I am sure many of our southern readers notched their first bass of the year several weeks ago, but in Minnesota, this is no easy task. Between off the water commitments and family vacation time was a premium for this guy in January. Not to mention with 98% of our water being frozen solid this time of year, you need to have time to drive a little bit and cooperating weather so that you can actually cast a line without it freezing to your rod guides.
The planets finally aligned on the last Sunday of January, well kind of, the weather wasn’t that warm but it was doable. We arrived at the Mississippi river as the sun was about to arrive and the vehicle temperature gauge told us it was about 14 degrees outside and wind chill was estimated near zero. As dumb as it sounds, I put my waders on anyways, grabbed my trusty Dobyns spinning rods, and we shimmied down a steep river bank to a favorite spot of mine.
My buddy caught two smallmouth on his first three casts with a soft plastic stickbait, that made me put my crankbait down in a hurry. I tried a tube for about 10 minutes, no takers either, this is the time you start asking yourself why you do these things to yourselves to catch a fish. I then switched to a 3/16oz shakey head with 3.5” beaver style creature bait and quickly started landing smallmouth. (Check back on previous blog, for more on this rig)
After nearly four hours standing in an ice cold river and not being able to feel my fingers anymore, I caught 15 smallies up to 3 1/2lbs on the shakey beaver and did get one nice smallie on an Ima Square Bill crankbait.
The good news is that as I typed this blog, I almost have full feeling in my finger tips, just in time to drive even farther this weekend to find some willing largemouth this weekend!
Rich
RichLindgren.com
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FLW Pro Fishing Tip of the Week National Guard Pro Brett Hite, Phoenix, Arizona When I’m practicing for an upcoming tournament, there are a couple of important things I take into account. For one, there’s the body of water I’m fishing. Is it a Lake Guntersville, or a Beaver Lake? If I figure it’s going…
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Tiny tubes for panfish and trout are enormously popular these days. Do a quick search through online biggies Bass Pro and Cabela’s and you’ll find a several 1 to 2-inch models available from a variety of manufacturers like Southern Pro, Northland Tackle, Yum, Gary Yamamoto, Strike King, Lucky E Strike, Berkley and Bass Pro and more. And these baits are pretty…
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BASS Elite Pro Russ Lane Provides Tips for Post-Spawn Bass
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ABT Lure Company Introduces the Ultimate Umbrella Rig System
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Many years ago, my parents scraped enough money together to buy a tiny, two-bedroom cabin on a clear lake noted for big panfish and bass. In a former life, the cabin was part on an old resort and rented by the week. It was built to close to the lake (just 10 feet) that when you looked out the front…
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For the past several weeks little brown trucks have been stopping by my house to drop off big brown boxes filled with tackle storage products, both hard and soft. And yes, Karen is getting tired of having them around the house It has been awhile since we have done an extensive product review piece and thorough evaluations…
