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I finally got a chance to get on the water this past weekend, which is just in time to since the first tourney of the year is next weekend. My dad and I headed down to the Mississippi River since it's the only place around with open season right now. Saturday was spent probing a lot of backwater areas with water temps in the upper 50's and I believe even 60* in one area. Fishing wasn't fast and furious by any means, but we caught quite a few northerns most of which were on the small side. Towards the end of the day we ventured closer to the main river and caught a few better fish, but only hooked into one smallie that was probably 16". Sunday proved to be a better day for us. We stayed a lot closer to the main river and cool water which was roughly 47* to 51*. Again, we managed to catch a bunch of northerns along the way, with a few better sized ones decent for eating. My dad pulled in a 23" walleye and I had a bonus crappie that t-boned my jerkbait We didn't fish as long, but manage a limit of bass as we bounced from spot to spot.The two best were 4lbs a piece one being brown and the other being green. In total we probably had 14 1/2 lbs with one squeeker. The best producing baits this weekend were by far and away jerkbaits with all but a few fish falling for them. Surprisingly, we did better fishing the colder water even in some places with current. Hopefully we can get on them next weekend and start the tourney season out with a win! A few highlights from the weekend:

This past weekend, I got to fish in the first club tourney of the year that was over on the Mississippi River in pools 4, 5, and 5a. The morning started off early and brisk. When we left the house at 4 am the temp was in the low 30's and dropped to into the upper 20's before take off. Luckily with the rise of the sun it was back into the 30's at take off. The water temp had dropped a good 7-8 degrees since my prefishing trip the weekend before so I had my fingers crossed that the fish we had found were at least close to the same area. The morning definitely didn't start as planned. My motor, was having some issues and a last minute landing change (due to a city ordinance) had over 11 miles of river and a lock sitting between us and our primary area. Someone must have been looking over our shoulder though. We pulled up to the lock just as the doors were opening. Despite freezing our butts off, we made it to our first spot; a very shallow sand flat with current running over the top with a quick drop into deeper water on the back side. It only took us about 10 minutes before my dad got the first hit on a jerkbait, but missed it and had the same thing happen two casts later. Shortly after that is when the magic happened, we managed to boat 6 keepers off this tiny little stretch with all but two being over 3 lbs. and one of the two that were under was just barely under. We had our limit in just over an hour and caught the 6th shortly after. When things finally slowed down, we worked out way out and went over to another area we were going to hit. We had idled up a creek arm a little ways to another small area that we thought held some fish. We weren't there for more than 15 minutes when I pulled in an 18" smallie that bumped our smallest. Didn't get to cull after that, but that was ok. We ended up finishing in second place with a 5 fish total of 17.41 lbs All the keepers were caught on either a Rapala Shadow Rap, an Xcalibur XCS100, or a Bomber Suspending Long A. Hand an absolute blast and am pumped to get back out again!