This weekend was the annual Cedar Valley Bassmaster Kenny Thompson Memorial tournament out of Prairie Du Chein, Wisconsin. This event is open to any member of the Cedar Valley Bassmaster club past or present. This club is where I got started fishing bass tournaments. Kenny was the fearless leader of the club back then and was for many, many years. This event brings together anglers who have had the pleasure of fishing with Kenny in past years and always brings back good memories of times fishing with him. What an honor to have this event for Kenny each year and I hope Eric Johnston keeps this going.
This year I partnered up with Randy Toale to compete in the event. A total of 23 teams participated, all looking for those 5 big bass to weigh in. Randy and I both decided to take Friday and look around the river to see what we could find. We focused our efforts completely in Pool 9 as the pool was in better shape than Pool 10. The water level was 12.3ft on Friday and scheduled to drop a few inches come Saturday. The weather was HOT...and HOT on both days which had us going to the boat cooler often to stay hydrated. The plan on Friday was to cover as much water as possible in the lower half of Pool 9, about 15 miles of river. Obviously we hit some areas that I have done well in the past with similar water levels and some new water that I have not fished before as well. To our surprise and delight almost every area that we tried on Friday, we caught keeper bass (14 inches). A wide variety of baits were working too, the Mississippi River was in great shape and the bass were hungry. We were able to come up with a solid plan that would put us in 5 different areas on Pool 9 for the tournament day. It was a long day on the water but the bass were cooperative and we were having a great time.
We knew the water was supposed to drop over night, and sure enough it did. We didn't think it would affect the areas we were in, the bass should still be biting. Plan A was to hit a shallow area full of green weeds that had some current and plenty of bait. The bass were loving the Optimum Baits Furbit Frogs on Friday and I couldn't wait to get back at them. However, Plan A was not anything like it was supposed to be. It did yield 3 keepers, but they were under two pounds. We gave up on that and went to our second spot. We caught several bass here on Friday, the size was not the greatest but we decided we couldn't drive past it without giving it a try. We tried crankbaits, swimjigs, tubes and big craws, small fish and not very many. The wind change definitely moved these fish around and the keepers were gone. Off to Plan B, hit as many areas with current as possible to find feeding fish. The water temperature was hanging around eighty degrees and the bass were on the chew. Current points on the main channel and off-sloughs were holding fish on Friday and this was Plan B. Plan B saved our day as the bass were still using these areas to ambush food. Crawfish seemed like the choice of food as many fish had them sticking out of their throats when we caught them. The fast baits like the crankbait and swimjig did not pan out on this day like they were on Friday. We had to make adjustments in our presentations to get the keepers to bite on tournament day. Hot Rod Baits Tubes and BigCraws along with a Wig's Jig brought in all the keepers that we weighed in. The QuantumPT flippin rods with all the all new Accurst S3 PT high speed reel were the perfect combination to get those bass to bite and get them in the boat. Using a high speed reel when the current is rolling is a must to keep up with the fleeing bass. We knew we had between 12.5 and 13 pounds, and it "put us in the game". The weight was good, and would get us towards the top but I didn't think we would finish as high as did. As more and more teams weighed in we realized we were much closer to the top than we first thought. As friends and old friends talked with us we came to the conclusion that fishing was much more difficult today than it was on Friday, it wasn't just us, it was the bass. Their mood changed over night and the fishing was different. We made the right decisions and the adjustments throughout the tournament day. It was a pleasure to fish with Randy as moved through the tough day. We just kept fishing and let the bass tell us what they wanted. When in doubt, always listen to the bass! We ended up going through about 15 keepers to weigh our best 5 bass. Our limit weighed 12.97# which was good enough for 3rd place and a nice check.
The Mississippi River is an amazing place, and this weekend helped me to remember that once again.
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| The combos and baits that we used to get in the top 3 |
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