Slow Days on the Mississippi

Well it has been a couple of weeks, but I am back with a couple of updates and news. I have been busy with school wrapping up and making sure everything was in order, as well as a fantastic wedding last night. Congratulations Brian and Nicole that was a really good time.

On the 6th my Dad, Doug Smith, Joe Hannsen and I headed up to Savanna to do a little smallmouth fishing. If you all haven’t figured out by now, the smallmouth have been tough to come by all year. This day was no different. We fished all morning in a steady downpour without a smallmouth. My dad was able to hook up with a 2 pound largemouth with a giant scar on the top of his head. Not a minute later Joe hooks up with another one on a chatter jig. He gets this one to the boat and it has a giant scar on the top of its head. The fish must have been hungry and not very smart to be fooled by two different bait about a minute apart from each other. We decided to move up to Brown’s Lake, which is a catch and release area of the river. We got into them a bit up there, catching about 7 or 8 smaller fish. The fish were stacked up at the end of the lake and were biting on senko’s with a 4/0 hook. There wasn’t a whole lot going on that day, besides the rain. We came off the river pretty wet, but Joe got to use his new bait caster and did a great job with it.

Today my Dad and I headed out to the river and we did not catch a thing, not even a bite. We fished the LeClaire pool where we have struggled the last couple of weeks. My Dad and I have talked about this for a little and we really can’t figure out what has happened to the fish. We have caught walleyes and northerns, but we just haven’t seen the bass that we have grown accustomed too. We have fished this section of the river for 15 years now and we know it really well. There have been a lot of changes on the river recently due to floods and whatever else. The pool could be transitioning due to the changes, but hopefully sometime soon the fish will come back so we won’t have to drive or go for a boat ride to find some fish.

Congratulations are in order to Dwayne Goodtime, Corey Conrad, Josh Graham and Jessica Gibson for winning fish of the week. Also Conrad is currently in the lead for fish of the week with 2. Congrats Conrad, keep up with the good fishing.

I will be heading up to Minnesota sometime this next week. I am going to try and give daily updates on my fishing, along with a story or two. I am really looking forward to meeting up with Adam Panther who is a friend of mine from home. He is a good fisherman and will be up on Woman Lake the week after 4th of July. Also Jess will be up on the 4th of July, hopefully it will be nice enough where we can get out and catch a couple of fish.

Keep sending in those fish of the week pictures. I will try to post as many as I can if they are worthy off posting. Hope everyone has a great week and check in and see how the fishing is toward the end of the week. Hopefully I will have some pictures to share.

Tight lines,
Pat