The Mississippi River has been a popular place for me to fish in the past 2 decades. Countless trips in the boat to search around for largemouth and smallmouth bass, but never have I drilled a hole in the ice on this massive body of water in my life. Today a friend showed me around and gave me the chance to see what the big river can be like in the winter. He has fished the big river many of times in the winter and was kind enough to show me a few places to get me started. A chance I couldn't turn down.
We hit a few areas in the middle of Pool 9 and quickly started catching some BIG river bluegills. Shallow backwater areas are key locations as I have read about and learned in the past. Three or four feet of water is plenty for these gills to hide themselves in the winter. Hole hopping with the
Vexilar FLX-28 made the task easy as each fish showed itself as soon as the ice-ducer was dropped in the water. A quick drop of the jig down the hole and BOOM, they were on it. The bite died down a bit mid-morning and we were off to DeSoto Bay. This is a popular fishing area year-round. I couldn't wait to get there and see what was waiting for us.
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It wouldn't be a trip to the
Mighty Mississippi River
without some BASS! |
A long walk is what was waiting for us...but well worth every step. Again, I have fished this area in a boat countless times for bass but today was like a brand new adventure. I was like a kid on December 24th! Drilling is always part of ice fishing, but we really drilled this bay up. We tries areas from 4feet deep all the way out to 14 feet deep. Fish were located fairly deep and a steady bite was had all afternoon. For the day I caught 8 different species of fish; bluegill, redear sunfish, yellow bass, white bass, crappie, shad, perch and largemouth bass. You just never know what you might catch on the Mighty Mississippi River. It has always held a special place in my heart for fishing, but now has even a bigger spot as I added it to my ice fishing destinations.
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