Mississippi River Pool 8 Bass Report

The early morning top water bite for LM Bass is still in full swing. Again the Super Spook puts a smack down on some hogs 18 – 21 inches long.
Saturday 7/19/08 was picture perfect with no wind making it easy to call the bucket mouths to the surface to eat what they thought was an injured minnow trying to make its escape. At times the Spook was hit before the ripples cleared from around the bait.

Casting right to the edge of weed mats, slop and lily pads near current, then working the bait back to the boat produced non stop action until 9:30am. After working over an area which covered a good 40 yards I thought I had all the fish around schooled. I was wrong, with boat traffic picking up and the sun starting to penetrate deep into the water it only took an adjustment to be back on fish in the same area.

Casting a Black/Blue Ribbit deep into the slop revealed fish hiding from boat traffic, and the suns glare. There were times it reminded me of the good old game pac man as bass would chase the plastic across the top trying to catch up with breakfast. If they were unable to connect with the bait, and once the rabbit cleared the slop, just letting the bait sink produced good thuds and hook ups.

As mentioned, fishing an area and only covering 40 yards put Bass after Bass in the boat for pictures today. This was by far one of my better days playing with the green fish.
The fish have moved from areas that produced earlier when the river stage was up. Looking for some current along thick cover has been the ticket to staying on fish. Also staying versatile and making changes to the conditions have made the bite last longer into the day. By 10am the game was over but the quality of fish made for a very exciting start to the day.

Good luck fishing people
Bret

0 Comments

  1. I was having a tough time today for some reason getting good pics but here are some other fish that smiled for the camera!

  2. Great report Bret!The smallies are after the topwaters up here on p4,makes for some wild and fun action.

  3. Thanks for the report Bret and congrats on your successful morning! It sounds like everything was perfect including the weather and of course the fishing. There’s always something special when you are all by yourself and everything comes together!

  4. Thanks for the replies

    Pool 8….I don’t work on Saturdays

    I had a couple hours of free time this morning (Sunday) and set up in areas with the same conditions. There were a few nice fish caught but for the most part today I was on a younger year class.

    I also experimented with different colored plastic frog type baits and found that the fish really don’t have a preference right now. Not sure they can see much for color looking up through the slop anyways. I believe it is more of a reaction bite to commotion on the top of the weeds.

    This is getting to be addicting

  5. Nice report Bret. I was just looking at those Ribbit’s today at the local sport shop and thinking they might work well and are certainly a lot less expensive than the Spros.

  6. Bret it was nice to finally meet you. The fishing on sunday was great. In the early morning I was using swim jigs with a twin tail grub trailer. I can work the jig quickly across the top of pads or mats. When the jig hits the open water I just let the jig fall and that is when the bass slam it. I really need to take a camera with me. I fished until 12:30 pm and boated around 25 bass and 8 jig stealing northerns. I was targeting grass edges that had some lilly pads in 5 to 10 FOW. I hope this info helps because the bite is very HOT!!!

  7. Very nice to meet you also slydog

    Thanks for the responce, I caught your first name out on the water but couldn’t remember your handle

    Way to stick the fish

  8. Nice. My Dad was up on pool 8 friday and was hammering the big mouths. Then as you said after 10 they lost the bass but found the yellow fish driffting along the new weed edge. Several made 13″! If I can get the pictures off his camera, I’ll get him to write a report on them.


  9. Quote:


    but found the yellow fish driffting along the new weed edge. Several made 13″! If I can get the pictures off his camera, I’ll get him to write a report on them.


    Very cool and a great point

    Pool 8 is in good shape with a great bite going on right now. If a person is willing to adjust and target other fish, they are there and willing to play

    I look forward to the pictures and report

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