Mississippi River Pool 10 Bass Fishing

Finally after a weird and scheduling disrupting spring and early summer, I was able to make my way back over to pool 10 to get three solid days of fishing in for the Fourth of July!

I had fished the previous weekend in a small tournament and took fifth with an 8 fish limit for 16 lb., which was very disappointing. The bass seemed like they hadn’t turned on their summer feed bag, so I was hoping that this weekend would be different.

My wish came true on my first trip of the weekend on Friday morning. I started off targeting several areas that had a combination of rock, gravel and eel grass. A variety of techniques worked, both fast and slow.

My top producing lures were crankbaits and a Carolina-rigged Baby Bacon Rind. I was able to coax some bass into hitting a Pop-R, but the other lures were more consistent. A change I made shortly after I began fishing Friday morning was that I switched out the hooks on my crankbaits from a #6 to a #4 Eagle Claw treble hook; this helped my catch ratio dramatically.

Rotating through spots was very important to my success this weekend. The schools of bass were feeding heavy at times and then slow down. Moving from spot-to-spot allowed me to target the active schools of fish.

The key I found in finding the right areas was that the current had to be hitting the structure just right. Within the first five casts or so, I would know if the bass were there or not. So it is important to keep moving to new areas.

I did also do some fishing in the backwater sloughs and lakes, but that was not as successful for me. I found the bass in these areas to be more scattered, so covering putting my trolling motor on high and covering water was critical. My new Costa Del Mar sunglasses are exceptional and helped me see underwater structures and bass that were cruising around.

Working Brovarney swim jigs and frogs in the lily pads worked well. Some bass were located in the thick vegetation, while others were more on the edge. Flipping wood, did hold some bass as well.

The fishing will only get better from here on out, so have fun and be safe on the water!