Mississippi River 35W area shore report

Upon hearing the news of the reopening of the 35W bridge I knew I had to give one of my favorite close to home multi species spots a little look-see. A strange and erie feeling overcame me as we approached the area. On one hand it was great having one of my favorite inner city fishing spots back again after a year of neglect…On the other it was hard not to think about those who lost their lives and others that were directly affected by the tragedy that occured. God bless.

This evening Stingler and I decided to see if this area was even fishable or accessible after all the construction. The good news for those city dwellers that fish the area is that soon the road and parking area should be open… The bad news is that the road is still closed and fishing during work hours probably wouldn’t be cool with our local law enforcement officials. For those that know the area it has changed quite a bit, some interesting new structure has been created and some old stuff is gone completely. For instance, the old storm drain that used to be on the downstream side of the bridge now comes out directly under the new bridge foundation/pillars. See photo.

On to the fishing… We had a couple quick hours to kill and the gameplan was to chase some smallies as they tend to stack up pretty good in certain areas depending on river levels. Small fish are usually quite abundant and easy to catch, although certain presentations tend to work better for the bigger fish we were in search of. No more than ten casts into our adventure I hear Stinglers drag screaming and he’s definitely hooked into something good. After a few more runs and finally a big ‘ol jump we realize it’s an O.K. Smallie. After a hearty duel between sportsman and sportfish he proceeds to get it to shore and we realize this fish is just a little better than O.K.! The first fish of the day ends up being his new PB at 21″. Congrats buddy!

Fishing this evening was not fast and furious by any means, although I would expect it to pickup soon. We both managed 5-6 fish each with two going over the 19″ mark and the rest being little dinks. Baits of choice were craw tubes, sweet beavers, and spinnerbaits with most fish relating to the strongest current near the shoreline. On a sidenote(catfish gurus take note) Stingler also managed to catch his second catfish of the year on a bright yellow spinnerbait…Whodathunkit?