly rod all day long and I enjoyed thoroughly watching someone as fluent as him throw these streamers and lay them right on top of these schooling smallies. It was very much like being at a trout pond that you find at the zoo when you throw feed into the water! I decided to join Mick with my 6’6″ St. Croix Avid spinning rod rigged with a 1/16th oz Jimmy D’s pink Riverbug and plucked a real giant out of 4′ of water. This beast hit the tape just under the 22″ mark and was estimated in the 6 lbs range. Nice fishing with you Mick! Maybe we will see you next year in June?

Sunday I was joined by Doug Turner and his Dad Rusty. I had fished with Doug and his Dad a couple years ago when we fished another section of river. On that trip we did well with numbers of fish but the size on that particular day was a little lower than expectations were. Sunday was to be completely different satisfying their crave for bigger than average smallmouth bass. We spent the day hopping from spot to spot working each spot very thoroughly before moving on. At one spot we pulled as many as 21 fish from this one area, including some real nice fish. Rusty had the hot hand on several locations and proceeded to poke some really nice smallies from right under the boat. As smallies have a tendency to follow another fighting fish to the boat, Rusty and Doug kept busy by catching fish after fish in many locations right below the boat.
We tallied a fantastic fishing day with about 60 smallies including some really nice smallies!

With water temps hanging around the 60 degree mark right now up here, I have been finding smallies stacked up in there fall locations as well as a few nice quality fish still spread out in their summer locations down the shorelines. Doug, Rusty and I spent the better part of the afternoon changing it up a bit and skipping stickworms tight to the banks under docks, timber and undercut shoreline banks. This was certainly not a numbers game, but the quality of the fish was remarkable that we tucked in so tight. At one point we were within 10 feet of the bank pitching into every little opening in the brush in 18″ of water. When you see a big smallie come out of this cover and drill your stickworm, it takes by surprise because it happens so fast! As I have mentioned before, be sure to get thee fish back in the water immediately after a quick photo opportunity. The Mississippi River is home to some of the best smallmouth bass fishing you will find anywhere IMO! See you on the water!