Mississippi River Pool 4-5 Top-Water Bass Fishing

This the combined report of last weeks guide trips. On Thursday Mike Stori, an IDO regular was my guest. Mike prefers spinning tackle so I hand him setup with my standard trio, the Northland Mimic Minnow, swim jig and a Rapala Skitter Prop. We mixed things up all morning with good results on smallmouth, white bass, northerns and a few largemouth. However the star of the day was the top-wate,. Skitter Prop. On his third cast of the morning Mike hit a respectable smallie. On the last cast of the day Mike hooked his personal best smallmouth. She weighed 4.7 lbs and measured 20. 5”. Well done Mike

On Friday we had warm south winds, sunshine and near record temperatures. My guest was Jim Beregi of Tucson, AZ. Unfortunately, nice weather doesn’t equal good fishing. We struggled all day and only landed a few small fish. The next warm day this fall I’m picking up the golf clubs. Give me a cold front and NW winds in the fall, it sends the message to feed-up for winter.

On Sunday my guest were Paul and Tim Jorgensen of Oak Park, IL. Both Paul and Tim are students at St Mary’s University in Winona. Conditions were perfect with cool temps and overcast skies. It’s rare to have a day when top-water holds up all day but we were blessed. We did catch a few LM and northerns on frogs and swim jigs but the Zara Spook was the hot bait.

We started on a mixed school of LM, SM and white bass and the action was continuous for at least a half hour. About 15 minutes into the action I asked Tim how many casts he had made without a strike, his answer was one! From there we hoped current breaks, to wing dams to sand and grass and caught fish everywhere we stopped. I was one of those great days and Tim and Paul were super guests.

The top-water bite has been hot for several weeks and I expect it to continue till the water temps drop into the 40’s.

John