To those who say the upper Mississippi River is bad for Smallie Fishing...

[IamNewbie]

 

It's gotten better

[Turkey sandwich]

Nice fish! I've actually hear quite the contrary. 

[Dypsis]

3 hours ago, Turkey sandwich said:

Nice fish! I've actually hear quite the contrary. 

Same

[Rivers Edge]

The smallmouth bass fishing is outstanding up here. Seen 19 lbs. + (5 fish limit)  bag weighed in last fall

 

[Steveo-1969]

I've never fished there, but don't Doug Stange and the Lindners film smallmouth segments on the Upper Mississippi? They always catch some nice fish...

[gim]

The Upper Mississippi flowing through central MN from Brainerd all the way down to Lacrosse, WI has some fantastic smallmouth fishing.  Certain areas are better than others, obviously.  Some areas are very murky which is not ideal.  I personally think that rivers are extremely underfished.  Most people with a boat go to a lake instead simply because the river has current and there's the "unknown" down there.  And the best part about fishing rivers is that there is often a decent bite all day long, whereas in lakes its generally better early and later in the day or at night this time of year.

[Turkey sandwich]

@gimruis. Bingo.  The more current a body of water has, the more fish have to work, the more they need to eat.  

[IamNewbie]

22 hours ago, Turkey sandwich said:

Nice fish! I've actually hear quite the contrary. 

Really? I was told the Smallie fishing where I'm at was horrible about 2-3 years ago. I caught two really small baby smallies and there was literally nothing else. I had pictures of the two somewhere but lost em. To me River fishing has been 50/50, the second to last time I went I got absolutely not even a nibble. The river was a little low. Now the last time I went, it was flooded, and all I ended up getting was just boulders from the flooding and I got snagged and broke two lures off  But the two times before were absolutely filled with fish.

EDIT: Just remembered I got it all on a GoPro video I uploaded to YT. 

 

[Turkey sandwich]

13 hours ago, IamNewbie said:

Really? I was told the Smallie fishing where I'm at was horrible about 2-3 years ago. I caught two really small baby smallies and there was literally nothing else. I had pictures of the two somewhere but lost em. To me River fishing has been 50/50, the second to last time I went I got absolutely not even a nibble. The river was a little low. Now the last time I went, it was flooded, and all I ended up getting was just boulders from the flooding and I got snagged and broke two lures off  But the two times before were absolutely filled with fish.

EDIT: Just remembered I got it all on a GoPro video I uploaded to YT. 

 

Like anything else, river fishing has to be learned.  There are some great books out there for both traditional and fly tackle.  The general information about locating fish and primary forage stay the same whether you're throwing streamers on a 7 wt fly rod or swimbaits on a spinning Rod.  Once you learn to find the fish, river fishing gets much, much easier.  

[Spankey]

Nice fish dude. I'm an absolute river rat and would love to have that in my back yard. That's proof that nice fish are always near the boat ramp.

[BassThumb]

Smallies are by nature a very fickle fish; in a spot one day and gone the next. However, the Upper Mississippi is a great fishing resource for anyone within driving distance. I weighed two 6-pounders from it while wading before I was old enough to drive, and another one before I was old enough to drink. The best part is all of the 2's and 3's that seem to be in every stretch of water.