October Kid FUN

Yesterday, I took my two kids out in the boat.  It will probably be the last day for a boat trip, considering the future forecast and one more weekend full with tournament action for me.  I figured it was now or next spring...I just had to make it happen on this day.
I'm Sure glad things worked out. We went to a private lake to try and catch some gills and crappies.  It was a bit windy, and with a 5 year old and 3 year old slinging bobbers around, we didn't catch a whole lot.  However, when our time was up, we probably caught about 15 or so, both crappies and bass.  The kids were happy, and that is all that matters.  We kept 4 crappies for a meal, and it added entertainment watching them swim around in the livewell all afternoon too.  They will be tasty, the crappies were running 11-13inches.

I'm not sure where he learned how to hold fish like that!  :-)



Some BIG excitement came when we netted a few bass that we caught on accident.

September Club tournament #5

Last weekend I made my way up to Pool 9 for the next-to-last tournament of the 2013 fishing season.  Trent Beier and I were once again going to tussle with the boys from the Cedar Valley Bass Club.
The water has been pretty normal on Pool 9 all year long, but we knew the water temperatures were unusually high.  Our practice day on Saturday showed us water in the mid-sixties all day long.  Things were NOT normal for the last weekend of September, so the hunt was on for some keeper bass.  I spent about 10 hours on the water probing every area that I could think of that would help us get a limit, which we knew would be like gold on this weekend.  We had found one area early in the morning, and while we dissected it we started to get ideas on what the fish were doing.  I continued the hunt in the northern part of Pool 9 and found numerous fish holding in current and weeds.  While the fish were biting, so was Mother Nature, I was stuck in the rain for about 5 hours on this day.  Not a lot of fun, but at least I was catching bass.  It was important to learn as much as I could about the conditions and placement of the bass.  Current was key for us on this weekend, not too much, and not too little, the bass were definitely holding in specific areas.
With our pre-fishing day behind us, we had a plan to hit the major two areas and haul as much as we could from them.  I had located a few other spots that had some keepers too, but much more scarce than our two primary areas.  At the end of the day, we were feeling pretty good about things.
Tournament morning was foggy...to say the least.

The "WALL" that you see is the fog as we moved into our first fishing area

Weeds were once again key to our success

We were let go about 7am, and had until 3pm to find 5 keeper bass.  The talk from other anglers before loading the boats knew that we had something going, as many anglers were not very confident in what they found the previous day.  The first area turned out great, the water was still clean, and the bass were biting.  We had a limit and culled a keeper or two in the first 3 hours.  We decided to head north and try the second area.  I knew fairly quickly that things were about to turn sour, and they did.  The water was much dirtier than the day before, and the bait that was jumping were simply gone.  I don't know for sure, but I am thinking the rainstorm and 40-degree temperatures had the bait scattered and the bass too.  We didn't stay long, and we headed back to our first area.  We upgraded a couple more times and ended up with 11.17#, good enough for 2nd Place.  Between the two of us, hundreds of casts were made covering vast areas of weed beds.  Not once did our Quantum Rods/Reels let us down.  We caught our keepers on swimjigs, Optimum Baits Swim Baits, and when things slowed down we turned to Hot Rod Baits.  Big Craws and tubes caught their fair share too.  It was a great weekend of bass fishing, and spending time with a good friend. Our top finish has us tied for 1st place for Team of the Year, with one event left to go, in LaCrosse, Wisconsin later this month.

Early September at the River

The Tri-County Bass Club hosted a buddy format tournament this past weekend out of Pool 10.  My buddy Brian Bowles and I had the weekend open, so we decided to give it a try.  We both knew it would be a challenge, as we didn't want to take any time off of work on Friday to go scout around.  This was a two-day event, so when we showed up at the river on Friday night, it was all about "gut feelings" on where the bass might be.
I knew the water temps were still high, and the current was not flowing into many backwater areas.  This told us to stay close to the main channel, and major backwater cuts that always have current.  This was a wise decision and we were able to catch 5 keepers on that first day.  We both knew that weight would put us in the hunt, depending on what we could do on Sunday.  We caught fish on crankbaits, swimjigs, spinnerbaits, topwater, Hot Rod Baits Tubes, and Big Craws, so the fish weren't acting fussy, it was just hard to locate a 14inch+ bass.

We knew we could probably duplicate another 5 fish on Sunday in Pool 10, but we decided to go for broke, we locked up to pool 9 after only hitting two areas in Pool 10 on Sunday.  The current was better in Pool 9, but the fishing was as tough.  We tried main channel rocks and current breaks with NO results.  I figured it was time to put our heads down and hit the weeds for the remainder of the day.  This was a good move, and we collected our 5 fish again for the weigh-in.  On this day though, Optimum Baits Furbit Frogs, and Hot Rod Baits Big Craws were the ticket.  One of us would work the heavy weeds with a frog, while the other would pitch the weed edge.  The action was slow, but when we were bit, it was normally a solid keeper.
We weighed in a 5-fish limit both days and had just under 20# for the two day event.  It was good enough for 2nd place.  The winners of the event; caught all their keepers after seeing some seagulls crashing the surface on shad, they followed over and caught limits both days in the same area.  Good for them for using all the clues of Mother Nature, bad for us as we weren't quite that fortunate to see such signals!
Another great weekend on the Mighty Mississippi River, sad to say, but the weekends are winding down, so every trip to the big river is cherished by me!

August Club Tournament

This past weekend it was time for the next club tournament out of Pool 10 on the Mississippi River.  Trent and I spent about 5 hours on Friday looking around Pool 10 and another 8 on Saturday.  We also went to Pool 11 for a couple hours late in the afternoon on Saturday.  We were not happy with what we saw in Pool 10, and knew we would need more than 10 pounds to do well in this tournament.  Pool 11 was a last ditch effort, but it was our saving grace in the end. 
Trent Beier and I hit some areas and saw some potential.  We did not hit an old-time favorite that night though, in an attempt to save it for the tournament day.  That was a wise decision. 
We caught 4 of our 5 bass that we weighed in at "the old standby" area in Pool 11.  A lot of current mixed with rocky bank and plenty of minnows created a feeding area for fish to gather.  Four nice fish fell to a Pop-R bait, three of them being nice smallmouth bass.  We filed our limit and culled a few times using slow baits, like tubes and big craws from Hot Rod Baits.
We had a great time fishing, although the river wasn't the nicest to us on this weekend, we once again made some good decisions and that led us to another top three finish...well actually another win on the season!  Our limit was 12.90#, besting second place by over a pound.
I got home late Sunday evening, but I am counting down the days until I can once again be on the Mighty Mississippi River!

July KID fun

Pretty simple blog this week:

 

Pond fishing with little friends, their faces say it all.