Hot Rod Baits Bass Series Final Event of 2016

This past weekend was the finale of the Hot Rod Baits Bass Series.  This series consists of 3 events scattered throughout Iowa to test tournament anglers against each other.  The Series is an "all or nothing" series where anglers pay upfront for all 3 events securing the field of anglers before the first event.  It creates a club type of atmosphere which most guys really enjoy.  While we are all after the top prize at each event many anglers share knowledge, baits and ideas with each other, making the experience even more valuable to participants.
This year, Brian Bowles joined me once again on the series and we had a great time.  We had a top 5 at Little River Lake, an event to forget at Belva Deer, and finished in the middle of the pack at Pool 9.  The last event was one that we looked forward to all year.  We both love to fish the Mississippi River and we tend to catch them pretty good up there.  We had two days to practice and we covered a lot of water during those times.  The river high and the current was swift, but after 10 hours of fishing the current each day, we were worn out, but my boat was still ready for more thanks to the Minn Kota Fortrex 101 and Talons.  These two pieces of equipment on the boat are so valuable when fishing, especially in current.  We were able to hold in the main channel current while searching for smallies and saved our batteries while the Talons were anchoring us down.  Both make fishing much easier and more enjoyable.
We fished many different areas throughout Pool 9, but really focused in on areas with a lot of current.  Anytime we fished current we saw minnows and shad, so this told us that bass would be close by.  After those two practice days, we figured we had enough good places to compete in the tournament, however knew we would be short on the bigger fish to vault us to the top.  We tried many baits on our Quantum Rods and Reels, but the best were jigs with large chunks and Hot Rod Baits Big Craws.  We finished out the event in 7th place, which was less than 2 pounds from 3rd place, and were disappointed.  However, after dozens of largemouth and smallmouth bass caught, many laughs, a few stories to pass the slow times and some fantastic Mississippi River Scenery, nothing was lost on this three day adventure with a good friend!  Can't wait to see what this series has to offer in 2017!

Full Results of event HERE